KDE Plasma 6.2 - It's all about quality of life! @TheLinuxEXP

The Linux Experiment | KDE Plasma 6.2 - It's all about quality of life! @TheLinuxEXP | Uploaded October 2024 | Updated October 2024, 4 days ago.
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#linuxdesktop #linux #linuxdistro #kdeplasma #plasma

Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:37 Sponsor: Proton Mail
02:01 Visual Changes & UX
08:12 Accessibility
09:55 Power Management
12:00 Discover & Updates
13:47 Settings Changes
16:46 Misc. changes
18:53 Sponsor: Tuxedo Computers
19:51 Support the channel

For digital artists
· Option to re-bind the drawing tablet stylus buttons to different types of mouse clicks
· Option for how to map drawing tablet area to screen area
· Drawing tablet calibration wizard
· Test mode for drawing tablet settings
· Turned on support for KWin's implementation of the Wayland color management protocol
· Option to use color profile data built into your monitor, if it has one

Power management
· Per-monitor brightness control
· Ability to override apps that are blocking sleep or screen locking
· Battery widget's icon now shows a power profile badge too
· The Battery Monitor widget once again stays visible while the computer is charging
· Meta+B shortcut to switch power profiles now cycles through them individually

Discover and system updating
· Ability to shut down after applying an offline system update, not just reboot
· Discover now supports PostmarketOS
· Discover now helps you write better reviews
· Discover now present apps' license information more accurately

Accessibility
· Full Sticky Keys support on Wayland
· Colorblindness filters now appear in the Accessibility KCM
· Overhaul UI of Accessibility KCM for greater… accessibility!

Weather widget
· Night forecasts for NOAA weather provider
· Now shows "feels like" temperatures for providers that support it] (NOAA and EnvCan, currently)
· More information for BBC weather forecasts]
· Now uses information-poor providers only as a fallback

Input device configuration
· Support for turning on the "autoscrolling" feature of the Libinput driver
· Option to disable smooth scrolling in KDE apps

Networking
· Support for Enhanced Open (OWE) Wi-Fi security
· Support for WebAuth for SAML-based network authentication

UI/visual design
· Accent color is now respected when using the Breeze Dark Plasma theme or Breeze Twilight global theme
· Better layout for System Tray expanded grid view
· Overhauled Widget Explorer UX
· The Meta+V clipboard popup now uses the same UI as the Plasma widget
· Redesign the Keyboard KCM
· Modernize the Thunderbolt KCM
· Use the same "Open With" dialog everywhere]
· More rich visualizations of Plasma features in Welcome Center
· Connecting or disconnecting a screen now plays a sound
· Removed KWin Morphing Popups effect because it was unfixably buggy
· By default, can now drag Breeze-themed windows only from header areas, not from everywhere

Miscellaneous
· Option to disable window outlines in the Pager widget
· "Minimize All" widget now only minimizes windows on the current virtual desktop and activity
· Integrated cropping tool when setting your user avatar
· Ability to name your custom shortcuts
· Once-a-year donation request notification

Technical
· Memory page in Info Center
· Implemented the alpha-modifier KWin protocol
· Initial implementation of SVG cursor theming, and ported the Breeze themes to use it

$WAYLAND in 2023: how GOOD (or BAD) is it? Apps, GPUs, desktops, gaming... Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en# 👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/ Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp 👕 GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/ 🎙️ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com 🏆 FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja #Wayland #X11 #linux 00:00 Intro 00:39 Sponsor: 10% off your first website 01:36 X11 vs Wayland 04:47 Whats missing from Wayland itself 06:22 Desktop Environment support 09:07 Wayland & GPUs 10:50 Gaming on Wayland 13:01 Apps & Wayland 14:52 Parting Thoughts 16:39 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 17:57 Support the channel So, up until recently, all Linux desktops used the X Server, also called X.org or X11. Its a venerable piece of software, that predates even the first release of the Linux kernel, by almost a decade, and X11 is virtually unmaintained now. And so thats why Wayland was started in 2008. In terms of advantages, it eliminates screen tearing, it lets you have multiple monitors with different refresh rates and different scaling factors, and its more secure. https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/ The Wayland protocol still lacks network transparency: Wayland doesnt support running a program on a computer, and displaying it on another. Some stuff also isnt supported yet, on Wayland OR on X11, for example HDR. Support for fractional scaling has just recently been added, and isnt fully supported by all major Linux desktops and toolkits just yet. Wayland also doesnt support global shortcuts by default, but its fixed through a desktop portal. And we need to look at desktop environments and window managers. GNOME is probably the one with the more robust Wayland support available right now: not the most feature complete, but the most robust. On KDE, Wayland support is a bit less solid, in my experience, Plasma 6 should be THE release with good Wayland support. As per other desktop environments: Cinnamon is just beginning, MATE hasnt started, but XFCE has published a roadmap of the things that already work, and the things that need to be worked on. Pantheon, the desktop for elementary OS, has an experiment wayland session that is, for now, not really usable, and Deepin doesnt seem to have any plans yet. You can use Sway, which is basically i3 but made for Wayland, with support for i3 config files, you have hyprland, based on the wlroots implementation, that seems to be the fastest moving tiling window manager for Wayland. If you use open source drivers, like the mesa drivers for Intel and AMD GPUs, or the Nouveau driver for nvidia, youre all good. These support everything you need, and work well with Wayland, just as well as on X.Org. But then, there are the proprietary nvidia drivers. And to be fair, they do work with Wayland. it took a long while, but it works, Ive been using them on hybrid graphics laptops on GNOME and KDE, and on a desktop running Fedora for a long while, and it works. But its also not the best experience. And since were talking about GPUs, lets talk about gaming. Gaming on Wayland basically relies on X.org, with something called XWayland: its and X11 server running inside of Wayland. There is a small performance impact depending on the game. Its not huge, but its there, so if youre struggling to keep a smooth 60FPS, Xorg will be better. This is notably true with Nvidia drivers, which dont handle XWayland very well. For now, Wayland enforces Vsync everywhere, unless your monitor has adaptive sync, so stuff like Gsync of freesync. If you dont have that, then Vsync is, for now, mandatory. And finally, we have application support. All the latest Kirigami apps for KDE, or QT 5 and Qt 6 apps, or Libadwaita apps will handle Wayland well, and all the portals they need to interact well with other apps, screen sharing, and the like. Electron apps using a recent version of electron will also support Wayland, but a lot of electron apps still use an old version that doesnt support it properly. And older apps using GTK 2, or older versions of Qt also wont support Wayland. Some web browsers also dont run natively with Wayland.$

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