Plasma 5.5.3 & KDE Frameworks 5.18 Backported To Kubuntu 15.10

[Nth_man]

So many things said about Kubuntu that are not true... maybe someone could check the ways they used.
I'm using Kubuntu right now and:

> (messing with configuration files just to add a repository is terrible)

Maybe that's why you can use a GUI or you can use add-apt-repository like in:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

[bug77]

So many things said about Kubuntu that are not true... maybe someone could check the ways they used.
I'm using Kubuntu right now and:

> (messing with configuration files just to add a repository is terrible)

Maybe that's why you can use a GUI or you can use add-apt-repository like in:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

Perhaps it's a simple magic incantation in OpenSuse, making Kubuntu look like a muggle.

[DanL]

Perhaps it's a simple magic incantation in OpenSuse, making Kubuntu look like a muggle.

Or perhaps you're (willfully) too blind to see..

[arunbupathy]

I've always had a bone to pick with Ubuntu and its backports system, from a UX perspective. A fresh install has "unsupported software" as a checkable option in software sources, but that only activates ubuntu-backports rather than kubuntu-backports which you have to manually add.

And even when you enable it, you will only get backports when you force-install them, rather than just having more up to date software because you checked the "update my software" button.

For anyone that is not tech literate, the whole process is a disastrous mess, and the alternative and default situation is to simply be stuck on outdated software for 2+ years on an LTS. For something like Plasma, where each release is a magnitude of improvement and stability fixes, each Kubuntu release in 2015 was an insane PITA because having to manually setup Kubuntu-backports every time it updates to try to keep it updated is terrible UX to get a more stable system.

This is so true. That's why I decided to go out of my comfort zone and tried the latest KaOS live disk. I switched back to the Breeze theme and everything was much more refined and coherent with the latest Plasma. I hope the KDE Design team further refines the default theme into something that doesn't look like Koloured Kotton Kandy.

[bug77]

Or perhaps you're (willfully) too blind to see..

See what? GreatEmerald has claimed on Debian and derivatives you have to fiddle with text files to add new repositories, Nth_man mentioned two alternative ways. Clearly dealing with Debian/Ubuntu is not that complicated.

[ayqazi]

User of a Dell XPS 13 2013 model here.

Yay, one of the issues I was having were fixed! When resuming from sleep mode, keyboard repeat rate and mouse speed are both restored!

However, other problems still remain:

• Plugging in or unplugging a monitor crashes the Plasma Shell, panel, KWin, or any combination of those
• Opening the app launcher and then closing it leaves the shadow on the screen
• Occasional flickering (fixed by a restart, so obviously a driver compat. issue)
• The shortcut 'Control+Shift+Meta+Tab' doesn't work. A regression from KDE4, but cannot be overridden this time by setting 'Tab' to 'Backtab' in the config file.

A new problem has cropped up too:

• When a new window aligns with a corner next to a panel, rather than going next to the panel, it goes underneath the panel an aligns with the screen.

Still, took 'til about KDE 4.9 or 4.10 to fix all the issues last time, so hopefully should all be sorted soon. There are fewer issues with KD...er... Plasma 5 than when KDE4 was at it's 5th minor release.

[GreatEmerald]

> (messing with configuration files just to add a repository is terrible)

Maybe that's why you can use a GUI or you can use add-apt-repository like in:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

Can you add arbitrary repositories, like from NVIDIA servers, that way too? If so, that's nice. But it just goes to show that all distributions are evolving, and something that you thought was true a few years ago no longer is.

However, other problems still remain:[*]Plugging in or unplugging a monitor crashes the Plasma Shell, panel, KWin, or any combination of those

Qt bug! Fixed in 5.6! Not released yet!

[Zoll]

I actually upgraded to 16.04 on my main machine and it's running smoothly thus far. The 5.5 Plasma is quite stable and everything seems to be very well integrated with pretty much all the icons ported over to Breeze. The only hiccup I ran into was in locking the screen as unlocking the session is broken and you'd have to manually run 'loginctl unlock-sessions' to be able to get back in again, but I'm sure they'll address this issue before 16.04 final is released.

[7oby]

However, other problems still remain:

• Plugging in or unplugging a monitor crashes the Plasma Shell, panel, KWin, or any combination of those

Qt bug! Fixed in 5.6! Not released yet!

Maybe there are multiple similar bugs, but this one is actually supposed to be fixed in qt >= 5.5.0:

When I disconnect monitor or connect/disconnect another monitor then all Qt5 applications disappears(process exists, GUI does not) or crashes(depending on Qt version, compilation, etc).[...]

Qt GUI application disappear or crash when no screens are available

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-42985

[GreatEmerald]

Maybe there are multiple similar bugs, but this one is actually supposed to be fixed in qt >= 5.5.0:

No, it's the same bug. There was an attempted fix for 5.5 and it failed spectacularly. It was (hopefully finally) fixed in 5.6. You should know that already if you read through the whole bug thread, though.