It has been almost a year since the launch of KDE Plasma 5.10 , a version that at that time looked quite sensational thanks to the beautiful evolution that has been suffering the desktop environment in recent years .
KDE Plasma 5.13 is just around the corner, and now that Plasma team members have released the first beta , we can see that this is a very important update that not only optimizes performance and offers a faster desktop, it includes powerful new features.
Plasma 5.13 is not only one of the most polished environments available today, but the team spent months optimizing the start and minimizing the use of memory . The most basic things like the pop-up windows of the panel were optimized to work smoothly even in the most modest hardware, something that for those of us who have come to use KDE in other times, always proved problematic.
This version includes several new features as well, such as new lock and login screens, a redesign of the system settings section, KWin (the KDE graphics composer) has received better effects, Discover (the software add-on installer) ) has new functions and new look , and a lot of additional details.
Plasma Browser Integration
But perhaps one of the most interesting things about this future release will be Plasma Browser Integration, a package of new features that integrate Firefox and Chrome or any browser based on Chromium, with the KDE desktop .
For example, directly in the notification panel you can see things like the progress of the downloads that you have in the browser and pause or stop them. If you are playing videos or music in the browser, you will also have controls through the multimedia control Plasmoid.
You just have to add the add-on from the app store for your favorite browser. Plasma 5.13 is in beta, users of Kubuntu 18.04 LTS will be able to upgrade to this version as soon as it is released by adding the repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
If you are a KDE Neon user, one of the best ways to enjoy the benefits of Plasma, you will have to have the latest version of the distro (18.04) and wait for the update through the same system, or go to KDE Neon developer edition that It is unstable.
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