4 ms·

KDE turns 30 and someone's brought an AI-native desktop proposal

42 points by pndy 6d ago

feverzsj 6d ago
Guess they never used QtQuick with LLM. LLMs are really bad at QML/QtQuick, they often use older APIs/syntaxes and generate total garbage.
- jordand 6d ago
  From what I've read on the Qt blog, this is something they're tackling with their own models and tooling. GenAI is banned where I work and I'd picked up QML pretty quickly and got productive faster than WPF/XAML
Sha1rholder 6d ago
This article has no content whatsoever... Just sending the links of relevant materials to AI would produce a better-organized result than this.
unified101 6d ago
News piece with unnecessary annoying editorializing. I think the idea of plasma widgets and rails fully being customized per user giving them material control on ones desktop is a good idea. We need good ideas to counter and take on the omarchy nonsense.
- sunaookami 6d ago
  >with unnecessary annoying editorializing The editor is Liam Proven, a notorious liar who doesn't care about facts and has a massive hate-boner for AI, what do you expect? I'm surprised he is still allowed to write for The Register.
  - UqWBcuFx6NV4r 6d ago
    the register has a red masthead for a very good and intentional reason. i think that people, especially americans, are into a bit of the british snark, but the site is by and large taken way more seriously than it deserves to be.
- bingemaker 6d ago
  When you say omarchy, are you talking about this https://omarchy.org/ https://omarchy.org/ ?
  - microtonal 6d ago
    Yes, the set of dotfiles by DHH for Arch that has raised 18.5 million dollar, while real distributions and desktops are struggling to get donations. Having a few billionaire friends who share your techbro politics helps I guess.
    - cpursley 6d ago
      DHH having to deal with gatekeeping attitudes like this and particular political prerequisites is the reason he created these “dotfiles” in the first place. I actually know several people who are not very technical and never Linux users who installed and switched to it as their main operating system. So I think what’s actually going on here is a lot of people are butt hurt that this is getting attention and having success when nobody else has before has.
      - microtonal 6d ago
        You don't think it is unfair that projects that have basically been xkcd 2347's "a project some random person in Nebraska" don't get a penny, while DHH who gets millions for a bunch of dotfiles, is unfair? I don't contest that his dotfiles may be useful to some people, only that all these companies didn't care to give significant money to open source projects that they all rely on to make their billions. But when one of the 1%ers shows up with his hobby project, they all stand in line to donate millions. To give an example: Digital Ocean is giving Omarchy $3M, while they cancelled their $50 per month GNOME/Flathub VM sponsorship a month before [1]. [1] https://social.treehouse.systems/@barthalion/117241534134006167 https://social.treehouse.systems/@barthalion/117241534134006...
        cpursley 6d ago
        Jake, non super-nerd in Ohio, never picked up Linux because they either never heard of it or the barrier to entry was to complex. Basic-ass stuff like drivers not working, etc - going on for decades now. Then along comes a personality like DHH who created an opinionated setup and now Jake has Linux on his computer for the first time ever. And now a bunch of people have been attracted to and have started hacking on linux, getting driver support working which is good for the entire Linux community - see the list here for ARM support: https://omarchy.org/news/2026/09/introducing-omarchy-dragon https://omarchy.org/news/2026/09/introducing-omarchy-dragon
hactually 6d ago
Is it going to just be an Omarchy + KDE iteration? The article was very light on content but DHH is definitely driving more results and new contributions which is great for free software.
OsrsNeedsf2P 6d ago
I love making kustom KDE widgets with LLMs[0][1]. If you like customizing your desktop, I highly recommend you take advantage of this new era. [0] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-Mouse-Click-Counter-Widget https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-Mouse-Click-Counter-Widget [1] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-AI-Usage-Tracking-Widget https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-AI-Usage-Tracking-Widget
microtonal 6d ago
