Tag: Planet KDE

Kubuntu 15.04 development is in full swing and it’s looking like our 10th anniversary edition will be a classic.  We’re the first distribution to ship a stable version with Plasma 5, the desktop which is getting tech journalists excited.  My new favourite desktop they say.  A masterpiece  in the making they’re calling it.  The most exciting release in a long time they exclaim.

Kubuntu 15.04 Beta 1 is out and is working well for people wanting to try out Plasma 5.  We’ve deprecated the 14.10 Kubuntu-plasma5 packages, they were only ever tech preview and I’m afraid we don’t have the person-power to keep them updated, if you want Plasma 5 use the 15.04 Beta 1 for released versions or use Kubuntu CI images for Git versions.

Last week Ubuntu switched over to Systemd for boot system.  It’s complex and faffy but at least we have the same complex and faffy as the rest of the world.  There was a strange issue during the switchover where login manager SDDM suddenly disabled itself from starting.  If you get that just run:

systemctl enable sddm

With a new desktop comes the pleasingly satisfying work of integrating it, it’s not unlike when I first uploaded KDE 3 to Ubuntu.  This time though I’m better placed to put all the fixes upstream directly.  For example I’ve just setup gtkbreeze, a helper tool to set up GTK 2 and 3 themeing to mostly match Breeze.  But the icons don’t work, any help with that welcome.

Scarlett has updated Applications to 14.12.3.  Aaron H has updated the docs and the ubiquity slideshow. I’ve nudged the people and pulled the leavers to get KScreen released and print-manager KF5 happy (mostly thanks to Red Hat that one) and telepathy working nicely with Plasma 5 (Martin K gets bonus points there for the legacy presence applet). Package manager Muon now fits in so well with Plasma 5 it gets released with it thanks to Aleix. User Manager gets an update courtesy of Vishesh.  And Harald took time out from making all of KDE continuously integrate to port About Distro, you just can’t live without that one.

We’re still stuck on getting the new BlueDevil in, something in Ubuntu Touch needs ported to Bluez5 apparently.  Libreoffice is looking nice with Qt 4 Breeze theme but I’ve failed to get the breeze icons properly integrated, hopefully I’ll have a spare day soon for that.

There’s still plenty on the bugs list many of them probably quite easy to fix if you fancy helping out.  Our To Do list has plenty to be done including several that could be classes as junior jobs if you’re wanting to get into free software such as making some new recommended applications for the Muon Discover banner or reviewing the ISO contents to see if anything can be removed and get the size down a little.  We’re in #kubuntu-devel on freenode if you want to say hi.

 

 

Season KDE is KDE’s annual project to give helpers a more structured way to take part in KDE.  It’s inspired by Summer of Code of course.

Today I had the pleasure of launching the new Planet KDE website theme done by Ranveer Aggarwal.  It looks very lovely and importantly makes the site a pleasure to browse on your phone.  Everyone hug him and do report any bugs to bugzilla.

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Kubuntu Wire seems to be down due to a server move so here's a Wire post on my blog written by Ilya Kowalewski as part of Google Code in...

Hey there, we’ve got some news for you, here in Kubuntu. Recently, we released Kubuntu 15.04 Alpha 1 (Vivid Vervet) with brand new Plasma 5 onboard and got some essential stuff updated.

Plasma 5, the next generation of KDE Software is still a work in progress, but is stable enough for everyday use and it keeps getting better as new versions drop frequently. The KDE Applications 14.12 includes a bunch of bugfixes and migrations to KDE Frameworks 5.

IT World Covers the 5 distros you need to consider and uses the classic photo above for Kubuntu with Billy Piper.

Softpedia covers the alpha..

This edition of Kubuntu features one of the biggest visual changes in the Ubuntu ecosystem. The change of desktop is a major one and there will probably be some opposition to it. The new KDE Plasma 5 follows the same overall design, but it’s very different from what we were used to seeing.

Linux Veda also reviews the alpha with mixed feelings about Plasma 5..

It is, undoubtedly, a solid and stable desktop environment

We’ve recently got an email from Kubuntu user saying:

Please pardon the interruption but, KUDOS to the whole Kubuntu family.

Unbelievable, running ALL favourite apps off flash card (in USB 2.0 adaptor) on fairly mundane (‘dated’) desktop. So happy from smooth zsync upgrade.

Next, HD install. Stable, and now hooked on Kubuntu’s KDE plasma. Christmas gift, and Happy Holidays, New Year 2015 and beyond to you and yours.

Linux Veda covers things to do after installing Kubuntu, so you might be interested in this, in case if you plan to install Kubuntu.

We also released a new version of KDE Frameworks 5.5.0. KDE Applications 14.12 are arriving in Vivid Vervet, with backports, as soon as we can. For now, we wish you a Happy New Year and recommend you to meet it with new Kubuntu on your PC.

Good luck y Feliz Navidad!  Remember, you know how to get off the naughty list..