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KDE Plasma 5.20

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Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#191

Post by dTal »

dleslie wrote: post #186
dTal wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I use a T480. It has a nice quad core i7 processor and it draws 5 watts at idle. That's hardly more than your Pi4 or your Pinebook Pro. The fan never spins up unless I'm burning 100% CPU. I run Plasma 5 and it's always perfectly snappy. I don't think you're gaining a lot, using such low end hardware.

I just looked. There's no way I can afford a T480. FOSS developers really should be using minspec machines to test.

Well, okay. You said you hated "fan noise and excessive heat", not "spending money". I'm just pointing out that this isn't a reason to avoid a fast, x86_64 computer.

That said, I'm sure there are many modern laptops for a fraction of the price of a T480 which will do the job just as well, and a lot better than a Pi4. What is "minspec" anyway? You have to draw a line somewhere. Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011? How about my desktop from 2005?

That said, by the spec sheet, those machines should be easily capable of running Plasma. If you're having problems, perhaps it's not Plasma's fault, but something to do with the blobby GPU driver stack?

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#192

Post by sergeykish »

mac01021 wrote: post #6

>when you open several windows with the same application (like when you open several LibreOffice documents), the Task Manager will group them together. This is exactly the opposite of what I want. Why don't the designers of 21st-century desktop environments understand that my 3 PDF files have nothing to do with one another? The same goes for my terminals, my text buffers, my web pages.... Why group things that are in…

I use xmonad, windows grouped in virtual workspaces by task.

1 - quick browsing

2 - development (editor and browser)

3...7 - if "development" accumulates too many windows (uncomfortable) and I don't want to close them yet, subset I work with pushed to next number (or subset I want to investigate later)

8 - audio

9 - servers

It exits, it is not mainstream.

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#193

Post by throwdbaaway »

nsonha wrote: post #39
thomond wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly the opposite of what I want. Well maybe it's what everyone else wants. Either way it's just the default they're changing, one good thing about grouping in Plasma is it lets you exclude certain applications so you can exclude your PDF viewer. Alot of other environments give an all or nothing approach.

There maybe some people who want this but they are not the marority. A task and an application are unrelated things. A task most likely spans one/several browser tabs + a couple of documents in different apps.

This is actually the first time I hear a user making this argument. Aaron J. Seigo would love you, as he added Activities in kde 4 for this exact use case.

(unless, of course, you are aseigo in disguise)

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#194

Post by dleslie »

dTal wrote: post #191
dleslie wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked. There's no way I can afford a T480. FOSS developers really should be using minspec machines to test.

Well, okay. You said you hated "fan noise and excessive heat", not "spending money". I'm just pointing out that this isn't a reason to avoid a fast, x86_64 computer. That said, I'm sure there are many modern laptops for a fraction of the price of a T480 which will do the job just as well, and a lot better than a Pi4. What is "minspec" anyway? You have to draw a line somewhere. Should I expect to run a modern DE on my…

> Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011?

No. That's a phone.

> How about my desktop from 2005?

Why not? That's approximately within the ability scope of the Pi4 and Pinebook Pro that I have.

DEs haven't really improved so significantly since then that they should need that much more power.

Their need for more computing ability has more to do with shoddier development practices than it does features.

The problems with KDE that I noted were mostly crashes and general broken behaviour; performance is more a Gnome3 problem, it only recently was capable of running on a Pi.

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#195

Post by dTal »

dleslie wrote: post #194
dTal wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, okay. You said you hated "fan noise and excessive heat", not "spending money". I'm just pointing out that this isn't a reason to avoid a fast, x86_64 computer. That said, I'm sure there are many modern laptops for a fraction of the price of a T480 which will do the job just as well, and a lot better than a Pi4. What is "minspec" anyway? You have to draw a line somewhere. Should I expect to run a modern DE on my…

> Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011? No. That's a phone. > How about my desktop from 2005? Why not? That's approximately within the ability scope of the Pi4 and Pinebook Pro that I have. DEs haven't really improved so significantly since then that they should need that much more power. Their need for more computing ability has more to do with shoddier development practices than it does fea…

Ah. So, to be clear, this entire performance discussion was a red herring?

For completeness's sake I will just note that DEs are vastly different from 2005, notably in using GPU compositing; this is nicer in many ways and more power efficient, but stresses the driver stack a lot more. The crashing issues you mention are not common, so I would try running it on some different machines before blaming the instability on Plasma.

Interestingly, 2011 smartphones and 2005 desktops have broadly similar specs.

