It’s always been just KDE to me. In the past year or so, I’ve noticed people calling Plasma KDE or even just Plasma. What happened? Why do people insist on making the name longer? Why the word Plasma? What is Plasma referring to? And, are they trying to move away from the KDE name to just Plasma?
Answer: Plasma is the desktop environment. KDE is the community that makes Plasma and many other related software.
Because the “kde” package is a meta-package that has all the utilities of a KDE-install too, while the “plasma” package has only the desktop.
Everyone here sorta answers the questions but not entirely. So KDE started back in the 1990s as K Desktop Environment as a play on the Common Desktop Environment. The K was originally suggested as standing for Kool buy I guess others in project didn’t think that was very kool and it was left officially as just K.
As to why Plasma - when KDE 4 was released, “Plasma” replaced Kdesktop shell and whatnot and was named Plasma because plasma evokes dynamic fluidity like plasma or some such lol. Unfortunately I can’t find anything easily on the interwebs that shows how it got it’s name :/
References:
KDE is a community of developers.
KDE Plasma is the desktop environment made by the KDE community.
This has been the correct terminology since 2009, much longer than “the past year or so”, but a lot of people do still call KDE Plasma just “KDE” colloquially, so maybe you have just been noticing people using the correct terminology more recently.
Kids these days and their “Plasma”. BACK IN MY DAY it was just KDE!
I’m not sure why this feels new to me. Perhaps it’s because I spent a lot of time on other DEs after 2009.
But also, from that link:
We will use “KDE” exclusively in two meanings:
- KDE, the community, which creates free software for end users
- As an umbrella brand for the technology created by the KDE community
So I don’t feel like it’s wrong to just call it KDE, just imprecise.
It’s super confusing because “KDE” is literally the acronym for “K Desktop Environment”.
Well KDE used to stand for K Desktop Environment as a rif off of CDE Common Desktop Environment. They named kde 4 plasma when kde was overhauled during that release. Since kde does much more than just the DE they moved to just be KDE stands for KDE like how KFC no longer stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Was it 4? I thought it came around for the 5 release. I think I switched DEs for almost the entire 4 debacle then switched back at 5 when it stopped sucking.
Edit: NM, I see I just missed it by skipping 4: https://dot.kde.org/2009/11/24/repositioning-kde-brand/
