News About Desktop Environments: Enlightenment, KDE, GNOME, and Others
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-02 10:13:07 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-02 10:13:07 UTC
Enlightenment
With the latest Git development work for the Elementary tool-kit and library, applications can run directly from the DRM driver interface without any display server / compositor / window manager. Applications can be created to run in DRM and by setting the ELM_ENGINE=drm option the apps will run in a standalone mode without anything else underneath.
Current support work is being done to enable client-side applications (as opposed to making a Wayland compositor itself - that is a future plan). Currently EFL applications that use the lower-level Ecore-Evas and higher level Elementary API's will work and display correctly in Wayland, handle input, resizing and moving. Client-side frames are already provided. Both Shared-memory buffers AND EGL/OpenGL-ES2 buffers are supported. The Shared-memory buffers are purely CPU-rendered, meaning that they will work with or without OpenGL hardware acceleration support. They are fast and usable. The OpenGL-ES2 display is fully accelerated with all primitives being rendered by OpenGL (Hardware acceleration) and already work fully due to a long history of supporting this under X11 and other embedded EGL/OpenGL-ES2 environments.
KDE
April 1, 2014. Today KDE makes available the first beta of Frameworks 5. This release is part of a series of releases leading up to the final version planned for June 2014 following the previous alpha last month. This release marks the freeze of source incompatible changes and the introduction of the Frameworks 5 Porting Aids.
And KDE knows what happens when you alienate a group of users since the moment when the anger of some people over KDE 4 lead to the first prominent fork of KDE software, the Trinity Desktop Environment.
Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the fourth in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.8. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.
Part of the KDE PIM group is meeting over this weekend in Barcelona in the spacious BlueSystems offices, hacking on all sorts of things. Me and David Edmundson took the oportunity to do some super huge changes to our KPeople library that are needed and as the library is in its dawn, it's better to do it sooner than later. These are all internal and boring changes, but one of the changes we've been working on here is really cool and worth mentioning.
The CD and DVD era is coming to an end and developers don't really bother to innovate when it comes to applications that deal with this media. There are quite a few apps that are capable of writing to DVDs available for the Linux platform, and K3B is one of the best.
The fourth beta of digiKam Software Collection 4.0 is now available for photographers interested in testing out this popular KDE software component.
digiKam team is proud to announce the fourth beta release of digiKam Software Collection 4.0.0.
Qt3D is the Qt component that adds 3D support to Qt Quick for easily integrating 3D functionality. Qt3D has been in development for some time and was going to be an "essential" module to Qt 5.0 before being moved to just an add-on as part of Nokia's Qt changes prior to selling it to Digia. Qt3D offers up a lot of potential for 3D user-interfaces and applications, but hasn't seen too much work recently -- the last time we got to mention it was when talking about OpenGL taking on a greater role within Qt in late 2012.
The KDE Project developers have just released the first Release Candidate of Applications and Platform 4.13, and it's all about fixes and improvements.
“KDE has released the release candidate of the 4.13 versions of Applications and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing,” said the KDE developers.
“The Calligra team has released version 2.8.1, the first of the bugfix releases of the Calligra Suite, and Calligra Active in the 2.8 series. This release contains a few important bug fixes to 2.8.0 and we recommend everybody to update,” reads the official announcement.
GNOME
Announcing her departure, Karen said: “Working as the GNOME Foundation Executive Director has been one of the highlights of my career.” She also spoke of the achievements during her time as Executive Director: “I’ve helped to recruit two new advisory board members… and we have run the last three years in the black. We’ve held some successful funding campaigns, particularly around privacy. We have a mind-blowingly fantastic Board of Directors, and the Engagement team is doing amazing work. The GNOME.Asia team is strong, and we’ve got an influx of people, more so than I’ve seen in some time.”
Zukitwo, a beautiful theme designed for GNOME 3.12 that makes use of the GTK2 engine Murrine and the GTK2 pixbuf engine, is now at version 2014.03.29.
