From what I've read on the Qt blog, this is something they're tackling with their own models and tooling. GenAI is banned where I work and I'd picked up QML pretty quickly and got productive faster than WPF/XAML
Is it going to just be an Omarchy + KDE iteration? The article was very light on content but DHH is definitely driving more results and new contributions which is great for free software.
Although Xfce 1.0 appeared slightly earlier, its initial releases were proprietary, making what was originally known as the Kool Desktop Environment one of the earliest entirely FOSS desktop environments for Linux. Version 1.0 was released in July 1998.
What a weird opening.
Also, both projects were started late 1996, but a lot of people were already running KDE alphas/betas before the 1.0 release, because as a desktop it was vastly better than any of the window managers at the time.
I remember installing beta 1 in 1997 was a big relief for me. It felt like the last barrier was broken for Linux taking over the desktop, now that it finally had a desktop that could compete with Windows 95. Of course, I was terribly naive, but I blame it on only being 15yo.
> A desktop that loves you back has to know you. Personal AI has crossed the threshold where the desktop itself can be compiled per user, per device, per moment, from a small portable model of the user – what we are sketching as Kadai: an encrypted, vendor-agnostic personal kernel from which Plasma assembles each Activity.
Sounds like a gimmick that will be annoying after a week. Users who aren’t KDE developers don’t want a desktop to love them back, in fact they don’t care or want to think about their desktop beyond launching their apps and window management.
I still remember opening Firefox one day to test something (I primarily use Vivaldi), and since it had recently updated itself, it showed its "what's new" page, with the big words "Thank you for loving Firefox!".
KDE does a lot more than launching apps and window management. Mounting storage devices, settings, widgets for managing a whole lot of stuff (power, printers, networks...), managing remote file systems, a huge integrated set of apps (from PDF reader to file manager), managing switching displays....
This is a proposal to be discussed. KDE activities are a useful feature few people use because its different and a pain to set up so something that might benefit from a but of automation. Given KDE's approach it will be configurable and optional. The people behind i seem to be drawing on past work on looking at what users actually liked.
It’s going to happen in windows and most likely Mac too. In both cases, all your data will be shipped off to the model providers and then out into the panopticon.
The open source desktop environments don’t have the profit motivator that drives the commercial alternatives. They’re driven to deliver their interpretation of great UI. We can each debate whether we agree with the vision or execution but that’s the motive.
If they can employ AI to help remove desktop friction - and it’s local and not shipping my data off to the surveillance machine - I’d be open to it.
In fact, if it could sort out KDE wallet’s amnesia for my wifi password, I’d give it a roll now…
And in Windows it will doubtlessly be implemented such that the AI will be very helpful and make subtle UI changes based on your usage patterns, without telling you, so that your muscle memory becomes useless. And insert ads, obviously. Also, the AI should definitely have a cute animated avatar that pops up when you don't need it and offers useless advice.
The best way that my desktop can show me love is by being a glorified application launcher and nothing more. Also, the less meta/data that it sends back to its vendor the more love I feel that I am receiving.
The desktop is a solved problem. Now we are moving into the era of agents using the mouse and keyboard and interacting with the windows manager.
When I see stuff like this, I think it's clear that Linux is not going to be part of that era outside of the CLI. The Linux desktop is never going to recover from this.
Gnome and KDE just keep messing. That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc.
Because, these are not solving problems they are inventing them. Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. And I can see that will not change. Sure there are things like Niri and thats cool, but for agent use. It's redundant.
We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. Humans will use them less and less. Because they will have better things to do. And likely better interactions. After all a mouse and keyboard while I still prefer it over voice, is still from an era where that was the best we had.
Now, I actually think I prefer tmux in a terminal on my phone on a software keyboard. Over a desktop with mouse and keyboard. As clunky as it is. Because I can use that anywhere, anytime to talk to agents.
Can't agree with this, there's clearly room for improvement
>Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI.
Do agree with this though. Fragmentation is not ideal for having a consistent UI and a consistent UI is needed to develop muscle memories so it can be used effectively.
>We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai.
I don't think that will happen while AI costs dollars per minute of actual use. Being able to use a computer for free will be valuable for a long time still I think.
A desktop is a tool, and the last thing I want from my tools is intelligence. Tools need to be predictable. My desktop should respond to my commands the exact same way every time so I can use it without conscious thought.
If you want to introduce AI to a desktop, the best way is to add an interface for automating that desktop and add a separate AI agent that can use that interface. This also benefits accessibility tools that can use the same automation interface.
A desktop is many things to many people, some of which use computers very differently from how engineers use them. If a desktop was only a tool, background images, Xeyes, theming, and many other standard features wouldn’t exist. There are no themes for power drills.
Those kind of cosmetic features actually do have a functional use because they let you distinguish virtual desktops at a glance. I'd like to be able to specify different window manager themes for each virtual desktop.
So a few months ago for various reasons I started to use ubuntu/gnome again (after 15 years on MacBooks / OS X / MacOS) on my home PC. I have to say, in my case, command line llm made the desktop so much more enjoyable.
Sadly still a lot of things did not work correctly out of the box, and everything was kinda fixable, but would have needed some bigger time investment from my side.
Instead just telling llm cli that something does not work correctly, and waiting a few minutes until it fixes it is just so much better for me.
Do I want LLMs all over the place in my desktop? Probably not. But having an LLM fixing all kind of broken or miss-configured software is just so convenient.
