KDE Wayland Began Taking Shape, More Music Players & Other KDE Happenings In 2017

Written by Michael Larabel in KDE on 12 December 2017 at 06:00 AM EST. 6 Comments
KDE
Not only did GNOME have a very busy 2017, but as 2017 nears its end, here's a look back at the most exciting events in the KDE camp.

This year KDE's Wayland support really began taking shape and is reaching a point of being ready for day-to-day use, more KDE music players came about, KDE Plasma Mobile was reignited around the hopes for the Purism Librem 5 smartphone, and Plasma 5 and KDE Applications seen a wealth of improvements too.

Here's a look back at the 20 most viewed KDE articles on Phoronix this calendar year:

A New KDE Music Player: Elisa
While Amarok has not seen a release in years and Juk development not being too vibrant, now there's another new KDE music player option: Elisa.

Should Ubuntu Have Gone With KDE Instead Of GNOME?
With last week's surprise decision by Mark Shuttleworth to abandon Unity 8 efforts and switch back to the GNOME desktop by Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, while some applauded the decision, others begged the question why not switch to KDE or "Ubuntu should default to [your favorite DE]."

Babe: KDE Gets Another Music Player
Not to be confused with the KDE Elisa music player written about just two weeks ago as a new alternative to Juk, Amarok, Cantata, and other KDE music/media player projects, the latest effort is called Babe.

The State Of Flatpak vs. Snaps On Various Linux Distributions
Motivated by KDE Plasma Leaning Towards Focusing On Flatpak Over AppImage/Snaps and this lengthy, contentious forum thread, a KDE contributor has taken a closer look at the Flatpak versus Snaps versions available in different Linux distributions.

There's Now A KDE-Branded Laptop Running Neon With Plasma 5
For KDE fans not interested in setting up a KDE-based Linux distribution on your own laptop and worrying about potential graphics driver bugs with Plasma or other possible headaches, there is now a "KDE laptop" backed by the KDE community.

KDE Plasma Leaning Towards Focusing On Flatpak Over AppImage/Snaps
Veteran KDE developer Sebastian Kügler has written a blog post following the Plasma Sprint that just happened recently in Stuttgart. A few interesting details were shared.

Some Of The Changes Coming To KDE Plasma 5.10
KDE developer Kai Uwe has provided a look at some of the new features coming for Plasma 5.10, including some screenshots.

QupZilla Web Browser Becomes KDE Falkon
The QupZilla open-source web-browser built using Qt WebEngine and in development for the past seven years is now part of the KDE project and has renamed itself to Falkon.

KDE Applications 17.04 To Be Released 20 April
The release schedule for the upcoming KDE Applications 17.04 has been firmed up.

KDE's Kube Mail/PIM Client Does Its First Tech Preview Release
Today marks the release of KDE's new Kube 0.1 project, the first tech preview (pre-production) release of this experimental Kontact based on Qt Quick and Akonadi-Next.

KDE Neon Makes It Easier To Now Try Plasma On Wayland
The Ubuntu-based KDE Neon distribution for its "dev unstable" image now comes pre-installed with the Wayland session option.

KDE Plasma Getting Chrome Integration, Followed By Firefox
KDE Plasma is getting web-browser integration initially for Google Chrome and is expected to be followed by Mozilla Firefox support.

KDE Plasma 5.12 Will Be An LTS Release In January 2018
Jonathan Riddell has shared some early planning details for the current KDE Plasma 5.11 cycle as well as early details for Plasma 5.12.

Features To Look Forward To In Next Month's KDE Plasma 5.10
We are just one month away from seeing the next KDE Plasma 5 desktop release.

KDE's Amarok Music Player Seeing A Possible KF5/Qt5 Port
It has been several years since last seeing an update to the Amarok open-source music player, but it looks like it may be alive and ticking after all, at least with one developer working towards a KF5/Qt5 port.

KDE 4/5 Affected By A Root Exploit Vulnerability
There's a root exploit vulnerability present on both KDE4 and KDE5.

Linux Mint Will Discontinue Its KDE Edition
The Linux Mint crew has confirmed today they will be discontinuing future releases of their KDE spin following next month's Linux Mint 18.3 release.

KDE Applications 17.04 Unveiled
KDE Applications 17.04 is now available as the latest installment to this collection of KDE-focused programs.

KDE Plasma 5.9 Hits The Web With Global Menus, Better Wayland Support
Ending out January, the KDE crew has announced the release of Plasma 5.9.

KDE Plasma 5.12 Pushing For "An Awesome Release On Wayland"
While today's release of KDE Plasma 5.11 brings with it many Wayland improvements, KWin maintainer Martin Flöser (né Gräßlin) is proposing to get the Plasma 5.12 support into better shape on Wayland.

What do you hope to see of KDE in 2018? Let us know in the forums.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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