Although Xfce 1.0 appeared slightly earlier, its initial releases were proprietary, making what was originally known as the Kool Desktop Environment one of the earliest entirely FOSS desktop environments for Linux. Version 1.0 was released in July 1998. What a weird opening. Also, both projects were started late 1996. A lot of people were already running KDE alphas/betas before the 1.0 release, because as a desktop it was vastly better than any of the window managers at the time. I remember installing beta 1 in 1997 was a big relief for me. It felt like the last barrier was broken for Linux taking over the desktop, now that it finally had a desktop that could compete with Windows 95. Of course, I was terribly naive, but I blame it on only being 15yo. I don't recall Xfce being used much at all. It become more popular until 5-10 years later because people were complaining that KDE/GNOME became too heavy and they were looking for more lightweight alternatives.
dgellow 6d ago
> A desktop that loves you back has to know you. Personal AI has crossed the threshold where the desktop itself can be compiled per user, per device, per moment, from a small portable model of the user – what we are sketching as Kadai: an encrypted, vendor-agnostic personal kernel from which Plasma assembles each Activity. Sounds like a gimmick that will be annoying after a week. Users who aren’t KDE developers don’t want a desktop to love them back, in fact they don’t care or want to think about their desktop beyond launching their apps and window management.
- sajithdilshan 6d ago
  That was my thought exactly. I don’t even remember last time I looked at the desktop because I always have some app open full screen. I kind of understand the intention like show a custom compiled widget stuff, but then that would be a custom dashboard and not a desktop. Even if it was a dashboard, I don’t wanna burn tokens to create gimmicky widgets
  - Sharlin 6d ago
    "Desktop" here means "desktop environment" aka the whole shell, not just the literal desktop part of the desktop metaphor.
  - queenkjuul 6d ago
    To be fair i think in KDE terms, the desktop refers to the whole experience: the panels, the notifications, the menus, the decorations, the file manager, etc. Also to be fair i think widgets are still mostly focused on the actual desktop part of the "desktop environment" Sorry to be annoying, i do think the idea in general is bad, i just think i have a better idea of what the devs are thinking if i consider the idea where the entire desktop environment as a whole reacts to how you use it instead of making every single nanoscale decision user-configurable (KDE) or deciding you know better than the user, your way or the highway (Gnome). I don't think they mean the actual like desktop view specifically, or building a dashboard
- Sharlin 6d ago
  Yeah, this may be a case of "this project is really important to me so it must be really important to the users, too".
spinningslate 6d ago
It’s going to happen in windows and most likely Mac too. In both cases, all your data will be shipped off to the model providers and then out into the panopticon. The open source desktop environments don’t have the profit motivator that drives the commercial alternatives. They’re driven to deliver their interpretation of great UI. We can each debate whether we agree with the vision or execution but that’s the motive. If they can employ AI to help remove desktop friction - and it’s local and not shipping my data off to the surveillance machine - I’d be open to it. In fact, if it could sort out KDE wallet’s amnesia for my wifi password, I’d give it a roll now…
- Sharlin 6d ago
  And in Windows it will doubtlessly be implemented such that the AI will be very helpful and make subtle UI changes based on your usage patterns, without telling you, so that your muscle memory becomes useless. And insert ads, obviously. Also, the AI should definitely have a cute animated avatar that pops up when you don't need it and offers useless advice.
drooopy 6d ago
The best way that my desktop can show me love is by being a glorified application launcher and nothing more. Also, the less meta/data that it sends back to its vendor the more love I feel that I am receiving.
tim-projects 6d ago
The desktop is a solved problem. Now we are moving into the era of agents using the mouse and keyboard and interacting with the windows manager. When I see stuff like this, I think it's clear that Linux is not going to be part of that era outside of the CLI. The Linux desktop is never going to recover from this. Gnome and KDE just keep messing. That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc. Because, these are not solving problems they are inventing them. Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. And I can see that will not change. Sure there are things like Niri and thats cool, but for agent use. It's redundant. We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. Humans will use them less and less. Because they will have better things to do. And likely better interactions. After all a mouse and keyboard while I still prefer it over voice, is still from an era where that was the best we had. Now, I actually think I prefer tmux in a terminal on my phone on a software keyboard. Over a desktop with mouse and keyboard. As clunky as it is. Because I can use that anywhere, anytime to talk to agents.