Is this another downstream consequence of the COVID lockdowns?
Do people need a hug?
___
Hmm. So from the actual talk description, these seem to be UX people that might have interesting ideas to share but also have completely lost the plot when it comes to the overarching narrative.
Which is unsurprising, given that their summary is clearly written by AI (albeit with human editing, but barely)
>In 2003, they conducted a usability study of the then newly released KDE 3.1.
>The talk has three parts: what KDE learned – or failed to learn – from that study;
This caught my eye, seems in many forums people still say 3.1 was the best KDE.
But I remember trying out KDE 3.1 on Slackware at the time. All it did was give me extremely severe eye strain after about 1 hour of use. GNOME, XFCE and various Window managers did not give me eye strain of any type.
New releases of KDE still caused that issue with me, but I found a color theme that I can use with KDE 5 that holds off eye strain after about 4 or 5 hours. Again all other DE and WMs, no issues. FWIW, I really like KDE 5, but it can still hurt my eyes :(
I have not tried 6.x and will not see it until Slackware 16 is released. I will give it a shot but with my history, I am sceptical it will be fine for me.
29 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] threadI think the idea of plasma widgets and rails fully being customized per user giving them material control on ones desktop is a good idea.
We need good ideas to counter and take on the omarchy nonsense.
[0] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-Mouse-Click-Counter-Widget [1] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-AI-Usage-Tracking-Widget
What a weird opening.
Also, both projects were started late 1996, but a lot of people were already running KDE alphas/betas before the 1.0 release, because as a desktop it was vastly better than any of the window managers at the time.
I remember installing beta 1 in 1997 was a big relief for me. It felt like the last barrier was broken for Linux taking over the desktop, now that it finally had a desktop that could compete with Windows 95. Of course, I was terribly naive, but I blame it on only being 15yo.
Sounds like a gimmick that will be annoying after a week. Users who aren’t KDE developers don’t want a desktop to love them back, in fact they don’t care or want to think about their desktop beyond launching their apps and window management.
Eww.
This is a proposal to be discussed. KDE activities are a useful feature few people use because its different and a pain to set up so something that might benefit from a but of automation. Given KDE's approach it will be configurable and optional. The people behind i seem to be drawing on past work on looking at what users actually liked.
The open source desktop environments don’t have the profit motivator that drives the commercial alternatives. They’re driven to deliver their interpretation of great UI. We can each debate whether we agree with the vision or execution but that’s the motive.
If they can employ AI to help remove desktop friction - and it’s local and not shipping my data off to the surveillance machine - I’d be open to it.
In fact, if it could sort out KDE wallet’s amnesia for my wifi password, I’d give it a roll now…
When I see stuff like this, I think it's clear that Linux is not going to be part of that era outside of the CLI. The Linux desktop is never going to recover from this.
Gnome and KDE just keep messing. That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc.
Because, these are not solving problems they are inventing them. Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. And I can see that will not change. Sure there are things like Niri and thats cool, but for agent use. It's redundant.
We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. Humans will use them less and less. Because they will have better things to do. And likely better interactions. After all a mouse and keyboard while I still prefer it over voice, is still from an era where that was the best we had.
Now, I actually think I prefer tmux in a terminal on my phone on a software keyboard. Over a desktop with mouse and keyboard. As clunky as it is. Because I can use that anywhere, anytime to talk to agents.
It would be great if Windowmaker was still being actively developed as in the 2000's, but yeah devs moved on.
Can't agree with this, there's clearly room for improvement
>Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI.
Do agree with this though. Fragmentation is not ideal for having a consistent UI and a consistent UI is needed to develop muscle memories so it can be used effectively.
>We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai.
I don't think that will happen while AI costs dollars per minute of actual use. Being able to use a computer for free will be valuable for a long time still I think.
If you want to introduce AI to a desktop, the best way is to add an interface for automating that desktop and add a separate AI agent that can use that interface. This also benefits accessibility tools that can use the same automation interface.
Sadly still a lot of things did not work correctly out of the box, and everything was kinda fixable, but would have needed some bigger time investment from my side.
Instead just telling llm cli that something does not work correctly, and waiting a few minutes until it fixes it is just so much better for me.
Do I want LLMs all over the place in my desktop? Probably not. But having an LLM fixing all kind of broken or miss-configured software is just so convenient.
Is this another downstream consequence of the COVID lockdowns? Do people need a hug?
___
Hmm. So from the actual talk description, these seem to be UX people that might have interesting ideas to share but also have completely lost the plot when it comes to the overarching narrative.
Which is unsurprising, given that their summary is clearly written by AI (albeit with human editing, but barely)
https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/
>The talk has three parts: what KDE learned – or failed to learn – from that study;
This caught my eye, seems in many forums people still say 3.1 was the best KDE.
But I remember trying out KDE 3.1 on Slackware at the time. All it did was give me extremely severe eye strain after about 1 hour of use. GNOME, XFCE and various Window managers did not give me eye strain of any type.
New releases of KDE still caused that issue with me, but I found a color theme that I can use with KDE 5 that holds off eye strain after about 4 or 5 hours. Again all other DE and WMs, no issues. FWIW, I really like KDE 5, but it can still hurt my eyes :(
I have not tried 6.x and will not see it until Slackware 16 is released. I will give it a shot but with my history, I am sceptical it will be fine for me.