Using Plasma/Printable version

Using Plasma

The current, editable version of this book is available in Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection, at
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_Plasma

Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Introduction

Plasma: A Neo-Introduction

Plasma is an uncommon name for an uncommon concept which offers a user common services. What does that all mean? It will all be revealed but first let us introduce to you the common services that Plasma offers.

Plasma is

• A place to put common files
• A place to put commonly needed information
• A way to organize tasks
• A way to control your work (or play!) area to your exact specifications
• A way to move from any type of work environment the very large to the very small, the option filled to the very constrained and still have control over the same data with much of the same power.
• A thing of Beauty

Plasma's Role

Plasma is both the replacement for the Desktop metaphor in KDE5 as well as a framework for creating interfaces. We will be focusing on what Plasma does for users.

Plasma offers widgets, a place to put them, panels which can be hidden and themes. Many of the things that you are used to from other desktop software are now available as widgets so you can build a desktop as you see fit. By default it is setup as a traditional desktop so you will recognize many things right off.

What is Plasma

The login screen of Plasma 5

Plasma is the graphical environment used by KDE.

First impressions

Introducing the Plasma Desktop

An example desktop on Plasma 5.25 running on Arch linux.