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The kernel doesn't have much to do with the desktop environment running on top of it, what would the kernel's future have to do with KDE Plasma 5?
As with all headlines on Ars Technica, and similar sites, it has to do with getting you to click the link.
The kernel doesn't have much to do with the desktop environment running on top of it, what would the kernel's future have to do with KDE Plasma 5?
That is why in GUI oriented OS like Amiga, BeOS, Windows, Mac OS X, among others, the UI stack interacts a lot with the kernel.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gnome, Unity, KDE. I couldn't care less. They all let me launch apps and switch between them quickly and easily. That's all I need from a desktop environment. I don't understand why people feel so passionate about them.
I used to be a 'believer' of DE, but now I stopped craving for applications, menus, widgets and wallpaper settings. It's 99% timewaste. I think people still like DE because they try to make mouse UX fancy. If you're used to keyboards, dmenu is almost all you need. I'm sure even casual users or noobs would love it.
You're going to reply "but these things work outside DEs as well" - they do (though only to a degree), yes, but these systems were conceived and standardized in context of the desktop environment projects, and that's no accident. As communities they attract developers and spawn efforts to make things act in concert. And they continue to be the breeding ground for more goodness of that same nature.
So even if you're not fond of what you think of as DE UI, you have benefited from their development, and continue to benefit from them. The DE communities continue to shoulder this kind of work almost exclusively.
Am I the only one who lost interest in Desktop Environments ? I'm either satisfied with bare minimum (XFCE/ThunarFM...) or barest minimal (wmii/xmonad...). KDE5 is surely a great piece of tech but I fail to see what's new except for a cleaner KDE4 in terms of UX; these days I feel dom/javascript bear more innovation (maybe too much).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gnome, Unity, KDE. I couldn't care less. They all let me launch apps and switch between them quickly and easily. That's all I need from a desktop environment. I don't understand why people feel so passionate about them.
Gnome doesn't let you switch easily (alt-tab is somewhat bad). Gnome doesn't let you see your apps well (huge waste of space for candy graphics). [and the list with Gnome goes on and on]; KDE doesn't let you launch them easily (yay for ignoring super-key). KDE is super unstable. I'm sure there are caveats with Unity as well. Simply, there is still reason to chose one or the other, these systems are not interchangeabl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gnome, Unity, KDE. I couldn't care less. They all let me launch apps and switch between them quickly and easily. That's all I need from a desktop environment. I don't understand why people feel so passionate about them.
Gnome doesn't let you switch easily (alt-tab is somewhat bad). Gnome doesn't let you see your apps well (huge waste of space for candy graphics). [and the list with Gnome goes on and on]; KDE doesn't let you launch them easily (yay for ignoring super-key). KDE is super unstable. I'm sure there are caveats with Unity as well. Simply, there is still reason to chose one or the other, these systems are not interchangeabl…
For Unity I'm probably simply not in the target group, I don't like it.
I left KDE many years ago because I found it buggy and bloated. Maybe it's time to give it a look but I'm happy with my Gnome Shell (in a very nearly out of the box configuration).
Am I the only one who lost interest in Desktop Environments ? I'm either satisfied with bare minimum (XFCE/ThunarFM...) or barest minimal (wmii/xmonad...). KDE5 is surely a great piece of tech but I fail to see what's new except for a cleaner KDE4 in terms of UX; these days I feel dom/javascript bear more innovation (maybe too much).
Gnome, Unity, KDE. I couldn't care less. They all let me launch apps and switch between them quickly and easily. That's all I need from a desktop environment. I don't understand why people feel so passionate about them.
For example with KDE activities you can save states of your desktop (which apps are open, their position on screen, their open tabs, files etc) and restore them whenever you want. So you have ready layouts for your usual tasks and you can start/stop or switch between them in seconds.
Another small example that exists since KDE 2 maybe: you get a clipboard with history. How one may live without it?
Also you get all the small perks like easily setting your keyboard layouts, shortcuts etc.
You get a very fast search utility. Navigating to a file through your file manager is so ineffective when you can type a few letters and find the exact file or folder you need. Searching through your email with gmail (or better) speed from your system tray without having to go to your browser is so useful.
There are a ton of small nice apps, like a ruler or a color selector or a screenshot utility. You may connect to a VPN with exactly two clicks or send your music from your speakers to your bluetooth headset.
Your music or video will autopause when your Android phone rings. You get notifications synchronization with your Android.
Your archive utility can preview any type of file even with color highlighting if it is code. Your apps can edit directly any file on remote file systems (even ftp or ssh).
There are so many things a well designed desktop environment can do for you.
Am I the only one who lost interest in Desktop Environments ? I'm either satisfied with bare minimum (XFCE/ThunarFM...) or barest minimal (wmii/xmonad...). KDE5 is surely a great piece of tech but I fail to see what's new except for a cleaner KDE4 in terms of UX; these days I feel dom/javascript bear more innovation (maybe too much).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be a 'believer' of DE, but now I stopped craving for applications, menus, widgets and wallpaper settings. It's 99% timewaste. I think people still like DE because they try to make mouse UX fancy. If you're used to keyboards, dmenu is almost all you need. I'm sure even casual users or noobs would love it.
For me the strength of a "DE" lies not so much in the UI elements you list, but in applications working in concert cohesively through conventions imposed by the environment and shared global state. Things like a HIG, shared bookmarks (e.g. filesystem locations), shared context services (e.g. search engines, web accounts, ...), shared behavior settings. You're going to reply "but these things work outside DEs as well"…
Am I the only one who lost interest in Desktop Environments ? I'm either satisfied with bare minimum (XFCE/ThunarFM...) or barest minimal (wmii/xmonad...). KDE5 is surely a great piece of tech but I fail to see what's new except for a cleaner KDE4 in terms of UX; these days I feel dom/javascript bear more innovation (maybe too much).