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#196

Post by [deleted] »

dTal wrote: post #195
dleslie wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011? No. That's a phone. > How about my desktop from 2005? Why not? That's approximately within the ability scope of the Pi4 and Pinebook Pro that I have. DEs haven't really improved so significantly since then that they should need that much more power. Their need for more computing ability has more to do with shoddier development practices than it does fea…

Ah. So, to be clear, this entire performance discussion was a red herring? For completeness's sake I will just note that DEs are vastly different from 2005, notably in using GPU compositing; this is nicer in many ways and more power efficient, but stresses the driver stack a lot more. The crashing issues you mention are not common, so I would try running it on some different machines before blaming the instability on…

[deleted]

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#197

Post by dleslie »

dTal wrote: post #195
dleslie wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011? No. That's a phone. > How about my desktop from 2005? Why not? That's approximately within the ability scope of the Pi4 and Pinebook Pro that I have. DEs haven't really improved so significantly since then that they should need that much more power. Their need for more computing ability has more to do with shoddier development practices than it does fea…

Ah. So, to be clear, this entire performance discussion was a red herring? For completeness's sake I will just note that DEs are vastly different from 2005, notably in using GPU compositing; this is nicer in many ways and more power efficient, but stresses the driver stack a lot more. The crashing issues you mention are not common, so I would try running it on some different machines before blaming the instability on…

IMHO, KDE has better perf on low end machines than Gnome3, but it's still a problem.

I had compiz back in the day; compositing isn't new. It's also not all that important; I'm basically using the same bones of the Windows 95 DE, 25 years later. Except Win95 was fast, lean, and incredibly unstable. ;)

I try KDE every year or so, and _always_ abandon it due to instability. I've filed tickets in the past but KDE developers, and to be fair Gnome devs too, seem to have your attitude: old and slow devices aren't worth their time, despite the large install base worldwide.

Hell, they're not much slower than Chromebooks or the previously popular Netbooks.

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#198

Post by cupofjoakim »

devthrowawy wrote: post #187
cupofjoakim wrote: post #61

Good job, as expected by the Plasma team. I really feel like this is a big step in the right direction. A personal wish however would be that we got a more modern look to more desktop environments. Both Gnome, Plasma and Pantheon (default in Elementary OS) are talked about as the best looking desktop environments, but I'd be lying if I said that any of them looked awesome. There's just something about them that make…

Why do you want to attract uninterested users who's interested are primarily superficial and not aligned with the core values and spirit of linux/foss? This is how you breed corruption.

I think you and me see different values in linux as a platform. What I want is for linux to be a true alternative to windows or macOS for all users - not only the tech-savy. The goal should be for someone like my mom or my wife to be handed a linux based machine and for her to not see it as a scary thing, but as a viable daily driver.

I'd argue that your comment is somewhat elitist - what does it even mean to say that someones interest are "primarily superficial and not aligned with the core values and spirit of linux/foss"? Plenty of linux users already care about how their interface looks, that does not mean that they don't care about open source.

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#199

Post by nsonha »

throwdbaaway wrote: post #193
nsonha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There maybe some people who want this but they are not the marority. A task and an application are unrelated things. A task most likely spans one/several browser tabs + a couple of documents in different apps.

This is actually the first time I hear a user making this argument. Aaron J. Seigo would love you, as he added Activities in kde 4 for this exact use case. (unless, of course, you are aseigo in disguise)

I'm not actually using KDE atm and not familiar with activities, what are the usecases for activities and how do they compare to virtual desktops?

Re: KDE Plasma 5.20

#200

Post by devthrowawy »

cupofjoakim wrote: post #198
devthrowawy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to attract uninterested users who's interested are primarily superficial and not aligned with the core values and spirit of linux/foss? This is how you breed corruption.

I think you and me see different values in linux as a platform. What I want is for linux to be a true alternative to windows or macOS for all users - not only the tech-savy. The goal should be for someone like my mom or my wife to be handed a linux based machine and for her to not see it as a scary thing, but as a viable daily driver. I'd argue that your comment is somewhat elitist - what does it even mean to say tha…

I'm not meaning to be elites in the sense that i'm trying to look down on certain linux users. But if someone is going to use linux or not use it at all based just on how it looks then they don't need linux and can use a regular desktop os just fine. Linux is important because of how it is used technically to build software systems and that it is open source. If you start bringing on users that don't have that interest then then it is just another web/chrome platform waiting to be commercialized and have it's true purpose undermined. Take Canonical to the extreme. Not everything needs to try to grab the attention of random person off the street.
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