- jampekka 6d ago
  CLI is the era and likely gonna be until some more LLM/AI-focused interfaces appear, and they are not gonna look like human UIs. There's a reason all models use bash and code, not a GUI shell, for their internal sandboxen. Making LLM/AIs use mouse and keyboard makes no sense. They are a human interface tailored to human strengths and limitations, and arguably even for humans CLI is a superior interface for many tasks.
- pjmlp 6d ago
  XFCE is also a good option. It would be great if Windowmaker was still being actively developed as in the 2000's, but yeah devs moved on.
- Kon5ole 6d ago
  >The desktop is a solved problem. Can't agree with this, there's clearly room for improvement >Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. Do agree with this though. Fragmentation is not ideal for having a consistent UI and a consistent UI is needed to develop muscle memories so it can be used effectively. >We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. I don't think that will happen while AI costs dollars per minute of actual use. Being able to use a computer for free will be valuable for a long time still I think.
mleroy 6d ago
[dead]
mdlxxv 6d ago
Sorry, but a string of ones and zeroes will never "love you back".
askonomm 6d ago
I'm good, thanks. AI bros can all gather at Omarchy if they want slopOS experience.
sph 6d ago
Nowhere is safe, is it? All that is holy is profaned.
mrob 6d ago
A desktop is a tool, and the last thing I want from my tools is intelligence. Tools need to be predictable. My desktop should respond to my commands the exact same way every time so I can use it without conscious thought. If you want to introduce AI to a desktop, the best way is to add an interface for automating that desktop and add a separate AI agent that can use that interface. This also benefits accessibility tools that can use the same automation interface.
- p-e-w 6d ago
  A desktop is many things to many people, some of which use computers very differently from how engineers use them. If a desktop was only a tool, background images, Xeyes, theming, and many other standard features wouldn’t exist. There are no themes for power drills.
  - mrob 6d ago
    Those kind of cosmetic features actually do have a functional use because they let you distinguish virtual desktops at a glance. I'd like to be able to specify different window manager themes for each virtual desktop.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6d ago
    Xeyes is a useful diagnostic tool. (This isn't even just a joke.)
keriati1 6d ago
So a few months ago for various reasons I started to use ubuntu/gnome again (after 15 years on MacBooks / OS X / MacOS) on my home PC. I have to say, in my case, command line llm made the desktop so much more enjoyable. Sadly still a lot of things did not work correctly out of the box, and everything was kinda fixable, but would have needed some bigger time investment from my side. Instead just telling llm cli that something does not work correctly, and waiting a few minutes until it fixes it is just so much better for me. Do I want LLMs all over the place in my desktop? Probably not. But having an LLM fixing all kind of broken or miss-configured software is just so convenient.
hypfer 6d ago
> A desktop that loves you back has to know you. Is this another downstream consequence of the COVID lockdowns? Do people need a hug? ___ Hmm. So from the actual talk description, these seem to be UX people that might have interesting ideas to share but also have completely lost the plot when it comes to the overarching narrative. Which is unsurprising, given that their summary is clearly written by AI (albeit with human editing, but barely) https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/ https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/
VCFundedGenYer 6d ago
Pretty sure KDE said no AI period. This won’t stand.
jmclnx 6d ago
>In 2003, they conducted a usability study of the then newly released KDE 3.1. >The talk has three parts: what KDE learned – or failed to learn – from that study; This caught my eye, seems in many forums people still say 3.1 was the best KDE. But I remember trying out KDE 3.1 on Slackware at the time. All it did was give me extremely severe eye strain after about 1 hour of use. GNOME, XFCE and various Window managers did not give me eye strain of any type. New releases of KDE still caused that issue with me, but I found a color theme that I can use with KDE 5 that holds off eye strain after about 4 or 5 hours. Again all other DE and WMs, no issues. FWIW, I really like KDE 5, but it can still hurt my eyes :( I have not tried 6.x and will not see it until Slackware 16 is released. I will give it a shot but with my history, I am sceptical it will be fine for me.

