The 2nd bugfix update (5.11.2) of the Plasma 5.11 series is now available for users of Kubuntu Artful Aardvark 17.10 to install via our backports PPA.

Please note that 3 more bugfix releases are scheduled by KDE for Plasma 5.11, so while we feel these backports will be beneficial to enthusiastic adopters, users wanting to use a Plasma release with more stabilisation/bugfixes ‘baked in’ may find it advisable to stay with Plasma 5.10.5 as included in the original 17.10 Artful release.

See the Plasma 5.11 release announcement and the release video below for more about the new features available.

In particular the new Plasma Vault can be installed – Install the plasma-vault package, and restart Plasma to make it available in the system tray. Note that an upstream issue means deletion of vaults must be done manually; see KDE bug 385444 for instructions.

The update also comes with an upgrade to the latest KDE Frameworks 5.39.

Other goodies are also included in the backports PPA:

– Kio GDrive – “KIO GDrive is a KIO slave that enables KIO-aware applications (such as Dolphin, Kate or Gwenview) to access and edit Google Drive files on the cloud” – Install package kio-gdrive

– Krita 3.3.1 – The first bugfix release of the new Krita 3.3 series

– latte-dock 0.7.1 – An initial build of this exciting new dock application for KDE, which has recently become a KDE project – install package latte-dock

To update, add the following repository to your software sources list:

ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

or if it is already added, the updates should become available via your preferred update method.

The PPA can be added manually in the Konsole terminal with the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

and packages then updated with

sudo apt update

sudo apt full-upgrade

Upgrade notes:

~ The Kubuntu backports PPA includes various other backported applications, and KDE Frameworks 5.39, so please be aware that enabling the backports PPA for the 1st time and doing a full upgrade will result in a substantial amount of upgraded packages in addition to Plasma 5.11.

~ The PPA will also continue to receive bugfix updates to Plasma 5.11 when they become available, and further updated KDE applications.

~ While we believe that these packages represent a beneficial and stable update, please bear in mind that they have not been tested as comprehensively as those in the main Ubuntu archive, and are supported only on a limited and informal basis. Should any issues occur, please provide feedback on our mailing list [1], IRC [2], and/or file a bug against our PPA packages [3].

1. Kubuntu-devel mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-devel

2. Kubuntu IRC channels: #kubuntu & #kubuntu-devel on irc.freenode.net

3. Kubuntu ppa bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa