One of the desktop environments that has been evolving positively and consistently in recent years has a stable new version . In mid-May we talked about the upcoming release of KDE Plasma 5.13 and how it looked quite sensational with its new integration with Chrome and Firefox, but the improvements are many and go further.
Just one of those important improvements has to do with the lightness and speed of the environment. The Plasma team spent about four months trying to optimize the start and minimizing the use of memory , which has resulted in a much better performance, and now we can try for ourselves.
Plasma Browser Integration
This is one of the most mentioned characteristics of the new Plasma, it is a sum of new features that allows the browsers based on Firefox and Chromium to integrate with the desktop .
This means that features such as Chrome downloads are displayed in the Plasma notifications panel and you can manage them from there. Or, that you can use the Plasma multimedia control menu to pause and re-upload a video in Firefox.
Design improvements
In addition to this, the design team has created new blocking and login screens, they have redesigned the system settings panel, especially the customization tools .
You have a new menu to choose between the theme and icons, now you can download splashscreens from the KDE store , the sources page shows previews, the multimedia playback widget was redesigned, a plugin was added to the Plasma Calendar that shows astronomical events such as Lunar phases, and more.
Other changes include improved effects for the composer KWin, blurring and changing desktops is now more fluid. Discover, the add-on installer, now has more features and improved its appearance and operation.
If you want to try the new KDE Plasma you can opt for a Live image or wait for your favorite distro to implement the latest version. As always, the recommendation for the best experience would be KDE Neon , but multiple distributions like openSUSE, Slackware, Kubuntu, and Manjaro, will also implement this version sooner or later.