42 points by pndy 6d ago

Guess they never used QtQuick with LLM. LLMs are really bad at QML/QtQuick, they often use older APIs/syntaxes and generate total garbage.

jordand 6d ago
From what I've read on the Qt blog, this is something they're tackling with their own models and tooling. GenAI is banned where I work and I'd picked up QML pretty quickly and got productive faster than WPF/XAML

Sha1rholder 6d ago

This article has no content whatsoever... Just sending the links of relevant materials to AI would produce a better-organized result than this.

unified101 6d ago

News piece with unnecessary annoying editorializing. I think the idea of plasma widgets and rails fully being customized per user giving them material control on ones desktop is a good idea. We need good ideas to counter and take on the omarchy nonsense.

sunaookami 6d ago
>with unnecessary annoying editorializing The editor is Liam Proven, a notorious liar who doesn't care about facts and has a massive hate-boner for AI, what do you expect? I'm surprised he is still allowed to write for The Register.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 6d ago
  the register has a red masthead for a very good and intentional reason. i think that people, especially americans, are into a bit of the british snark, but the site is by and large taken way more seriously than it deserves to be.
bingemaker 6d ago
When you say omarchy, are you talking about this https://omarchy.org/ https://omarchy.org/ ?
- microtonal 6d ago
  Yes, the set of dotfiles by DHH for Arch that has raised 18.5 million dollar, while real distributions and desktops are struggling to get donations. Having a few billionaire friends who share your techbro politics helps I guess.
  - cpursley 6d ago
    DHH having to deal with gatekeeping attitudes like this and particular political prerequisites is the reason he created these “dotfiles” in the first place. I actually know several people who are not very technical and never Linux users who installed and switched to it as their main operating system. So I think what’s actually going on here is a lot of people are butt hurt that this is getting attention and having success when nobody else has before has.
    - microtonal 6d ago
      You don't think it is unfair that projects that have basically been xkcd 2347's "a project some random person in Nebraska" don't get a penny, while DHH who gets millions for a bunch of dotfiles, is unfair? I don't contest that his dotfiles may be useful to some people, only that all these companies didn't care to give significant money to open source projects that they all rely on to make their billions. But when one of the 1%ers shows up with his hobby project, they all stand in line to donate millions. To give an example: Digital Ocean is giving Omarchy $3M, while they cancelled their $50 per month GNOME/Flathub VM sponsorship a month before [1]. [1] https://social.treehouse.systems/@barthalion/117241534134006167 https://social.treehouse.systems/@barthalion/117241534134006...
      - cpursley 6d ago
        Jake, non super-nerd in Ohio, never picked up Linux because they either never heard of it or the barrier to entry was to complex. Basic-ass stuff like drivers not working, etc - going on for decades now. Then along comes a personality like DHH who created an opinionated setup and now Jake has Linux on his computer for the first time ever. And now a bunch of people have been attracted to and have started hacking on linux, getting driver support working which is good for the entire Linux community - see the list here for ARM support: https://omarchy.org/news/2026/09/introducing-omarchy-dragon https://omarchy.org/news/2026/09/introducing-omarchy-dragon

hactually 6d ago

Is it going to just be an Omarchy + KDE iteration? The article was very light on content but DHH is definitely driving more results and new contributions which is great for free software.

OsrsNeedsf2P 6d ago

I love making kustom KDE widgets with LLMs[0][1]. If you like customizing your desktop, I highly recommend you take advantage of this new era. [0] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-Mouse-Click-Counter-Widget https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-Mouse-Click-Counter-Widget [1] https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-AI-Usage-Tracking-Widget https://github.com/dginovker/KDE-AI-Usage-Tracking-Widget

microtonal 6d ago

Although Xfce 1.0 appeared slightly earlier, its initial releases were proprietary, making what was originally known as the Kool Desktop Environment one of the earliest entirely FOSS desktop environments for Linux. Version 1.0 was released in July 1998. What a weird opening. Also, both projects were started late 1996. A lot of people were already running KDE alphas/betas before the 1.0 release, because as a desktop it was vastly better than any of the window managers at the time. I remember installing beta 1 in 1997 was a big relief for me. It felt like the last barrier was broken for Linux taking over the desktop, now that it finally had a desktop that could compete with Windows 95. Of course, I was terribly naive, but I blame it on only being 15yo. I don't recall Xfce being used much at all. It become more popular until 5-10 years later because people were complaining that KDE/GNOME became too heavy and they were looking for more lightweight alternatives.

