Just to get it out of the way: I’m a bit older than of most you. I’m an old school FOSS contributor: Slackware, couple kernel merges, and some weak device driver contributions.

I’m just not WOW’d by this Plasma release that is spoken as a Herculean effort. I’m seeing the news everywhere, and it seems everyone is clamoring to get it, but it mostly seems like 90% cosmetic changes, no? I must be missing something.

Here are the things I’ve gathered are non-cosmetic:

  • Update to QT6
  • Better Wayland interactions (HDR notable)
  • Compositor improvements for gaming

Everything else seems like eye candy. I feel like Gnome and forks, or Xfce have been faster to the fight on these things, and this KDE release took many years. So what do I have wrong here?

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
    101·
    1 year ago

    So you’re saying you don’t see the value in a piece of software which provides a graphical interface getting updated graphics? Of course the update is a lot of eye candy. That’s literally how you improve a DE. You make it look better.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.worldOP
      47·
      1 year ago

      I’m wondering why the entire community is collectively shitting themselves over a minor overhaul, when other DEs have been making big swinging changes.

        • just_another_person@lemmy.worldOP
          49·
          1 year ago

          You mean “swinging”? I’ll also bite. Things that would make me switch:

          • incorporating Valve’s work
          • Simplifying KDE apps and menus
          • Fix the fullscreen composite issues
          • Fix dbus access for apps launched via KDE
          • Hone the media controls like GNOME
          • Fix Kwallet so it doesn’t crash on every unexpected error
          • Stop the constant refresh rate negotiation for VRR and make it not blank screens
          • Stop the unnecessary userland restrictions for devices like USB ports
          • Stop secondary mounts to remote locations just because I connected that one time
          • If the secret store isn’t working, just say so. Don’t loop and ask me if I want to relaunch

          All fairly low-hanging fruit.