A laptop by KDE

Earlier this year we announced a joint venture between KDE and Slimbook that we named the KDE Slimbook.

Last Akademy we had the opportunity to meet the Slimbook team and discuss its purpose and future. I’m quite happy about the discussions, here’s my feedback.

Why?

Before talking about future stuff, let’s set the context.

Personally, this has been a long-standing pet-peeve of mine. We create software solutions for virtual hardware specifications. We require our users to go the extra mile by replacing the manufacturer’s operating system, often with some annoyances because their hardware isn’t properly supported. This is not necessarily our fault, but most of us agree that we should improve this situation.

On the software side of things, while it’s our area of expertise, we are still far from being able to deliver the product we would like to give. Our ecosystem is still complex and our users have to take several decisions, some of dubious nature.

Hence, I started pushing for this project with some colleagues from KDE.

Where are we?

As discussed in the Akademy presentation, the project worked reasonably well. Devices were delivered and the KDE community does see value in the project.

We have reached a point where we understand the value of the initiative and understand the environment much better. We are happy with the results so far and we see room for improvement; both in the task we do to make a better device as well as in defining the product.

Future

I want to see the project moving forward and I will keep working towards better cohesion between hardware vendors and KDE. In the future, I would like to see the devices that we see available, especially when it comes to different use cases, and therefore form factors.

I don’t think it makes sense that we continue doing it just to do so. There is a good deal of hardware vendors that will offer devices with good setups. Most of them they will even offer you these laptops with KDE on them upon demand. If we put our effort in such projects, it needs to be because we are making something special.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time. Let’s continue to provide good solutions by staying simple by default but powerful when needed.