The Zukitwo theme was updated shortly after the release of GNOME 3.12 and it’s probably the first theme to support the new version of GNOME. A lot of other themes will probably follow soon but, coincidentally, Zukitwo is also one of the best ones around.
Our dedication towards Wayland has pushed us to build a cleaner architecture overall. What used to be a proliferation of X-specific video and input drivers is mostly culminating in centralized, standardized code. For input, we have libinput, which we’re using from Weston, mutter, and Xorg as well. What used to be a collection of chipset-specific video plugins for doing accelerated rendering have now been replaced by glamor, a credible chipset-independent acceleration architecture. What used to be large monolithic components heavily tied to Xorg and the Xorg input and video architectures have now been split out into separate, easily-reusable libraries with separate, easily-maintainable codebases. New, experimental features can be prototyped faster than ever before.
One of the great things about Linux distributions is the customization. In contrast, an operating system like Windows 8 is rather limited. Sure, you can change some colors, wallpapers and sounds, but pretty much, it is what it is. What you see is what you get. That is probably fine for most people, however, Linux users are not most people.
Itching to get your hands on the latest goodies from Gnome? Look no further… If you’d like to see the project’s latest efforts, including getting the best look at the latest Gnome core apps (Music, Weather, Maps, Videos), Matthias Clasen has a special gift for you. He’s made a special live CD containing a complete Gnome 3.12 atop Fedora 20.
Review When the GNOME 3.x desktop arrived it was, frankly, unusable. It wasn't so much the radical departure from past desktop environments, as the fact that essential things did not work properly or, more frustratingly, had been deemed unnecessary.
THE GNOME PROJECT has released Gnome 3.12, the latest version of the heavyweight Linux desktop environment, which adds support for better displays and faster startup times.
Earlier today GNOME 3.12 has been released, bringing major new features, several redesigned programs and three new applications: Logs, Sound Recorder and Polari.
Misc.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Microsoft OSI Uses Its Money to Hire PR Agencies That Spy and Spread Mindless Openwashing of GPL-Violating Microsoft Ploy
- `We're under attack. But the attackers smile at us and hire PR firms to spy, mislead etc.
- In Nigeria, Africa's (by Far) Largest Population, Microsoft Bing is the 0%
- To Microsoft, Africa is just "someplace" to get intensive, hard-working human 'resources' (tech labour) at 2 dollars 'apiece' as in per person per hour
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- Microsoft Layoffs and Closures Now Reported in Africa
- Microsoft Uninstalls Nigeria as it closes African Development Centre (ADC) in Lagos
- [Video] Richard Stallman, "I Saw You Playing Your Recorder in Paris" (Due to Proprietary Software Only)
- Corporate autocrats do not want counterparts or alternatives to even exist
- Five Years After the Extensive Campaign of Defamation Against Richard Stallman He's Still Giving Public Talks
- "Richard Stallman will give a talk, in French, Free Software and Freedom in a Digital Society at Centrale Supelec in Saclay, on May 15."
- Microsoft Is Rebranding Its 'Chatbot' Search for the Third Time Because It Fails to Gain Adoption
- it always means that something has failed - not that they'll openly admit it
- Richard Stallman Gives a Talk in Paris Next Week (in French) and It's About Freedom
- another talk, which he has only just announced
- Pace Up, Distractions Down
- We've made our curation process faster and more efficient
- In Algeria, GNU/Linux Estimated to Have Grown Tenfold in a Decade
- a sharp rise in GNU/Linux usage
- [Meme] Red Hat Diversity
- Red Hat: don't mention Haghighi
- Our Sister Site Turns 20 in Exactly One Month
- twentieth anniversary of the site
- Corporate Media Focuses on Who's Suing Red Hat, Not What It's Sued For
- The unfortunate thing is, anybody who has an opinion on this lawsuit will inevitably be framed as "pro-Trump" or "anti-Trump"
- Links 10/05/2024: Many More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 09, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 09, 2024
- Gemini Links 10/05/2024: geminispace.info to Shut Down in 3 Weeks
- Links for the day
- Links 09/05/2024: Journalists in Detention, China Banning Songs or Anthems
- Links for the day
- Support for harassment and abuse victims
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 09/05/2024: Being Sick Enough and End of “World of Ends“
- Links for the day
- Links 09/05/2024: 'Hey Hi' (AI) Bubble Implodes Some More, Microsoft Layoffs So Widespread It's Hard to Keep Track
- Links for the day
- Speaking of Enshittification and Freedom, We've Still Not Begun Tackling the UEFI 'Secure' Boot Mess (Preventing GNU/Linux From Even Booting!)
