[KDE] KDE plasma 4 for how long?

[axelmasok]

Call me what you will but I'm finding myself coming back to plasma 4 on 14.04 for my daily work machine (emails/web/office).
I've run 16.04 plasma 5 for about 3 weeks and have noticed limitations with applets, apps and the like.
This may sound daft and I realise 4 is discontinued, but would there be any point running 4 on 16.04 until 5 catches up? May even be technically impossible or not worth the pain.
I'll probably have to stick with 14.04 is say. Maybe I'm alone on this?
Axel

[acheron]

You would have to build Plasma 4 yourself. I did that for a while up until Wily was released, but I think now it's not going to be an easy job on top of the current library versions found in 16.04.

[axelmasok]

Yes I'd say qt and supporting libraries in 16.04 would all not work with KDE4/Plasma4. Would have to be a nightmare. I guess I have no reliance or great need on anything else in 16.04 as everything else has worked in 14.04 for obviously 2 years now. That's progress I guess.

[Rod J]

I'll probably have to stick with 14.04 is say. Maybe I'm alone on this?
Axel

Well, you're certainly not alone in your assessment of Plasma 5 as some of us aren't too keen on it either. I'm sticking with K14.04 for the time being until I feel Plasma 5 is mature and stable enough for me. I'll install K16.04 in another partition or virtual machine to see how it's going but my day-to-day OS will continue to be K14.04 LTS. It is supported until 2019 so there is no rush to abandon it.

[GreyGeek]

I'll have to take an alternate tack. I hated Plasma 5 and even left Kubuntu for Mint 17.3 KDE for three months, but its lack of GOOD Btrfs implementation drove me back. I've been running 16.04 since April 1st, thinking I'd be playing the fool. Initially, it was crashy, but most crashes were pseudo, the app kept working. However, as the updates kept rolling it Plasma5 got more stable. For the last month it has been stable as a rock. The flat matte is buffered by the appearance of full color icons in the system tray and panel from apps that haven't switched to the flat matte look. One significant thing I've noticed is that my KDE Plasma 5 desktop is at least twice as fast as my old 14.04 Plasma 4 desktop. Steam runs great. So does Stellarium and the SAGE math engine. Minecraft is faultless, giving me vsync speed with optifine on a laptop that is not a game machine. Audacity works as it always has. LibreOffice works great. Chrome doesn't. I moved to FF47. I am really appreciating systemd and journalctl for tweaking my installation and desktop. There is no functionality that I used on 14.04 that is not present in 16.04.

Plasma 5 has converted a skeptic into a believer. (I still don't like the flat matte look, but I can live with it. I suspect that other, more colorful themes will appear.)

[oldgeek]

I too am a Plasma 5 believer. I ran 14.04 until a couple of months ago and was very happy with it, but decided to make the jump to 16.04 with the idea I could always go back to 14.04 if I didn't like it. I haven't gone back and will probably stick with this until 18.04 or 19.04 comes out. I don't mind the new icons at all, and while the new wallpaper for 5.6.4 is rather garish, there are plenty of others available. The only recurring problem I have is with Universe Sandbox, which freezes at odd moments. I don't know if that's a Plasma problem or not, or more a reflection of my hardware. But I'm happy with 16.04 and expect it to get even better.

[GreyGeek]

... The only recurring problem I have is with Universe Sandbox, which freezes at odd moments. I don't know if that's a Plasma problem or not, or more a reflection of my hardware. ...

The speed of Universe Sandbox^2 has more than doubled under 16.04. Running under 14.04 the planets had half a dozen momentary stops in their orbit around the Sun. I could make their motion smooth only if I reduced particles to zero. Other simulations were even worse. In 16.04 all the simulations run smoothly!

[oldgeek]

I agree, the graphics with Universe Sandbox are very smooth--and even spectacular with some simulations (mostly destructive ones). Which makes it all the more frustrating that it keeps crashing. Again, I suspect the hardware might be to blame, as Valve has allowed me to try installing it again. At any rate, it's nice while it lasts!

[GreyGeek]

I agree, the graphics with Universe Sandbox are very smooth--and even spectacular with some simulations (mostly destructive ones). Which makes it all the more frustrating that it keeps crashing. Again, I suspect the hardware might be to blame, as Valve has allowed me to try installing it again. At any rate, it's nice while it lasts!

I forgot to mention that I tried xrender, openGL 2 and openGL 3.1 and the last one works flawlessly.

[SecretCode]

(I still don't like the flat matte look, but I can live with it. I suspect that other, more colorful themes will appear.)

Have they not already? This is a gripe of mine, but I have spent very little time playing with 16.04 and haven't hunted for themes.

[acheron]

Have they not already? This is a gripe of mine, but I have spent very little time playing with 16.04 and haven't hunted for themes.

In terms of widget styles/themes for QT5, there are AFAIK..

Breeze (the flat one Grey Geek refers to?)
Fusion (default Qt5 and ugly)
Oxygen (Qt4 and a port to Qt5)
GTK+ -(why?)
MS Windows 9x (REALLY, why? ?)
Qtcurve (very very customisable)

and available as source or maybe in a ppa

Kvantum (similar concept to qtcurve)

Maybe some more trial ones hiding on places like github? Not sure...

Many plasma and window decoration themes are available.

[SecretCode]

Thanks ... after my forthcoming holiday I should put some time into it.

[axelmasok]

Well, you're certainly not alone in your assessment of Plasma 5 as some of us aren't too keen on it either. I'm sticking with K14.04 for the time being until I feel Plasma 5 is mature and stable enough for me. I'll install K16.04 in another partition or virtual machine to see how it's going but my day-to-day OS will continue to be K14.04 LTS. It is supported until 2019 so there is no rush to abandon it.

Stability not a concern for me as I have run KDE/Plasma5 on a spare machine for months. Works fine. Functionality isn't there yet in the areas that I notice. E.g. Instant Messenger in v4 used to log on automatically, in v5 not so. v4 Widgets I have ACPI temp, memory, LAN, 8 core cpu bar graph, not so in v5. USB/Bluetooth Logitech Keyb and Mouse works on startup in v4 and older, have to unplug USB and replug in v5. And the mixer! Works great in v4, have to use pavucontrol in v5. KDE/Plasma 5 to me appears as a downgrade. It's like a completely different DE.
Anyway, back to 14.04 again on a bigger SSD. I'll keep an eye on v5 and without a doubt it will catch up to v4 (for me). No doubt I'll have to move to v5 eventually!

[David2]

would there be any point running 4 on 16.04 until 5 catches up?

Have you considered using Debian 8, which includes KDE Plasma 4.11.13? Debian 8 is what I use. It has newer packages than Ubuntu 14.04, and KDE Plasma for Debian is officially supported, unlike KDE Plasma for Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

[axelmasok]

Have you considered using Debian 8, which includes KDE Plasma 4.11.13? Debian 8 is what I use. It has newer packages than Ubuntu 14.04, and KDE Plasma for Debian is officially supported, unlike KDE Plasma for Ubuntu/Kubuntu.

Quite possible yes. A little more work to get going that Kubuntu but sure could do.