 So I'm in the middle of recording and editing my long-term review of MX Linux And I've been promoting this and teasing this for quite a while And I promised that it's going to be released sometime this week But during the process of recording that I was starting to talk about KDE Plasma because I've been using KDE Plasma While doing the review and I was gonna talk about my qualms and stuff with Plasma in that review But I decided to pull it out and actually just do a dedicated video about my time with Plasma over the last month Because I think that it deserves a little bit more time than just a few seconds in a longer review of something else So that's what I'm gonna do today. So I've been using Plasma almost full-time now since the end of December So it's almost a month now I have used my Highling window managers a few times during that time so it hasn't been a hundred percent full-time So I just want to be completely honest about that But for the most part I've been spending most of my time in Plasma and I have some thoughts now When I first use started using Linux, I did what everybody does I floated around to all of the different desktop environments I avoided window managers like to play because they were very intimidating at the time I was new to Linux and it just seemed like something that was really too hard for me to get into so I Was stuck to the main players in the desktop environment space. I I used GNOME. I use Plasma. I use Mate Budgie Xfce and all of them like I switch back and forth like crazy But over time I found that Plasma was my favorite nice was One of the biggest KD Plasma fanboys out there I loved it and one of the reasons why was because of the amount of customization you can do Anybody who's watched the channel for any amount of time will know That I like to tweak things. I like to change stuff. I like to customize stuff So the fact that out of all the desktop environments KD has the most ability to be customized kind of really Meant that it was right up my alley So Plasma was my favorite back then but then I started using tiling window managers And then I got to be more of a minimalist when it comes to stuff and More of a nerd when it comes to customizing things and was more interested in customizing stuff through a configuration file than a GUI and Plasma fell by the wayside. I haven't actually used Plasma or really any Floating window manager slash desktop environment probably for three years since I started using tiling window managers and Coming back into Plasma and using it full-time has been really really weird It's like it's very jarring because the workflow That I have in like DWM or i3 or whatever is completely different than in floating window manager slash Desktop environment like Plasma the windows are all over the damn place. They taught they're not tiled I mean you can make tiling and stuff obviously, but for the most part the workflow is everything's just kind of layered on top of each Other and getting to stuff is Much different than what I'm used to I'm very much used to using a keyboard centric workflow And I find myself using the mouse more in Plasma, so it's been really weird So first let me talk about the positive stuff I've been trying but mostly failing to make my videos at least start more in the positive stuff I'm obviously the things that I ran about almost always negative So those are more negative videos but for the times where there is positive stuff I want to kind of lead with that so of the positive things I will say that customizability still remains a huge thing of kd Plasma. I think it's fantastic So let me take you to my kd Plasma desktop so you can actually find something to look at other than me And this is what my kd Plasma desktop looks like right now, and it's not anything special I've just went through and did a Nord rice and not even all that great because there's you know No latte doc or anything like that. It's just kind of plain, but I like it The thing is is that as much as I like customizing stuff I found that I actually prefer the more Traditional kde layout then something that looks like macOS or something like that I used to always put a latte doc on there and make it look like macOS, but I don't do that anymore this turned out to be fine and in terms of Customizing all this stuff. I love the fact that there's built-in themes I finally learned how to use covantum back when I was first using plasma. I had no clue how to use covantum I'm pretty sure that covantum at that point was just getting started And it was different than it is now But or maybe I was just more of an idiot back then than I am now was able to figure that out this time and got That all working in stuff got blur and all that stuff working I was able to go through and customize the workspaces I was able to go through and customize the key bindings that I needed to do so for example I have super entered in order to get to a terminal I have super w in order to open up a browser and I have super cute a closed stuff So I was able to bring over some of the workflow that I'm familiar with in a window manager to kde And it's made the transition a little bit easier So one of the things that I've had a problem with is Windows being lost like for example on this monitor It has become a catch-all for pretty much everything on this one workspace over here, which you can actually see I have OBS I have audacity open. I have to do is to have a terminal. I have discord. I have Crusader open over there. It's Absolute mess and I would never do that in a window manager. So the work like I said the workflow is completely different But it's not bad. It's just different is that is the point I was make it is the point I need to make there is that I'm not entirely opposed to it just it goes against my Habit of organizing my windows in certain workspaces. So let's next talk about workspaces. I have workspaces installed or not installed but enabled on Plasma and I have four of them and You can see them moving their craziness with all the animations and stuff I but I will say I still haven't got rid of I should get rid of the van