It also adds better support for Debian-based distributions

Jan 16, 2018 16:27 GMT  ·  By

KDE developer Nathaniel Graham shares more details on the latest improvements that landed recently in the Plasma Discover package manager for the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS desktop environment.

After sharing last week more info on the maturity of Flatpak support in KDE Plasma's Discover package manager, now Nathaniel Graham published details on some new user-facing highlights of what's done in Plasma Discover in the last week or so, and there's quite a bunch of improvements for both Snap and Flatpak universal binary formats.

For Snaps, Plasma Discover now no longer lets users click the "Install" button during the installation of Snaps, displays information on the license for Snaps, as well as the size of Snaps that aren’t installed on user's computer. For Flatpak apps, it now shows the version number if that info is defined in the AppStream file.

On top of that, Plasma Discover’s Home page has been updated to be able to tell the user that it is a list of featured apps, and duplicate information in package changelogs will no longer be displayed for Debian-based GNU/Linux distributions.

The future of software delivery

Nathaniel Graham also explains why Plasma Discover is the future of software delivery as users can now install apps from multiple sources if they want to use the version of the app distributed by the OS vendor, the latest upstream release, or the bleeding-edge development builds.

"You can also get bleeding-edge development builds if you’d like to follow or participate in the development, or verify that a bug is fixed before the next release," explains the developer. "You can install the one that suits you best, and change your selection as your needs and preferences evolve over time. It’s your choice."

All in all, KDE Plasma's Discover package manager looks to attract more and more users to the KDE Plasma desktop environment, and it won't go wrong with all those Snap and Flatpak improvements. As usual, if you want to get involved in the development, consider becoming a KDE contributor or donator.

Plasma Discover Snap view
Plasma Discover Snap view
The future of software delivery

Plasma Discover (3 Images)

Non-duplicate changelogs in Debian-based distros
Plasma Discover Snap viewThe future of software delivery
Open gallery