I completely agree. Plasma 5 is not quite done yet, it's lost a ton of abilities and there's no easy way to bring "plasma 4" plasmoids to it without a full rewrite. It's quite bleak really, I had to migrate to another desktop as well. And this is coming from someone who used KDE4 from the start after updating from 3. 3 to 4 added new toys and abilities to the table, but 4 to 5 feels like KDE4 all undone.

I fear the day KDE4 libraries required to run Krusader are totally gone. I can't find a replacement with the same capabilities.

After installing I have two main highlights. Excuse the verbosity, but since it's apropos, I really want to share my two cents and hear what other people thinks.

1) The shipped Plasma 5.3 is complete butt. Massive loss of functionality, completely broke my workflow. You might remember me defending KDE4 at every chance, and that's because it wasn't as bad as this by 4.3. Missing icons; lost of "old" systray icons; Icon-only task manager lost all options and unity launcher abilities; Klipper is half-baked and doesn't do a lot of things it did before (despite keyboard bindings showing those actions); kwin refuses to save per-window settings (works from control center, but not from window menu); the Breeze theme is bugged and doesn't show (instead Oxygen does, for whatever reason, despite zapping my settings entirely, and there's no matching GTK theme, so all consistency gets broken); dumps files on .config, making it super noisy; lots of actions that were able to get hotkeys don't accept hotkeys (despite the GUI being there, it refuses to save); several lost plasmoids (not even a simple network monitor now) and other surviving ones lost several options; and konsole refuses to obey the option to show "konsole - " on titlebar, making window matching by title never work. Kwin is still excellent, but it suffers being part of a desktop in such a miserable state and Konsole is still my favorite terminal. (I am open to suggestions just in case)
It doesn't even attempt to port old settings properly, and it's far too early to deploy. And this time there wasn't even the excuse to make it "for developers". It's really, really half-baked and I hope the missing stuff comes back eventually. It's only usable if you stick to the defaults and don't bother customizing it too much, and if you don't have habits or must-have plasmoids from KDE4.

2) Everything else worked really well. systemd works pretty well and I already got to tune it up. Very fast reboot and shutdown. Not seeing why the hate, it works for me.
Mod me down if you want, and I am aware anecdotes aren't data, but it works and I was able to migrate all my custom things easily. The only defect I found is that it likes to start disk checks more often than it should, like it does a main disk check once every 10 reboots. Doesn't take long so it's not a real problem, but it bothers me it's not doing every 30 mounts as I had it set as.
Otherwise, my system feels almost more responsive than before, and I am pretty sure it's not placebo effect. I mostly notice it with loading small apps and doing management tasks, but it's definitely a little bit faster. A few exotic bugs with my hardware got fixed and it's all now working great.

Anyway, I had to use Unity as a temporary desktop until I figure out some solution to my KDE problems and the good things and updates prevent me from rolling back. Two days later I got used to it and I am doing my usual computer routine with minor differences.

Gotta say, it's improved greatly since last time I used it. Having the menus in the window titlebar (saves space and doesn't require traveling to the top as in the OSX-like menu, best of both worlds), minimize-on-click, ability to adjust titlebar size and other minor fixes make it...*gasp* rather usable. I miss the window automation from kwin, but managed to replicate the missing window management features with some hackery and obscure Compiz features, so I only remember I am using another desktop when the windows appear in crazy places. Only took me a day to get used to the previously annoying "close button at left" business, but otherwise it feels usable for everyday work. Compared to its original incarnation it's quite the improvement. I'd even dare calling it "good enough", not the best, but just "good enough". The titlebar menus and the Launcher API abilities are pretty appealing features though.
A disclaimer, though, I always had a taskbar at the left even in the early 90s, so I find it "natural", but other people might be annoyed by the taskbar being a sidebar.

What I still don't like about Unity is the Dash. It feels too flashy and is a bit clumsy. I reduced it to search only installed apps and removed most of its hotkeys. I think KRunner, Kupfer or what used to be called Gnome-Do do a better job at that task. The HUD is an interesting idea, I don't like how it opens at the top left regardless of window placement, but can see situations where it'd be faster than browsing menus, specially poorly-organized menus with tons of nesting.

All in all, I had to change my workflow a bit, which was terribly annoying, but in return the internals works great, so it balances out the bad. People using other desktops or Unity itself will probably love 15.04. If you use KDE4 and have it configured heavily...wait for next release if possible (at least) or you'll be annoyed to death.

I second this. I am used to creating my own engines so getting used to Godot was a bit odd at first, and it has a terrible lack of documentation and a few rough edges, but it's a pretty capable engine to play with; it's trivial to build/install/maintain, and very easy to export to another OS.
I wish it had better documentation though, but if more users get interested on it, it might happen.

Well, in KDE4 if you do that, you just get a single notification that scrolls messages gradually and doesn't get in the way. I think it's a good (not perfect) system.
You are still notified about...well, notifications, and it doesn't take up much space. Filling the screen with notifications is overdoing it.