animation just because they kind of bother me But I've just left them and the thing is I don't use workspaces when I use plasma I It pains me to say this guy everybody knows that I'm a workspace guy like when I have DWM here I use all 18 workspaces a lot and the thing about BSPWM when I use that I usually have 20 workspaces and I use a lot of them and I organized my windows And I knew where everything's at and all this stuff. It feels like when I'm in a Like I'm a floating window manager, and I use workspaces hardly at all every once in a while I will remember that they're there but for the most part all my windows just remain its first workspace and I'll tab through stuff and it just you know, it's fine. I will say That I have mixed feelings about the settings panel. So when I first used plasma way back when I Thought that the settings panel was a mess But I like the fact that it had a lot of options. So I kind of overlooked the fact that it was a mess It has gotten more organized in the time period between Then and now I will say that it's also gotten easier to search. So if I find something that I need to search So let's just say I need to search for monitors I Can go through and do that like even though monitors isn't in that title It knows that I'm looking for displays. That's way better. That's miles in a way better. It but it's still a Mess like it. There's just way too much here They need to bury some of the stuff into like submenus like they used to now Everything seems to be on a like a top-level menu, and there's just a few submenus They've gotten rid of a few of the submenus and it makes it a little bit more complicated I feel and one of the things I will notice is like I've used KD plasma a few times throughout the last year not like as a Daily driver but as part of like a distro review or something and I've noticed that every single distro seems to do the settings panel Just a little bit different They tweak it or they're using a different version or something and I know the plasma guys are always tweaking this So it makes it a little bit confusing for me So I don't know if this is the most recent version Where they're at or if there's you know an improved version that would come if I wasn't using a Debian based distro It's confusing and I know that this isn't actually the most recent because in the most reason you can actually choose between light and dark Theme on this like beginners page, and you can't do that here. So this isn't the most recent version and but the thing is is that there's just so much here and Well, I like it. I can highly see I can very much see why anyone who's new to Linux would find this horribly overwhelming is there's just so much there now I mean the top level alone Should all be combined into an appearance section that's it should be and the thing is is that they don't Do a good job of differentiating what any of this stuff here here means so we have a global theme a plasma style What is the plasma style? What's the difference between a plasma style and a global theme? What's the difference between an application style and a plasma style? What's the difference between an application style and the global style you get the point, right? They've made it too complicated now I understand from a customer's ability standpoint the ability to go through and Customize different parts of the theme Makes sense, but when you're new to something the fact that they have multiple things that appear to basically do the same thing They don't do the same thing, but that they appear to do the same thing is overwhelming and confusing the same thing with having something That's called colors So basically what colors does is it allows you to go through and Minutely control the colors of everything that should not be a top level option at all That should be buried below because the vast majority people are never going to use it the new people just want to set a theme So have a themes level and then everything else can be buried a little bit I that's what I would do and then you can do fonts and icons and cursor stuff those things aren't confusing at all I mean that every distro pretty much has error every desktop environment pretty much has those so I guess I mean I was trying to be positive, but I've kind of Meandered into the some of the negative stuff too, but I'm of two minds about of the settings panel I like the fact that there's so many options, but I also think that it's still entirely too confusing now There are a couple negative things that I just need to to bring up So the first thing is that out of the box Katie plasma is very good on resources and stuff like that It's very good when it's just sitting at idle and it's doing nothing But I have noticed that once you've gone through and done some theming once you've gone through and using some of the Katie applications it tends to eat up a lot of memory for some reason I'm not sure why right now it seems to be doing okay, and it's not all the time But some Katie applications tend to take up a lot of memory and sometimes it's just the theme that takes up a lot of memory I'm not sure why that is either some icon themes Also seem to take up more memory than they should and you'll you'll see that if you open up like H top You'll see that plasma is taking up way more memory than normal And I found that it was actually the icon theme that I was using why that is I don't know I've also noticed on this particular version of plasma that k-win crashes sometimes it doesn't happen often But I'll I'll be I'll come back from wherever and Wake up my computer, and I'll notice that everything has a black bar around it I'll try to put up an example of this guy took a screenshot of it everything has a black bar around it and screen tearing is crazy again and It's really slow So I actually have to go through and either kill k-win or log out and log back in in order to get everything Working back together again, and that's annoying now whether or not that's an MX Linux problem or it's KD problem I don't know but that is still there overall my experience has been as I said before it's been Jarring