I run KDE5 on Slackware-current on my Acer C720p. Interestingly I haven't had most of the problems people report here. SDDM works as far as I can tell and shutdown/reboot worked as soon as I added my user to the 'power' group. Even the trackpad, which didn't work properly under any other DE, works well.

But still, I get random freezes of my desktop which aren't recoverable. I have to switch to a text console and kill X. But this might as well be a kernel problem. I haven't checked whether those cease to happen under another DE. Generally support for the C720p isn't up to speed on the 3.18 kernel. Probably I should test everything using a newer kernel.

No, you're not. KDE is to desktop environments what Sisyphos is to Greek mythology. As soon as KDE reaches a peak of stability and usability, the developers let this rock roll down a hill, only to begin from somewhere near the bottom. I've been using KDE 2.x, 3.x and 4.x, but given the track record of regressions, I've simply lost interest.

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This reminds me of a similar conversation we had back in February when I started the thread 'First Impressions of KDE5'. You said:
To which I replied:
For reference's sake, I point you to the thread in question.

There's an old saying, I believe, that would pertain to these perpetual regressions: 'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. It'd be funny if it weren't so (sometimes tragically!) true.

I always have KDE installed (whatever version ships with Slackware) and never use it as such. But I run some of the KDE apps under Fluxbox, that's good enough for me.

I use the latest AlienBob packages for KDE 5 and they work well for me. I feel it as an improvement over KDE4.

Well, at least someone finds it useful. I guess I just like the predictability,functionality,tweakability, & stability of KDE4. Just set in my ways, I suppose.

I like the fact that your workspaces/desktops/activities (choose what you want to call it, since they all have the same effect) can have different wallpapers in KDE4. That's honestly the biggest thing that keeps me on 4 instead of switching completely to 5.

Mr. Miller, There's a lot of confusion about the differences between workspaces, desktops and activites (and didn't KDE refer to virtual desktops before? I do believe that term has been replaced be workspaces). AFAIK, few people use activities and according to this article (link below), the idea is not well publicized by the KDE folks.

Now that activities are much more fully implemented I can see a couple of reasons for using them - they have the ability to clearly segregate the tools you have in front of you and put the ones you need for specific environments right up front. That's understandable and maybe beneficial if you use the same computer for, say, work and home. I have trouble imagining other environments where that kind of separation is really needed. Of course, that may be just my lack of imagination.

So activities seem like a solution without a problem, mostly. But if KDE is intent on taking functions away from workspaces (uh, virtual desktops)(despite what the article says, I haven't found a way to have each workspace contain different widgets, plasmoids or wallpaper) and putting them into activities (each activity can have a different set of those), then they are sort of forcing the issue. There may be no loss, ultimately. But I'm not sure there's going to be a gain.

Here's the article - it's worth a read. http://www.datamation.com/open-sourc...ctivities.html

Yeah, they want to get rid of workspaces/desktops entirely and go to only activities, but in the end, a separate workspace/desktop or a separate activity accomplishes the same task. It gives you another place to work, so I consider them all the same thing.

I hadn't found a way to have separate wallpapers in 5 (although I admit I look for like 2 minutes each time I install it, then just live with it knowing it's only in a VM and is just going to get deleted in 3-4 days). I don't use any widgets on the desktop whatsoever (I HATE seeing things on the desktop, annoys me when I'm in Windows that you have to do so much to remove the recycle bin), I just like my various whatever you wanna use to have individual wallpapers.