On June 9, the KDE project He launched plasma 5.19.0. Although it did introduce some interesting new features, it did not add as many new functions as v5.18 of the graphical environment, the latest LTS that includes Kubuntu 20.04 by default. Two weeks after the original release made available to users Plasma 5.19.2, that is, the second maintenance release in this series, and we were not a few who were confused because it had not yet reached the KDE Backporst repository. Why?
We already have an answer. And I am not saying that this answer has come today through an official statement, but that people like a server did not know it and it has explained it to us Rick Mills, from KDE, through the social network Twitter. If, like me, you are hoping to open Discover and have Plasma 5.19.x appear as an update, I have some bad news for you: they do not plan to do the backport, which means it won't appear in the Backports repository for a few months.
Plasma 5.19.x depends on Qt 5.14
The thing is, the latest version of Plasma relies on Qt 5.14 and Kubuntu 20.04 includes only Qt 5.12 LTS. Therefore, yes i'm right and Qt 5.14 does not reach the Backports PPA either, Kubuntu users will not be able to install Plasma 5.19 until Kubuntu 20.10 is released Groovy Gorilla.
Plasma 5.19 needs Qt 5.14. 20.04 has Qt 5.12 LTS, so 5.19 will not build in backports.
- Rik Mills (@ rikmills88) June 25, 2020
Plasma 5.20 will be released on October 13, which is not enough time for it to be included in Groovy gorilla default. Therefore, those of us who usually add the KDE Backports repository will see v5.19 in passing, the time that will pass between installing the operating system, adding the Backports repository and installing the new version that will take a week available. On the other hand, those who are enjoying the latest version of the KDE graphical environment from the beginning are the users of systems like KDE neon, but because they use special repositories that are updated more and sooner than the Backports.
But it's not all bad news: v5.19 came with so many bugs to fix that the first maintenance update introduced hundreds and hundreds of fixes. On the other hand, the version released in February is an LTS that has already received 5 updates and will receive more in the coming weeks, so we will not enjoy the latest until October, but we will do it on a more stable desktop. It's something.