KDE Plasma 5.26.x Stability Inquiry

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52

Well, it depends which car you drive. If we compare software with cars you see similar things.

In the 60s cars were simple. Drove you from A to B and there were few models to choose from. You had the gasoline and Diesel engine. Both invented in Germany. In the 80s the tuner scene was born so people pimp up their vehicles. Later on new engines like electric and hydrogen was born. All those are more driven automatic, which is also a huge factor in the states. Only geeks drive with gears these days.

From the technical point of view, the old engines were more complex but also easier to repair. The new stuff is more combined with electronic and computers. All due to innovation and having new features.

If we put that now to Software and especially to KDE we saw many iterations of itself and how it envolved. The Kool Desktop from Germany made it mainstream. And with other desktop environments out there having a standard is more complex as youโ€™re not alone to drive it forward. Also a lot of influence is happening from outside - community and other projects. So KDE wants still to be Kool. However they changed their slogan to โ€œSimple by default, powerful when neededโ€ overtime.

KDE with its approach in Frameworks, Plasma and Apps (Gear) is a nice construct. Especially Frameworks is used in other projects like LxQt and JingOS. The Apps you find also in Microsoft Store and other platforms. Plasma is great to use. Also lately Companies using KDE software more often. Partly also cos Qt is some sort of industry standard and backed by a company. So if it is user and community driven you expect more features out of it. Corporate driven it will be more focused on the needs of a company and stability. Plasma LTS finds a great middle way for that. Kubuntu and Suse Leap a great examples of solid distros using LTS branches.

Lately it is not all rosy. Also Gnome has its ups and downs. As soon as you add extensions the shell might break if 3rd party developers donโ€™t catch up with changes made by the upstream project. You also see those split-off projects like Mate, Cinnamon, Budgie and many more. FOSS is great, as if you donโ€™t agree you fork or create some new.

Maui-Shell is using KDE Frameworks but add some own UI for the Nitrux Distribution. Plasma Mobile brings Plasma on Phone and Tablets and Plasma Bigscreen to the TV. However new ways may need new designs which creates also fragmentation within the project. So the current focus is still more on desktop side but also on mobile due to the SteamDeck. Maui-Shell tries to be a glue and adaptive to be used on Mobile and on Desktop with the same UI design. Phosh and Gnome on Mobile try to achieve the same with libhandy and libadwaita. With each new tech new ways of how you use your PC will happen. You either participate with those changes and report issues early or accept that changes might take more time to establish the used stability it once has when the focus was only on one thing - the desktop.

XFCE is not fancy, doesnโ€™t has many features but it is stable and simple as its community and developers only focus on minimal improvements and changes to keep it solid.

So ya - software can always be fun to use. If you keep it close to the design of its developers and use similar hardware as they do youโ€™re fine. If you more into adventures you have to step up and give back - at least with documentation of the issues you may have.

Also there is the tend to talk more about what is not working or got broken rather what got improved or new invented. Humans simply have a small problem to adjust to changes. We like all our established habits โ€ฆ

7 Likes
53

@philm - You are spot-on - exactly my point.

While it is possible to apply a different theme, add extensions to the kernel add specialised graphics and engines targeted gaming

  • the same customisation requries the user to have a deeper undstanding than the mere application of the customisation
  • the user has to educate him-/herself to understand
  • only after such education it is possible to understand why it sometimes goes awry

Plasma is a framework upon which componenents are added using layout definitions and qt-script (based on ecmascript) - so when a component uses framework calls which has been altered or deprecated the system no longer function as expected.

Such framework changes reaches the user when the system is synced with newer packages and as such the user blames the sync and thus the distribution.

The reality is a lot more nuanced as it could very well be the theme or the widget which has to be rebuilt to new framework.

2 Likes
54

people using KDE for theming and customization ability, otherwise whatโ€™s the matter the changing DE?

1 Like
55

And that is fine by me - my point is - knowledge - know your system - be prepared to troubleshoot your customisations - Plasma developers does not test each and every theme for backwards compatibility - that is a task for the maintainer of the theme or if unmaintained - the user owning the system.

4 Likes
56

That somehow is a typical american thing to say - for classic fuel type vehicles at least. :face_with_hand_over_mouth: :hugs:

Only people getting many notifications seem to be affected - thatโ€™s why you might not see it.

57

Apparently 5.26.x keeps on biting people. The following user is using the default theme, by the way, so thereโ€™s no point in shoving the blame onto customization anymore. :stuck_out_tongue:

:arrow_down:

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58

Interestingโ€ฆ Probably just the (un)luckiness of the draw thenโ€ฆ? :grin:

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59

I am having problems with 5.26.2 as well, when booting up with a second monitor connected, my system fonts are wrong, my taskbar is just completely green, many items (As the ones on the desktop or in the application launcher) dont have icons anymore, โ€ฆ

I hope the next updates address this, its pretty much unusable atm.