dgellow 6d ago

> A desktop that loves you back has to know you. Personal AI has crossed the threshold where the desktop itself can be compiled per user, per device, per moment, from a small portable model of the user – what we are sketching as Kadai: an encrypted, vendor-agnostic personal kernel from which Plasma assembles each Activity. Sounds like a gimmick that will be annoying after a week. Users who aren’t KDE developers don’t want a desktop to love them back, in fact they don’t care or want to think about their desktop beyond launching their apps and window management.

sajithdilshan 6d ago
That was my thought exactly. I don’t even remember last time I looked at the desktop because I always have some app open full screen. I kind of understand the intention like show a custom compiled widget stuff, but then that would be a custom dashboard and not a desktop. Even if it was a dashboard, I don’t wanna burn tokens to create gimmicky widgets
- Sharlin 6d ago
  "Desktop" here means "desktop environment" aka the whole shell, not just the literal desktop part of the desktop metaphor.
- queenkjuul 6d ago
  To be fair i think in KDE terms, the desktop refers to the whole experience: the panels, the notifications, the menus, the decorations, the file manager, etc. Also to be fair i think widgets are still mostly focused on the actual desktop part of the "desktop environment" Sorry to be annoying, i do think the idea in general is bad, i just think i have a better idea of what the devs are thinking if i consider the idea where the entire desktop environment as a whole reacts to how you use it instead of making every single nanoscale decision user-configurable (KDE) or deciding you know better than the user, your way or the highway (Gnome). I don't think they mean the actual like desktop view specifically, or building a dashboard
Sharlin 6d ago
Yeah, this may be a case of "this project is really important to me so it must be really important to the users, too".

spinningslate 6d ago

It’s going to happen in windows and most likely Mac too. In both cases, all your data will be shipped off to the model providers and then out into the panopticon. The open source desktop environments don’t have the profit motivator that drives the commercial alternatives. They’re driven to deliver their interpretation of great UI. We can each debate whether we agree with the vision or execution but that’s the motive. If they can employ AI to help remove desktop friction - and it’s local and not shipping my data off to the surveillance machine - I’d be open to it. In fact, if it could sort out KDE wallet’s amnesia for my wifi password, I’d give it a roll now…

Sharlin 6d ago
And in Windows it will doubtlessly be implemented such that the AI will be very helpful and make subtle UI changes based on your usage patterns, without telling you, so that your muscle memory becomes useless. And insert ads, obviously. Also, the AI should definitely have a cute animated avatar that pops up when you don't need it and offers useless advice.

drooopy 6d ago

The best way that my desktop can show me love is by being a glorified application launcher and nothing more. Also, the less meta/data that it sends back to its vendor the more love I feel that I am receiving.

tim-projects 6d ago

The desktop is a solved problem. Now we are moving into the era of agents using the mouse and keyboard and interacting with the windows manager. When I see stuff like this, I think it's clear that Linux is not going to be part of that era outside of the CLI. The Linux desktop is never going to recover from this. Gnome and KDE just keep messing. That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc. Because, these are not solving problems they are inventing them. Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. And I can see that will not change. Sure there are things like Niri and thats cool, but for agent use. It's redundant. We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. Humans will use them less and less. Because they will have better things to do. And likely better interactions. After all a mouse and keyboard while I still prefer it over voice, is still from an era where that was the best we had. Now, I actually think I prefer tmux in a terminal on my phone on a software keyboard. Over a desktop with mouse and keyboard. As clunky as it is. Because I can use that anywhere, anytime to talk to agents.

