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The upcoming Ubuntu Studio 20.10 operating system will ditch the lightweight Xfce desktop environment for the more modern and advanced KDE Plasma desktop environment.
In the release notes for the recent Ubuntu Studio 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) release, the development team talked a bit about what we should expect from future releases.
Ubuntu Studio, an officially recognized Ubuntu flavor designed for general multimedia production, has been using the lightweight Xfce as default desktop environment for a long time now.
However, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu Studio 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) release, the default desktop environment will be switched to the beautiful and modern KDE Plasma.
Why? Because it looks like KDE Plasma comes with much better tools for graphics artists and photographers, such as the Krita painting software or Gwenview image viewer, as well as better Wacom tablet support.
Also, it looks like most of the Ubuntu Studio team is using the KDE Plasma-based Kubuntu flavor as their daily driver. Of course, these installations are populated with the Ubuntu Studio packages and artwork.
“With so many of us using Plasma, the timing just seems right to focus on a transition to Plasma with our next release,” said the Ubuntu Studio devs.
The Ubuntu Studio team assures their community that nothing will change in terms of resource usag for audio production. Furthermore, they won’t include the Akonadi server, which is a major resource hog, to make the distribution more light.
“The Plasma desktop environment has, without Akonadi, become just as light in resource usage as Xfce, perhaps even lighter,” the Ubuntu Studio team added.
Since there will be two KDE Plasma-based Ubuntu flavors with the upcoming Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) release, the Ubuntu Studio devs will collaborate with the Kubuntu team on the transition from Xfce to KDE Plasma.
The team will also evaluate the default apps included in Ubuntu Studio 20.10. With that in mind, Ubuntu Studio 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) is the last release to ship with the Xfce desktop environment.
Last updated 4 years ago
