Today is June 11, or what is the same, the day on which the Plasma 5.16 release. Unlike other releases, the new version of the KDE Community graphical environment is now available, so any user using Plasma can enjoy the new version. As we will explain later, in order to install the 270 updated packages, the KDE Backports repository must be installed.
Plasma 5.16 is a major release, I think much more important than v5.15 or v5.14. I think so because they have included many changes, both visible and invisible, among which a new notification system much more aesthetic that includes functions such as do not disturb mode. They have also included fixes, such as one that caused the image to present problems when waking up a computer after suspension. The latter is something that I have continued to experience, so they will probably have to further refine this bug.
Plasma 5.16 fixes an issue with NVIDIA cards
The most prominent changes, which are mentioned in the release note, They are:
- Dolphin will open the new requests in tabs. Until now it did it in new windows, which cluttered our desktop.
- Discover has been redesigned for a cleaner, sharper image.
- Discover downloads and installations are shown in separate sections.
- Security changes have been added to protect our data.
- New wallpaper, which is the winner of the first ever KDE wallpaper contest.
In the note they do not mention, for example, touchpad related enhancements that will make everything work better and with greater precision. This change will reset your settings, so we will have to reconfigure the changes according to our preferences. Nor do they mention other changes such as some that I have noticed: if we use several virtual desktops, in the bottom bar we will only see the apps open in each of them. This seems perfect if we use the bar as it comes after installation, but not if we change it to "icons only" mode: if we are on a desktop and click on Firefox, for example, we already have it open on another desktop, opens a new instance for us, which is quite annoying.
In order to install the new version of Plasma we have to do it from the KDE Backports repository. If we have not installed it yet, we will do so by opening a terminal and typing the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
With all the good and bad, Plasma 5.16 is here. How about?