The Linux Experiment

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New Webkit based browser coming to Linux

KDE splits Kwin X11 codebase away

Mesa replaces Nouveau with NVK

Nova driver submitted for kernel 6.15

France rejects encryption backdoor law

Xbox handheld might be bad news for Linux gaming

Valve talks Steam Deck and Steam year in review

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Latest AMD GPus aren't all there yet on Linux

GNOME adds global shortcuts, cursor shape protocol, and more

Firefox & Thunderbird 136 are huge updates

Freedesktop.org found hosting, will be down for a week

EA releases Command and Conquer source code

Path of Exile 2 devs support Linux

Wine adds DX11 to Vulkan Video translation layer

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#firefox #mozillafirefox #mozilla

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Torvalds settles the Rust in Linux debate

Fedora project lead seems to misrepresent Flathub

Flathub posts detailed explanation of their security model

Cosmic Alpha 6 is out

GNOME 48 beta is released with triple buffering

Mozilla changes leadership, direction again

Valve publishes Team Fortress 2 source code

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Ok, when you're wrong, you're wrong. And I was completely wrong about GNOME and touchscreens. In my previous video, I blasted GNOME for being barely usable with touchscreens, because, well, it was, in my experience.

Turns out, I didn't go deep enough. This was all Ubuntu's fault.

I went with Fedora 41 and its very default version of GNOME. On Fedora, I had tiling working by just dragging windows to the edges, something that Ubuntu didn't have, likely due to their own tiling extension they added, that doesn't work well.

I also could long press on elements of the desktop or inside of apps, and I got a stable right click menu that didn't disappear after I lifted my finger, again, something that didn't work inside Ubuntu, a-even with all the drivers installed.

I also could open menubars inside of apps that have them. What didn't work though, was the onscreen keyboard inside of KDE applications.

Another thing that didn't work on Ubuntu, but did in Fedora is swiping on the app grid, anywhere.

I used Fedora's Plasma mobile spin for this one, and It's a very good experience.

Swiping from the top edge opens quick settings, that let you access a LOT of the settings you'd need, it's great, apart from the scrolling test inside each one which makes it look very busy. I guess it's aimed more at smartphones, and doesn't resize that well on bigger devices.

Default apps are perfectly sized and suited for touch, with clear interfaces, easy to use, big buttons, it's nice. Opening full size desktop apps also works well, with menubars even being resized and enlarged, although for large menus, it makes it a bit annoying to navigate.

Phosh is installable on fedora, so that's what I did, and I could just pick it as an option from the login manager. I won't go over it for too long because it's basically just the GNOME shell with very small adaptations, and it's clearly not meant for laptops / big screens.

After that, swiping from the top edge of the screen brings the notifications and quick settings that occupy the entire screen, which is unnecessary àon a big screen like this, but coherent on a smartphone. These toggles can be expanded using the mobile settings app that phosh comes with.

So, first, mea maxima culpa for GNOME: it is indeed very good, it's just htat Ubuntu destroys its touch capabilities with changes they make to GNOME. Second, Plasma Mobile is really nice, even on 2 in 1s, although I still prefer the regular KDE Plasma for a 2 in 1?. Plasma mobile is excellent for tablets, and presumable for phones, if they mange to run it as competently and smoothly as this laptop does.

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The device I'll be using is a review unit of the Tuxedo Infinity Flex.

The laptop is powered by an Intel core i5 1335U, so 10 cores, 4.6Ghz.

Because this thing weighs 1.5kilos. The touchscreen is a non glare 14 inch, 1920x1200 display. It's 400 nits, so decently bright, and supports 100% of SRGB.

As per the battery life, you can expect about 6h of video playback on that 55Wh battery.

In terms of build quality, the thing is very solid, mostly aluminium, with rigid hinges, that once set, simply don't move.

The laptop part of it is also really good, the touchpad is smooth, doesn't rattle in place, and the click is firm and nice. The keyboard has good key travel, solidly sized keys, and it doesn't make a huge amount of noise either.

The speakers are decent, they get loud enough, and while they don't have a lot of bass they don't distort unless you're listening to something really high pitched at max volume

Let's conclude on the I/O, here you get a barrel charger plug, HDMI 2.0, one USB A 3.2 gen 2, a thunderbolt 4 port, and a USB C 3.2 gen 2 port. Those last 2 do display port 1.4 and power delivery so you don't NEED the barrel charger, USB C works fine.

The Plasma experience on a touchscreen is actually really, really good. The desktop automatically scales itself with bigger padding, bigger icons, more spacing in most KDE / Qt apps, the system tray icons also get bigger and easier to hit, and window buttons also get larger

I could drag windows to a screen edge or to the top, and they'd resize, I could grab a corner of a window to resize it, I could long press a folder in the file manager to get advanced options, I could long press on the desktop to customize it, I could even pinch to zoom inside the file manager or in the image viewer to zoom in and out, although it wasn't free form zoom, so not super smooth everywhere.

Only adding widgets to the desktop was not really doable, as I couldn't scroll the widget list, it instead started a drag and drop operation of whatever widget my finger caught.

The onscreen keyboard that's preinstalled here is called maliit, and it works, it has language switching, an emoji board, and it automatically pops up when you're in touch mode, if any app has a text field pre selected, or when you touch a text field yourself.

KDE plasma even works with the same gestures you have on touchpads, so 3 fingers up shows the desktop grid, 3 fingers sliding down show all virtual desktops and the window spread. 3 fingers left or right also switches between virtual desktops if you have multiple ones.

GNOME is on the surface, well suited to touchscreens. Everything is already well padded and easy to touch, and generally, it works fine. It does ask you to double click a lot more than KDE.

You can still use gestures here, 3 fingers to bring the activity view, 3 fingers from there for the app grid, or 3 fingers left and right to switch desktops. Pinch to zoom works better in the image viewer than in KDE, but it doesn't work in the file manager.

You can't drag a window to the top or side of the screen to tile it. You can't swipe anywhere in the app grid, you have to aim between app icons.

The onscreen keyboard is fine, and works well, but doesn't appear for KDE / Qt apps, only for GTK apps.

Generally, inside of GTK / GNOME apps, things work ok, you can scroll, tap, change settings, open menus, move windows around, but the functionality is still more limited than inside of KDE in my experience.

I did encounter an issue where sometimes, nothing is touchable inside of a GNOME apps, nothing works. It's infrequent, and not easily reproducible, but it happens, and it basically makes the entire desktop unusable until the app in question crashes.

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OBS threatens to sue Fedora

GNOME has a new website, and potentially branding ?

Plasma 6.3 is now out

Google Chrome's extension moves are unpopular

Research shows AI is overhyped

FEX update for better x86 emulation on ARM

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#linuxdesktop #kde #kdeplasma