14 DAY TRIAL // The KDE Project has laid down some of their plans for 2018, which includes a few exciting things for users of the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
For starters, 2018 will bring KDE users a new, long-term supported Plasma desktop environment, version 5.12, which just entered beta stages of development the other day giving us a first glimpse into its new features and improvements.
While it's mostly focused on stability and speed improvements, the KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS release promises better, long-term Wayland support, smartphone integration, a unified look, infinite customizations, as well as integrated desktop widgets and search.
Also, with the release of the KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS desktop environment in early February, the KWin on X11 implementation won't receive any new features as the KDE team plans to add them to the Wayland implementation instead.
"Since many Linux distributions will rely on this version of Plasma, the developers wanted to make it as stable and fast as possible. Startup speed and memory usage will be visibly improved, particularly on low-end devices," says Ivana Isadora Devcic.
Introducing Atelier, Zanshin, Late Dock, and Elisa
The new year will also bring a bunch of new apps that may be of use to those using the KDE Plasma desktop environment primarily, but also to other Linux users. These apps could be available as part of the KDE Applications software suite in the near future.
Besides Krita 4.0, the KDE Project is proud to welcome to the KDE Community apps like the Atelier 3D printing utility, Zanshin todo and productivity tool, the now popular Latte Dock, as well as the cross-platform Elisa music player.
You already know some of these apps, as their development started a while ago, but KDE wants to take them under its wings in 2018, improve them, and offer them to users along with the latest KDE Plasma desktop environment.
For true KDE fans, the KDE Community will attend Akademy 2018, the annual gathering of KDE members, which will take place in Vienna, Austria, from the August 11 to August 17 at the University of Technology (TU Wien). Be there if you care about KDE!
