Setting up a new device with KDE Plasma will soon be improved, as KDE developers work on a revamped ‘first run experience’ through a revival of KDE Initial System Setup (aka KISS).
If you’ve ever unboxed a new laptop with Windows or macOS you’ll have been greeted by a slick, guided setup to walk you through creating a user account, setting timezone and language, etc.
Most KDE Linux distros handle user-creation stuff through the Calamares installer, with an OEM mode for, well, OEMs to use to delegate setup on first boot. Though serviceable, it’s not as slick as the initial setup on Windows, macOS or even GNOME.
The KDE Initial System Setup tool was created to do things better. Following a stalled start, a renewed effort is underway to build-out the ideas behind KISS, finish the codebase, and improve what it does and the way in which it does it.
End result: users booting into a new KDE-powered machine for the first time get a welcome peppered with KDE’s trademark personality, which is something hardware makers who sell laptops with KDE-based Linux distributions on will appreciate.
People do say first-run, out-of-the-box impressions count—well, they say something like that.
So, what’s new?
A recent update from KDE developer Kristen McWilliam reports on some of the new features and capabilities added to the (hitherto crusty) KISS codebase:
- It now runs and compiles (always a good start)
- Code fixes, cleanup, and UI/UX polish
- User account creation now works (placeholder GUI previously)
- Language and Keyboard layout pickers are in place
Per McWilliam’s blog post, which also includes a video of it in action, getting the keyboard layout selector implemented wasn’t easy but reusing parts of Plasma’s existing keyboard-related settings helped.
Along with locale details and account creation, there is also a step where the user can adjust screen brightness, change scaling resolution and enable/disable dark theme.
More work is to come, of course.
The setup tool still needs to tackle critical tasks with the correct permissions (before a user has created a password to provide it – sysusers.d and a polkit rule may work); and it needs to auto-start on first boot (so systemd may come to the rescue).
More trivially than that, KISS might have to kiss-goodbye to its initialised name!
Initial Setup setup done, onwards!
KDE’s new first run experience is under active development and not yet ready for prime time use but progress on its revival has been brisk, which is highly promising.
With this desktop’s growing adoption by hardware makers, adding the kind of slick, OEM-friendly setup experience other OSes offer should help reassure new users they’ve made a smart choice, helping bolster Linux adoption more broadly.