jampekka 6d ago
CLI is the era and likely gonna be until some more LLM/AI-focused interfaces appear, and they are not gonna look like human UIs. There's a reason all models use bash and code, not a GUI shell, for their internal sandboxen. Making LLM/AIs use mouse and keyboard makes no sense. They are a human interface tailored to human strengths and limitations, and arguably even for humans CLI is a superior interface for many tasks.
pjmlp 6d ago
XFCE is also a good option. It would be great if Windowmaker was still being actively developed as in the 2000's, but yeah devs moved on.
Kon5ole 6d ago
>The desktop is a solved problem. Can't agree with this, there's clearly room for improvement >Everything that makes Linux great, simply hasn't translated to the desktop GUI. Do agree with this though. Fragmentation is not ideal for having a consistent UI and a consistent UI is needed to develop muscle memories so it can be used effectively. >We are done with desktops. They will be handed off to ai. I don't think that will happen while AI costs dollars per minute of actual use. Being able to use a computer for free will be valuable for a long time still I think.

mleroy 6d ago

[dead]

mdlxxv 6d ago

Sorry, but a string of ones and zeroes will never "love you back".

askonomm 6d ago

I'm good, thanks. AI bros can all gather at Omarchy if they want slopOS experience.

sph 6d ago

Nowhere is safe, is it? All that is holy is profaned.

mrob 6d ago

A desktop is a tool, and the last thing I want from my tools is intelligence. Tools need to be predictable. My desktop should respond to my commands the exact same way every time so I can use it without conscious thought. If you want to introduce AI to a desktop, the best way is to add an interface for automating that desktop and add a separate AI agent that can use that interface. This also benefits accessibility tools that can use the same automation interface.

p-e-w 6d ago
A desktop is many things to many people, some of which use computers very differently from how engineers use them. If a desktop was only a tool, background images, Xeyes, theming, and many other standard features wouldn’t exist. There are no themes for power drills.
- mrob 6d ago
  Those kind of cosmetic features actually do have a functional use because they let you distinguish virtual desktops at a glance. I'd like to be able to specify different window manager themes for each virtual desktop.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6d ago
  Xeyes is a useful diagnostic tool. (This isn't even just a joke.)

keriati1 6d ago

So a few months ago for various reasons I started to use ubuntu/gnome again (after 15 years on MacBooks / OS X / MacOS) on my home PC. I have to say, in my case, command line llm made the desktop so much more enjoyable. Sadly still a lot of things did not work correctly out of the box, and everything was kinda fixable, but would have needed some bigger time investment from my side. Instead just telling llm cli that something does not work correctly, and waiting a few minutes until it fixes it is just so much better for me. Do I want LLMs all over the place in my desktop? Probably not. But having an LLM fixing all kind of broken or miss-configured software is just so convenient.

hypfer 6d ago

> A desktop that loves you back has to know you. Is this another downstream consequence of the COVID lockdowns? Do people need a hug? ___ Hmm. So from the actual talk description, these seem to be UX people that might have interesting ideas to share but also have completely lost the plot when it comes to the overarching narrative. Which is unsurprising, given that their summary is clearly written by AI (albeit with human editing, but barely) https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/ https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/

VCFundedGenYer 6d ago

Pretty sure KDE said no AI period. This won’t stand.

jmclnx 6d ago

>In 2003, they conducted a usability study of the then newly released KDE 3.1. >The talk has three parts: what KDE learned – or failed to learn – from that study; This caught my eye, seems in many forums people still say 3.1 was the best KDE. But I remember trying out KDE 3.1 on Slackware at the time. All it did was give me extremely severe eye strain after about 1 hour of use. GNOME, XFCE and various Window managers did not give me eye strain of any type. New releases of KDE still caused that issue with me, but I found a color theme that I can use with KDE 5 that holds off eye strain after about 4 or 5 hours. Again all other DE and WMs, no issues. FWIW, I really like KDE 5, but it can still hurt my eyes :( I have not tried 6.x and will not see it until Slackware 16 is released. I will give it a shot but with my history, I am sceptical it will be fine for me.