- Microsoft continues to fly under the radar and commit competition crimes with impunity
- Microsoft Has Just Confirmed Mass Layoffs in Nigeria, It Now Adds Insult to Injury With Price Hikes for Locals
- It's not like Microsoft paid them good salaries
- Software Enshittification or Freedom? It's not a hard choice!
- Reprinted from Alexandre Oliva
- Links 09/05/2024: More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way
- Links for the day
- Amid Microsoft Layoffs in Nigeria GNU/Linux Climbs Above 6% Market Share (Not Including ChromeOS)
- Hundreds are being laid off by Microsoft in Nigeria, based on yesterday's reports
- [Meme] Blame the Robots or the 'Hey Hi' (AI), It Always Works in Today's Media
- Companies do not have financial troubles! They have "efficiencies"...
- News Reports Say Many More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way, Rumours Say Red Hat Also Imminently a Target
- Microsoft is slipping out of control
- Links 09/05/2024: Diplomacy Efforts With China, AstraZeneca Stops Experimenting With COVID-19 Vaccines
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 08, 2024
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 08, 2024
- Gemini Links 09/05/2024: Registered Computer Professionals and TLS (The Long Slog)
- Links for the day
- Links 08/05/2024: Android Malware and "AI" Hype
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Technical Committee With People Who Are Not Technical
- the computing/computer industry being occupied by people who lack suitable background
- The Demise of Computer Science Education
- Education is essential for the future; without it, whole nations will perish
- [Video] Prisons for the Minds and for Tech Workers
- Today's video talks about what happens to workforces (across disciplines) in recent years
- [Meme] Struggling to Leave Its Nazi Past Behind
- digital arson
- Microsoft Declines to Talk About How Many People It Has Just Laid Off
- Hours ago in IGN: "Microsoft did not say how many staff will lose their jobs, but significant layoffs are inevitable. IGN has asked Bethesda for comment. Microsoft declined to expand further when contacted by IGN."
- Microsoft Windows in South America: From 99% to 87%
- the latest from statCounter
- It's Rather Obvious Why They Try to Silence Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, and Daniel Pocock
- Some of them already sent physically menacing messages to Daniel Pocock
- IRC Network of Techrights Turns 3 (or 16 if We Count the Freenode Days)
- In a few months IRC turns 36
- Sedating Oneself (and Shareholders) With Fuzzy Buzzwords and Pointless Acquisitions
- IBM trying to buy time
- Clickfraud Spamnil Ran Out of Clickfraud Budget, Apparently
- sooner or later charlatans and frauds run out of steam
- Techrights Gets Under the Skin of Bad, Corrupt, Immoral People (That's a Good Thing)
- Journalism is the lifeblood of democracy and free societies
- Companies Do Not Shut Down Offices and Lay Off Staff en Masse (Morale and Reputation Issue) Unless They're in Deep Financial Trouble
- Microsoft has been faking its financial performance for years
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 07, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 07, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- [Video] Leaving Microsoft Behind for the Sake of National Security
- Threats to "National Security" aren't some users with an Android phone but Microsoft at the root of things
- GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Now at 6% in France, According to statCounter
- numbers from statCounter