The project KDE decided to give more development time to the sixes, that is, to Plasma 6, Qt 6 and Frameworks 6. This will achieve two things: by delaying the release of a new version, they will have time to mature it; On the other hand, there will also be time to find and correct bugs in the latest version of Plasma, which is LTS. What seems a bit strange, but makes sense, is that they're going to release updates that they don't usually release at all.
To be completely honest, I don't usually follow the development of LTS versions of Plasma because I usually upload to a new one when possible, but until now I thought that the releases always arrived following the Fibonacci series, that is, the dot-one a week after dot-zero, dot-two one after dot-one, dot-three two after dot-two... (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...) and it seems that this time it's not going to be like this Nate Graham has marked some of the news this week with the numbering Plasma 5.27.4.1, which would be a corrective update of a corrective update and should not respect the Fibonacci series.
As new, this week they have only highlighted that when performing an action that would otherwise automatically activate a window on another virtual desktop, there is now an option to not switch to it at all. This can be useful for workflows such as opening many links from an email client in a web browser on another desktop, because this way you don't have to refocus the email client after each link opened (Nicolas Fella , Plasma 6.0).
Interface improvements coming to KDE
- The "Highlight Changed Settings" feature in System Preferences now works in the Flatpak permissions page (Ivan Tkachenko, Plasma 5.27.5).
- The Emoji Picker window is now significantly faster to appear when launched with Ctrl+. (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.27.5.).
- Authentication dialogs now have a simplified style to better focus on the parts that matter (Devin Lin, Plasma 6.0):
- When a Folder View widget uses its popup list form, its items now always open with a single click, since it is a menu-style UI and menu items are always activated with a single click ( Nate Graham, Plasma 6.0).
- On the KWin Rules page of System Preferences, settings for various properties are now explained much more clearly (Nate Graham and Ismael Asensio, Plasma 6.0).
- The Breeze icon theme now includes icons for Alembic .abc files (Áron Kovács, Frameworks 5.106).
Correction of minor bugs
- In the Plasma Wayland session, Spectacle is now faster at taking screenshots and never ever includes its main window in the screenshots it takes (Noah Davis, Spectacle 23.04 with Plasma 5.27.4.1 or newer).
- Setting screen refresh rates higher than 60 Hz when using AMD GPUs is again possible, fixing a recent regression in the open source AMD drivers (Xaver Hugl, Plasma 5.27.4.1).
- Fixed a major memory leak that could, under certain circumstances, quickly consume all memory when an external display is connected (Harald Sitter, Plasma 5.27.5).
- When an offline system update fails, you will no longer receive endless notifications when logging in, even after clicking the "Repair System" button in the notification Discover shows you about it. (Aleix Pol Gonzalez Nate Graham)
- Discover no longer sometimes confuses the order of version numbers "from" and "to" for Flatpak apps, or incorrectly indicates that an update from one version to the next is an update to the existing version, although sometimes it actually is it's an update to the existing version, so it's not always an error when you see this (Ismael Asensio, Plasma 5.27.5).
- Fixed a cause of excessive memory usage that could even crash Plasma when using KRunner to search for unusual things (Fushan Wen, Plasma 5.27.5).
- Widgets can now be correctly centered between two flexible Panel spacers on vertical panels, not just horizontal panels (Niccolò Venerandi, Plasma 5.27.5).
- Discover now manages to apply various types of firmware updates that were previously blocked (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 5.27.5).
This list is a summary of the fixed bugs. The complete lists of bugs are on the pages of 15 minute bug, very high priority bugs and overall list. This week a total of 148 bugs have been fixed.
When will this all come to KDE?
plasma 5.27.5 will arrive on May 9th, KDE Frameworks 106 should arrive on the 13th of the same month and there is no confirmed date on Frameworks 6.0. KDE Gear 23.04 will be available from April 20, 23.08 will arrive in August and Plasma 6 will arrive in the second half of 2023. The Plasma 5.27.4.1 mentioned here will arrive when they deem it necessary.
To enjoy all this as soon as possible we have to add the repository backports of KDE, use an operating system with special repositories like Kde neon or any distribution whose development model is Rolling Release.
Images and content: pointieststick.com.