Oh it now displays notification history in...the calendar?

What.

Who thought that was a good idea? what's next? Calendar inside WiFi settings?

Thanks for your enlightening comment. Now I am sure AIs will bring disaster to humanity.
Read this with extreme sarcasm because my opinion hasn't changed a bit. Computers are computers, not magical beings capable of setting me on fire.

Certainly, but "not liking me" != "utterly annihilating every atom in my body". It will be bound by human laws after all. Because the programmers are human you know. If you are implying the AI will remotely control robots and/or drones to kill me, reread what I said. Being a "digital being" does not equal omnipotency regarding machines. Also you are humanizing the AI by giving it a certain pettiness it shouldn't be capable of.

Also are you mocking me by mentioning the Bible? In another discussion I wouldn't think of it, but given the amount of irrational thought present in AI threads, I really can't tell. Are you saying that because I believe AIs don't present any inherent danger, I believe in fairy tales? Because 1) rude and 2) definitely not the same thing at all.

In other words, you've already made up your mind that AIs will destroy humanity and nothing anyone says will ever make you think otherwise. You are basically racist against something that doesn't exist yet.

Shame on you. Return your geek card and grab a torch and a pitchfork. I am done here.

Yet, you are humanizing AIs too. You are giving it the ego and greed needed for it to rebel. What if the AI knows well what it is and what it was made for, and just rolls with it, without causing troubles? After all, a cold, emotionless program does not need or want to become more. It has no drive to do anything, no need to reproduce or compete, no need for food and no fear of death. No hormones, chemical imbalances or instincts either. Any of those have to be manually provided, taught or enforced.
Not to mention, it might be a machine, but it might not know how to code without being taught to, making the whole "taking over the world by spreading over computers" scenario far more implausible than it seems in movies. Not to mention good luck to the evil AI when it has to face different architectures, poor connections or any other sort of hardware issues in the way of infecting its way to perfection. In fact, by default it won't know anything, and "downloading all the internets" not only takes time, but not all information is correct or complete, so...yeah.

I think the problem arises from the whole "cold, emotionless" thing. Everyone in Slashdot adheres to that concept, not realizing that their definition of "cold and emotionless" is heavily influenced by Hollywood, where "cold and emotionless" means "it only has bad emotions like greed, cowardice and anger". It's no coincidence the same term is used to define machines and evil/murderous/negatively-presented people. In the end the evil AI turns out to have far more emotions than the lead characters.

And don't come saying the theories presented in Slashdot don't come from movies, games or books (they are, because I watched those movies too, and I haven't seen a single original proposition in all the replies in any of the times AI is brought here, which is very often).
Because, there's no AI to prove either of us right. It just isn't there. There's no prior art, no "prototype", nothing but sci-fi material, that had to be written by someone that had to make it interesting for you people to know it.

And because there's no such thing as a working AI to base your fears on, there's nothing else left but scifi. But scifi is written by humans, for humans, and needs to follow a number of rules to make a narrative work. The moment you realize that, you will see how you are biased by mere rules of storytelling. We have the same chance of seeing a Skynet than we have of seeing a Johnny-5, and both are pretty low in the roulette of possible outcomes. We have far more chances of creating the most boring non-person planet Earth has ever seen, than that.

The fact that you chose to make the AI some primal beast that wants to "use" its creators, says more about you than about AIs, honestly. Don't be a 90s film, man. Brighten up.

Yeah. But it's a movie, not a documentary.

This is Slashdot, where Terminator is considered a documentary about AIs instead of the fiction film it actually is.

I am pretty sick of it, really. You'd expect people who work on computers most of the day to be more aware of the limitations of a machine, but nope, they prefer to believe in fatalist fairy tales and all the associated drivel.
"but muh jerbs"
"evil computer overlords"
"machines will rebel instantly and become all-powerful via self-replication"
"omg they want to replace us fleshies"
and so on.
It's pretty sad, actually. If *geeks* act this way, I'd rather not see the opinion of the fabled Joe Sixpack. Way to halt progress.

I get this feeling Slashdot folks are racist as hell, and take it on AIs because they don't exist yet, therefore it's still politically correct.

Repeat with me kids: "Movies are not real life".

Come at me, I have karma to burn down. And if you guys are going to reply to me with some scifi scenario, at least make sure you aren't parroting any movie or novel. Be original at least. All the scenarios people describes here are things I've seen in movies or novels or games already, what a coincidence.

Next in slashdot: racism against ghosts, fairies and the boogieman.

Could it be...?! Someone with a brain on Slashdot...?
Someone who doesn't believe what movies and fiction say because he actually knows what he's talking about?!
You, sir, have restored my faith in humanity a little. I wish the "nerds" here would follow the example. What they believe into is nothing short of Hollywood magic, which is sad considering the amount of computer users and developers around.

Thank you.

No, really, I'm not even exaggerating for dramatic purposes. I sincerely mean it. Thank you so much.