because I'm not used to it. I love the customizability I love the fact that you can go through and install a lot of widgets You can change is the menu into different different types of menus You can go through and add different types of panels and stuff like that that stuff all remains Fantastic, and I think it's it's superior to any other desktop environment in that way I know with like Xfce and cinnamon and stuff like that You can go through and do a lot of the same stuff, but it feels better and more Built-in more part of the desktop environment in Plasma that it doesn't any other desktop environment. I like that stuff in terms of the other stuff Like I said before with it with the settings panel It still is a mess now if you listen to the podcast either last week or week before Tyler was talking about how the plaza the settings panel was a mess and overwhelming for him as well So I know that it's not just me who thinks this like it is an overwhelming Kind of mess now. I said it has gotten better over the years But at least in this particular version It's not great and that is kind of kind of a bummer because it's still It's one of its best features right right? It's the kid all the settings and stuff that Katie comes with is one of the things that makes Katie Katie it makes if you took all the Customizability out of Katie you'd be left with GNOME right and it wouldn't be all that good and That wouldn't be a good thing and I don't want them to take the customizability out of it I just want them to make it easier to understand and navigate through the menus. I the one thing I did not cover in this Small review or whatever is discover and let's take a look at discover actually before we leave This is discover and the reason why I didn't cover it is because I don't use it Okay with MX Linux. They have their own package installer I use that instead or I just used apt in the terminal discover It has always been a pain point for Katie plasma for many years. It is or at least it was Not good that would putting it kindly. It was not good. It has gotten Somewhat better. So like if you used to be if you clicked on an application You wouldn't get this nice little panel with screenshots and stuff like that It would just be blank stuff and you know, sometimes they didn't have Settings they definitely did not have reviews half the stuff that they were supposed to have was broken a lot of times It used a lot of memory a lot of times the search didn't work you get the point it used to be bad I want to say that it's good now, but it's it's not I don't understand How the same people who designed the settings panel to look like this and have all these categories of stuff has managed to Go through and put all the Categories for this stuff buried in a submenu. It's really weird now. I understand obviously it's easier to it's easy to go Through and find the categories, but it's still a click, right? And if you don't know to do that I mean why not just have the categories here and it doesn't make sense to me, right? It's still a little weird. Also, I would just suggest that they steal from GNOME Just a little bit go through and make their application store look more like a store I mean they have a feature section, but it just looks like a list You know, I mean have have a rotating like slider of stuff there make it look a little bit fancy I don't I don't know it just it doesn't feel good to me and I never use it because it has gotten better I love the fact that the reviews thing is in ratings thing is here And it works and people are actually using it Maybe it's my past experiences with this discoverer that is coloring my experience with it now And actually I can say that that's exactly true because I didn't use it all that much I just I looked at it like oh this looks almost exactly the same as it did last time only with More pictures and then left it behind so that's discover so just to wrap this up I've been going on for a little bit too long But the the bottom line is will I continue to use plasma after my MX Linux review is over the answer to that question is no And the reason why isn't because plasma is bad. I just want to get that out there like plasma is not bad I started my my video out this time talking about how the experience for me has gone And that's basically the reason why I'm going back to winter managers because I feel less organized with plasma that's just absolutely the case my windows are all over the place and Getting to them isn't easy right so you can have an expose a like Blowout mode where it shows you all your open windows and then you can click on the window that you're looking for You can do that or you can do that alt-tabbing that I was showing earlier Which is what I really usually do and you can click there as well Or you can just all keep all tabbing through this stuff and then get the thing you want That's way more work than I want to do I want to be able to go to a certain workspace and know that what's on that workspace is the things that I need right so for Example on workspace six. I always want OBS and audacity now I could go through and actually use workspaces here like I usually do but I don't and I don't Really know why I think some of it's going to be the animations and I can turn those off But I haven't some of it is just going to be have it because things open up willy-nilly Places I just leave them wherever they spawn and that's another thing that I that I good Lord This video is gonna go on for a while, but I need to talk about this for a minute when you spawn something You never know where it's gonna spawn now and that's always been a problem with Katie plasma right from the beginning Every time I used it. This was a problem, but if you used to be that there used to be a setting. Oh that was like Spawning always follows mouse or focus always follows mouse or something Where the so that where whenever you opened up a window or an application It would always spawn underneath the mouse and that setting is actually still here in Katie plasma They've called it something different It's harder to find but it's still there and I enabled it The problem is is that plasma doesn't follow it like it doesn't follow the rule so When I stuck a spawn a terminal sometimes it'll open up on the one monitor Sometimes it'll open up on another monitor and it doesn't matter where the mouse is Sometimes they'll open up on another workspace. That was really weird That doesn't happen often most of the time it just depends on you know It stays on the same workspace. It just switches monitors randomly wherever wherever something spawns and that drives me bonkers Man, it's like it's it's the biggest problem. I'm surprised. I almost forgot to talk about this like This is the thing that drives me nuts the most about plasma is that you never know where something's gonna spawn Like for example great when I was gonna begin to Start this video. I spawned OBS and OBS spawned exactly where I needed to spawn where the mouse was on this monitor And then the next thing I want to do is spawn audacity because I record the audio separate And I have to hide the mouse over here. So I opened up K-Runner, which K-Runner is fantastic I love K-Runner. It's awesome. I should talk about that too, but I did a video on that She should look at watch that video. But anyways, I hope I spawned K-Runner I typed in audacity hit enter and instead of doing over here where the mouse was it opened up on the other monitor So I had to move the audacity to this monitor where I wanted it. It's annoying and it's not just audacity It's literally pretty much anything like so sometimes when I spawn discord this monitor will be focused I'll hit the discord icon in the taskbar. They'll spawn over here. Sometimes it'll do the opposite There's no reason to it. It doesn't make any sense. And like I said, there's a setting in there that says you know focus follows mouse. It doesn't follow it. It has to be a bug, but it's still very annoying So this has turned into a rant video, but I didn't want to do that because for the most majority of my experience here I liked using plasma It was good for me to get away from a tiling window manager because I was kind of taking like DWM for granted Because DWM is really good and it became my daily driver and I spent all this time customizing it and getting all the key bindings and scratch pads and all that stuff where I needed to go And I kind of was kind of taking it for granted. So coming going away from it And uh using plasma has been really good for me because it kind of has made me realize exactly what I love about tiling window manager And it's going to allow me to kind of enjoy going back to that when I'm done with this The one other thing I should talk about is scratch pads. So I use scratch pads like crazy and Katie doesn't have scratch pads. So the one thing is that's good about this is that First of all, I've gotten used to just opening up terminals like crazy Like I like five or six terminals just open up here all the time And I do that in DWM as well But I always have certain things that are in scratch scratch pads So the one thing about Katie is that you can find other applications to do basically the same thing So if I hit f4 I get you walkie or whatever the hell it's called. Yeah, you walkie I don't know how you pronounce it But whatever it's just a drop drop down terminal and it works fine and it has tabs So I can go through and you open up pulse mixer here and then open up a tab with Like ncmcpp or whatever the hell it's called or htop in another tab And then I can always just have that there It's not as good as a regular scratch pad That's always assigned to a certain application by a key binding But it was good enough for me So That is it for this video I probably could go on for another half an hour talking about my new little things, but Overall my experience was okay. It was just very jarring And it reminded me of why I like tiling win a manager so much. I don't think that I would enjoy Using plasma full-time long term like longer than this. I would be okay with it Like if plasma was the only option out there, I'd be fine with it I don't think I could say that about genom. I think I'd have so many problems with the lack of customizability with genom I'd have problems with it I have lived in genom for a while and it was fine But I like plasma miles in a way better than genom and I could live in plasma if it was the only option but Because it's not the only option and tiling window managers exist I don't see myself being able to be happy with plasma long term And that's more of just a me promise Just I think I would have to completely rework my workflow in plasma in order to start utilizing workspaces in order to get away from this whole I shove all my work windows on one monitor and just leave them there. I that's not working for me It's just not I feel disorganized and Uh, it feels bloated to me. I'm just gonna be you know, it just feels like it's not It slows down my workflow quite a bit And that's more of a me thing like because I could use the workspaces, but I don't and I don't know why it's like it's Maybe because they're not in my face all the time like with a tiling window manager You have the numbers up there all the time. So they're always in my face But I'm also used to using the keyboard and with the tiling with the floating window manager floating desktop environment I use the mouse all the time. So changing the workspace makes me go back to the keyboard and It's a it's a weird mixture of input mechanisms. It's weird. So anyways That is it for this video. I've rambled on for quite a while. Thanks for watching Uh, you can follow me on twitter at linux cash. Also, you can if you have comments on plasmo You can leave those in the comment section below. Make sure you like and subscribe I really do appreciate everybody who does that you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Sidday devon east coast web patricle primus marcus megalin jackson and fuel steve a sabre guy linux garrick Mitchell arch-centered carbon dated jeremy shon odin martin e merrick camp josh lee j dog peter a crucible and dark band at six Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time