KDE Plasma 5—For those Linux users undecided on the kernel’s future

Finally, the KDE project has released KDE Plasma 5, a major new version of the venerable K Desktop Environment.

Plasma 5 arrives in the middle of an ongoing debate about the future of the Linux desktop. On one hand there are the brand new desktop paradigms represented by GNOME and Unity. Both break from the traditional desktop model in significant ways, and both attempt to create interfaces that will work on the desktop and the much-anticipated, tablet-based future (which may or may not ever arrive).

Linux desktops like KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Mate, and even Cinnamon are the other side of the fence. None has re-invented itself too much. They continue to offer users a traditional desktop experience, which is not to say these projects aren't growing and refining. All of them continue to turn out incremental releases that fine tune what is a well-proven desktop model.

GNOME and Unity end up getting the lion's share of attention in this ongoing debate. They're both new and different. They're both opinionated and polarizing. For every Linux user that loves them, there's another that loves to hate them. It makes for, if nothing else, lively comments and forum posts in the Linux world. But the difference between these two Linux camps is about more than just how your desktop looks and behaves. It's about what the future of computing looks like.

GNOME and Unity believe that the future of computing consists of multiple devices all running the same software—the new desktop these two create only makes sense within this vision. These new versions aren't really built as desktops for the future, but they include a hybrid desktop fallback mode for now and appear to believe in devices going forward. The other side of the Linux schism largely seems to ignore those.

And unlike the world of closed source OSes—where changes are handed down, like them or leave them—the Linux world is in the middle of a conversation about these two opposite ideas.

For users, it can be frustrating. The last thing you need when you're trying to get work done is an update that completely changes your desktop, forcing you to learn new ways of working. Even the best case scenario, moving to another desktop when your old favorite suddenly veers off in a new direction, usually means jettisoning years of muscle memory and familiarity.

Luckily, there's a simple way to navigate this mess and find the right desktop for you. Here it is in a nutshell: do you want to bend your will to your desktop or do you want to bend your desktop to your will?

If you fall in the first camp and don't mind learning new ways of working, Unity and GNOME 3 will be your best bets. If you fall in the latter camp, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate, and a host of others will all likely prove a good fit. And even if you want to go non-traditional in a different direction from GNOME 3 and Unity, there's always Xmonad, Ratpoison, and others that very few Linux users will ever try. (This is a small shame, as Xmonad may be the best thing in Linux since Linus said, uh, hey, here's a kernel for your GNU system.)

So what about the undecided Linux users, all those people in the middle? You like the traditional desktop experience, and you're not ready to give up your menu and shortcuts for HUDs and other new tools. But at the same time, you're curious about tablets and other form factors, and you want something that will work across them all. You, my hypothetical friend, are an excellent candidate for the brand new KDE Plasma 5.

KDE is attempting to do something no other desktop in Linux has tried to date—move toward the tablet and mobile device future while still producing a desktop experience that's familiar, functional, and infinitely customizable.

KDE Plasma 5 and the world of "convergence"

KDE users who made it through the transition from KDE 3.5 to 4 likely still flinch at the mention of a major upgrade to any part of KDE, but there's good news for KDE fans in Plasma 5. This is a major update, yes, but it comes with a handful of exceptions (which I'll get into in a minute because you'd never know it).

It turns out that the incredibly bumpy move to KDE 4 really did lay the groundwork for a better future—we are now in that future.

With this update, KDE is laying future groundwork in a less disruptive way. We're referring to an inevitable move to tablets and other form factors, but fear not. KDE seems poised to do what GNOME and Unity could not—branch out to other form factors without abandoning the traditional desktop. In other words, this release resisted the urge to mess with the tried and true just because something new is on the horizon.

(As a quick aside: You'd be forgiven for not remembering this, but the whole convergence thing that Canonical goes on about with each new Unity update? KDE started using the word "convergence" way back when Canonical was still running user tests to determine the optimal shade of brown for GNOME 2 menus.)

With KDE Frameworks 5, Qt5, and some other updates to the plumbing that come along with Plasma 5, KDE's version of convergence is here. It's simply under the hood where it belongs.

So while the components are there to allow the KDE project and its developers to build different interfaces—KDE calls these new frameworks the "converged Plasma shell," which is what loads up the desktop in Plasma 5—the Plasma 5 desktop is, thus far, the only interface. KDE plans to build out others, but the official release announcement for Plasma 5 says that "a tablet-centric and media center user experience are under development."

In this sense, KDE's vision of convergence is not unlike what Ubuntu envisions; the user interface will change based on the device and hardware. For example, you might have the "tablet-centric" interface that's in the works running while you're reading the Web on the couch. But get up, walk back to your office, connect to your wireless keyboard, and the interface shifts to something more keyboard-friendly.

This scenario has some potential problems, some of which Windows 8 users are likely already familiar with. For example, what will happen when a keyboard is plugged in, but you still want to interact with the screen via touch? What happens if you plug in a mouse, but you still want to scroll with your fingers?

We mention these small points not to say that KDE hasn't thought them through (here's hoping they have), but because this idea of "convergence" of adaptive user interfaces will be very difficult to get right. And one thing KDE has long had that gives users hope for the project's success is limitless configurability.

The hope for KDE on a tablet is that any user would be able to configure every last detail of the experience. Simply put, there would be a way for you to determine what you want to happen when a keyboard is detected rather than letting the OS determine it.