KDE releases today Plasma Mobile 6. Check out its renewed base system and apps.
This version comes with a new and improved shell, a new home screen with heaps of new features, enhancements of the base system, improvements in apps like Clock, Kasts and Photos, and much more.
It would really be nice to have a greater variety of hardware options available for those of us who don’t want to be forced into Android or iOS here in the US and Canada. From what I understand, our lack of options is due to a variety of factors: business deals locking phones to a particular OS and/or carrier and locking down the bootloader, American phone models using CPUs that just can’t have the OS changed, and most alternative OS’es and open hardware models/standards being primarily developed in Europe and therefore focusing on the European market over North America, as well as others. It means we’re virtually stuck with the Google Pixel here, which is essentially paying Google to not have to use Google’s OS, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m using one of the very few non-Pixel options with /e/OS, the Murena One, but it leads to another problem, the non-Pixel options having very limited options for carriers because most carriers don’t know them so won’t touch them.
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While KMail isn’t necessary at all to use KDE (even Neon uses Thunderbird as its default email app) I think I know what you’re getting at. The issue isn’t KMail itself. Installing KMail will also install Kontact, which runs with Akonadi server on the back end, and Akonadi is the culprit for it being so “far embedded” into Plasma and on some setups can use up just as much RAM as Plasma itself on its own. It’s my main complaint about KMail/Kontact/Akonadi, if they could get the RAM usage under control (you seriously don’t need to use almost a freaking GB of RAM just to keep track of email, contacts and a calendar, Thunderbird does it using less than half the memory), it would be a really nice system for one bundled with a DE.
Yes, I know that or else Plasma wouldn’t work for most people. What I mean is that it’s so “far embedded” in the sense that it uses an outsized amount of resources to do what it does compared to the rest of Plasma when it is installed, mainly for the sake of integration with those other parts of Plasma. But as far as I’m aware, KMail and other Kontact programs depend on it so you can’t remove it and have them work. Which is Kontact’s big problem, IMO. Way too taxing on the system for too little functionality at the end of the day.
YES I UNDERSTAND THAT. I feel you’re not reading me right here. You’re getting hung up on the literal sense of the word “embedded” when I am just using it to relate it to the OP’s concerns.