The KDE Plasma Desktop Environment

Tagged with cinnamon, kde plasma, linux, ubuntu on July 21, 2024

As I indicated in my previous article, I considered switching to Kubuntu and the KDE Plasma desktop environment. In an older article, however, I indicated that I always returned to the Cinnamon desktop environment. For the last few days, I’ve actually been using both desktop environments.

I copied my VirtualBox virtual machine folders to an external drive and backed up my document directory to Google Drive before I started. After I installed Kubuntu over the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition, I copied everything back to where it belonged.

Kubuntu Installation

Installing Kubuntu over the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition was easy. Customizing the Plasma desktop was almost as easy. Nothing at all was difficult, actually. I simply had to follow my own notes about some things I did in the past:

I also ran this script, “Kubuntu get rid of Snap”, because I have absolutely no need for anything that I can’t get from the standard repositories. I also don’t need Flatpak-based applications.

I replaced the audio offering with Rhythmbox and the video offering with VLC. After I installed a few applications I preferred, I uninstalled a few applications I had no use for.

Customizing Kubuntu

After I learned how all the settings worked, I didn’t increase the global scale size as suggested. I forced the font DPI to 130. Increasing the global scale size screwed with the virtual machine displays, while increasing the font DPI did not. Someday I’ll buy a computer monitor large enough that reducing the font DPI will probably be a better idea. This one has a 14-inch diagonal display.

After I created desktop shortcuts to the virtual machines, I added those shortcuts to the menu. Instead of pinning them to the panel or adding them to my favorite applications, I created widgets. I had to get the SVG icons for them from Wikimedia Commons. If you look at the larger version of the image above, you should be able to see the Linux Mint and Windows icons on the right side of the panel.

I changed the wallpaper and made the panel bigger. The aspect ratio for my computer monitor is 16:10 instead of 16:9, so the panel doesn’t interfere with the display.

The Cinnamon desktop environment could take a few cues from the Plasma desktop environment. The system tray, for example, is far superior on the Plasma desktop environment. Mimicking parts of the Plasma desktop environment, or even Windows for that matter, wouldn’t take anything away from the Cinnamon desktop environment. It would only make it better.

I can’t say for sure that I’ll continue to use the Plasma desktop environment, or any specific desktop environment. What I’m now using works for me, and that’s about all I can say. There are desktop environments and window managers I will never use, but I should never say never.

Update August 6, 2024

I gave it two weeks, and then I gave up on it. Perhaps version 6 of Plasma is better, but there are too many things in version 5 that irritate me, and that’s about all I can say about it. It only took me two hours to replace it with version 22 of the Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. I feel at home once again.

Image is a screenshot by RT Cunningham, the author

← Previous Article Next Article →