Plasma 6.2 review - Slowly getting there, but the road is long
Quoting: Plasma 6.2 review - Slowly getting there, but the road is long —
Well, here we are. I played with the Plasma 6.2 desktop for a while, collected a bunch of screenshots, and then wrote this report. My findings? Mostly positive. That said, there are (too) many little quirks, bugs and problems, primarily related to the visual side of things. UI borders and separators and such. Thin lines, thick lines, missing lines, too many lines. Wayland still isn't ready for prime time, as crucial accessibility and usability features remain missing. I don't want to use a beta-quality 85% ready thing. Nope. I want feature-complete tools. The system defaults are better, but they can improve still.
This is a very nice desktop environment. I think the transition from 5.X has been mostly okay, smoother than the 4.X to 5.X ride, for sure. Even so, things aren't as optimal as they could be. Wayland shouldn't be part of the Qt6 equation, as it must make life harder for the development team. On top of that, this is the third major release of the new edition, and it still feels somewhat immature. Versioning has lost its meaning in the modern world. What's the point of a GA, when it's merely Beta 5 or Beta 6? The same is true for every distro out there. They get released on a specific date, arbitrarily, but then reach "stability" after 4-9 months. You might as well never declare stable, or keep things perpetually beta (as they often practically are). Technically, it would have made sense for Plasma 6 to be released only next February, and use this year for serious bug squashing. And only then commence work on Wayland, or if you ask me, never.
Well, we can't go back in time, so Plasma 6.2 is Plasma 6.2. It is what it is. And it ain't bad. Plasma 6.2 is beautiful, very fast, mostly robust, and peppered with a slew of various bugs and problems, which will hopefully, eventually go away. Worth testing, just remember, it's still too early to use this for production machines. And we're done here, fellas.