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60

5.26.3 has just entered the Testing branch right now, so it wonโ€™t be long anymore before it hits Stable.

No guarantee that itโ€™ll fix things, of course.

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61

Just as long as it isnโ€™tโ€ฆa direct hitโ€ฆ! :shushing_face:

2 Likes
62

I had zero issues with plasma 5.25, however the update to 5.26 caused some problems, see All Icons are missing. A downgrade to 5.24.7-LTS (thanks for creating this!) solved the issue.

4 Likes
63

I was running 5.25.x, I noticed no issues.

Iโ€™m now on 5.26.2, the only issue Iโ€™ve had was 5.26.2 seemed to ignore the Window rules Iโ€™d set on 5.25.xโ€ฆ but only for some windows.

I simply deleted the old rules and recreated new rules.

Other than that, everything seems boringly normal.

Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.26.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.99.0
Qt Version: 5.15.6
Kernel Version: 5.15.76-1-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 ร— Intelยฎ Pentiumยฎ CPU N3540 @ 2.16GHz
Memory: 7.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intelยฎ HD Graphics
Manufacturer: Notebook
Product Name: W54_W94_W955TU,-T,-C
System Version: Not Applicable
1 Like
64

Stableโ€ฆ? :wink:

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65

any bug report for desktop notification what freeze kde complete system?

66

I believe there is, yes, but Iโ€™m too busy to check right now. But be my guest and check out bugs.kde.org. :wink:

67

I never had issues with 5.25 or 5.26. I run both AMD and Intel systems, All are single monitors, resolutions HD and 4K. All run Breeze with minimal widgets (Digital clock and an extra panel as a launcher dock). Hopefully keeping it simple helps, Iโ€™ve sure read some tough threads here about these issues; thankfully they havenโ€™t hit me yet.

1 Like
68

Not really, since there are people whoโ€™ve reported problems on fresh, uncustomized installs as well.

But of course, in order to find the cause of a problem, you actually have to look for it, and the KDE developers are not known for spending a lot of time on doing exactly that. :frowning_face:

1 Like
69

Phew, thatโ€™s interesting.

For all the time I use KDE (around 1 year) with a customized Breeze theme (some color correction and round-corner icons installed) I have had only these issues:

  • No startup sound (firstly fixed by adding specific .desktop file to the autostart to play it, but then it was fixed by one of the latest updates);
  • Plasma was totally frozen for 3-5 seconds at random moment (it simply happened at any time, so I couldnโ€™t get why; I cannot remember exactly where, but I found topic with a guy who cleared translations in the ~/.config/plasma-localerc and it helped also to me. I use English, Russian and Ukranian and keeping only one of them in translations do no freeze anymore).

So, I feel very lucky now, but with

If I simply ignore Plasma packages to update for now, will it prevent any issues for me in the future or make it even worse?

:eyes:

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ะธะทะพะฑั€ะฐะถะตะฝะธะต_2022-11-12_172638708ร—372 31 KB

3 Likes
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 $ neofetch
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   fh@tiger 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   -------- 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Host: 30CY006WGE ThinkStation P330 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ            โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Kernel: 6.0.8-1-MANJARO 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Uptime: 9 hours, 26 mins 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Packages: 1207 (pacman) 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Shell: bash 5.1.16 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Resolution: 5120x1440 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   DE: Plasma 5.26.3 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   WM: kwin 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Theme: [Plasma], Breeze [GTK2/3] 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Icons: breeze-dark [Plasma], breeze-dark [GTK2/3] 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Terminal: konsole 
                               CPU: Intel i9-9900K (16) @ 3.600GHz 
                               GPU: Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] 
                               GPU: AMD ATI Radeon Pro WX 7100 
                               Memory: 24834MiB / 64143MiB
1 Like
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[demo@manjaro ~]$ neofetch
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   demo@manjaro 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   ------------ 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Host: HP Spectre x360 Convertible 15-df1xxx 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ            โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Kernel: 6.0.8-1-MANJARO 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Uptime: 4 hours, 49 mins 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Packages: 1617 (pacman), 6 (flatpak) 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Shell: bash 5.1.16 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Resolution: 3840x2160 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   DE: Plasma 5.26.3 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   WM: KWin 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   WM Theme: McMojave-light 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Theme: McMojaveLight [Plasma], Flat-Remix-GTK-Blue-Light [GTK2/3] 
โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ  โ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆโ–ˆ   Icons: BigSur [Plasma], BigSur [GTK2/3] 
                               Terminal: konsole 
                               Terminal Font: Hack 11 
                               CPU: Intel i7-10510U (8) @ 4.900GHz 
                               GPU: NVIDIA GeForce MX250 
                               GPU: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics] 
                               Memory: 3652MiB / 15631MiB