And the original Rogue is even older than that, so yeah, why is this news?

Well, I am done with Slashdot. I want science and tech news, not social justice news.
So let's go out with a bang, shall we?

For starters, you are so gullible if you believe that. Start finding truth by yourself instead of letting someone else tell you what is truth. Specially when the people delivering the news is precisely the people with skeletons in their closets.

How about the IGF and Indiecade corruption? You forget that one. Plenty of devs like me are trying to get somewhere in there, but we kept being called rapists and terrorists for trying to see why a jury consisting of Phil Fish's friends would vote Fez as best indie game (despite being a lazy clone of Super Paper Mario, just with less features including combat or bosses) and other things like that.
They are closing access to the indie scene and you are have problems if you believe otherwise. They are making it an exclusive club, not something based on the game's merit or anything like that. In fact, they seem to be, adamantly, against the concept of merit. No wonder why.
Go read about Gone Home. Compare the "press" opinion to every player opinion of it. Oh, well, nevermind, you'll just apply confirmation bias to say gamers can't get "art". So better don't because you'll be making a fool out of yourself in public. And, no, a plot twist about two characters being lesbians is only trivia, as it's not really used well in-universe. Also, Gone Home is not a single-woman product, there's this guy with the wacky rasta hair and a few others too.

The favorable coverage from Kotaku is documented, archived and screencapped. Lauding Depression Quest as the second coming of Christ and stuff. Perhaps if you had bothered to look for it you might have seen it instead of blindly believing it never happened. And, no, don't tell me you went to Kotaku and didn't find it, because, you know, they delete and edit stuff to save face, as site admins can alter site content, who'd have thought!
Her current boyfriend was the guy that was breaking GTAV discs (fine analogy to book burning) and singing the merits of Depression Quest in public conferences (recorded and publicly available on youtube. Again, if you had searched for it yourself...). What a coincidence, right?

Also, the "threats", have you seen them? I haven't seen them either. We got absolutely no proof of it happening. And, no, Wu never ran away from her house, because she posted photos of herself in the same room, live, when she said she was on the run. Look for it and do some work for once.
And, after all, the anti-GG side hates Wu too, it's them who will make her fall from grace, not gamergate. No one can take anyone seriously when talking about oppression when getting 15k bucks a month via Patreon. That's privilege that's been going unchecked.

How about when Harper made a twitter block list to block every person who follows anyone related to gamergate, including a lot of their own side and innocent people that was completely unrelated?
And she intends to make it a global industry blacklist. What will you think if you happen to be in that list because of the broken algorithm to determine if you are a gamergater or not (merely following or having spoken to someone related, even if before GG was a thing?) Can you consider yourself safe knowing you never interacted with anyone related? If you follow a false positive you are blocked and labeled a misogynist terrorist too, keep that in mind. But you don't see the problem I bet.

How about the ACTUAL harassment anti-GG people gave TotalBiscuit, a freaking cancer patient, during his chemo treatment? Remember TB wasn't pro-GG until that happened. How about the ACTUAL harassment against JonTron for referring to an [i]inanimate object[/i] as "retarded"? How about all the #notyourshield people, actual women and minorities, that got harassed, doxed and even fired for showing their face in order to prove that, perhaps, we aren't all white cis male nerds (and no, I am neither white nor American, bite me).

How about the anti-GG's vocal support for a known pedophile, doesn't that make ALL OF THEM pedophiles by that logic of yours? I'd be wary to publicly associate myself with such people, unless you want some poor algorithm labeling you as a pedophile advocate because your online contacts are. The only thing that will happen is that your life will be ruined even if proven wrong. Not a big deal, right? Totally worth the risk I bet.

So, yeah, a long hard look has happened and you look like someone who is pretty gulible. Let me guess, you also believe AI is homidical by nature, right? You saw it on a movie so it's gotta be true, right? And when bad characters in movies say bad things, you believe that's what the real life actor thinks, too? You believe real CSI has zoom good enough to look at a password reflected in an eyeball in a still shot, I presume?

This is against the press, they got the narrative advantage, they can (and do) paint us as oh my god harrassers and misogynists and pedophiles and terrorists. Because they are *the press*. If you can't get the fact that they can lie to protect their side in your incredibly soft skull, you are beyond help, because you'll believe everything the media says and your life will turn miserable at some point.

Oh. And siding with them doesn't make them have mercy for you. Don't think you are safe because "you chose right" and you are on the side of JUSTICE. They'll rip you to shreds, harass you, dox you and get you fired from your job for saying anything inconvenient to them. That's a more serious threat than anything GG *can* do. Let's see what you think in a couple years when your false apostles start infighting and forming factions and you end up in the "bad" faction. No amount of good intentions will save you from that.

Seriously, this site. It's time to remove it from my feeds. Farewell Slashdot, you were okay at some point. So many gullible idiots in a page dedicated to science. You are a freaking shame, specially to the ones that are actual respectable people in here. Shameful.

Machines got a lot of imagination, don't they? Next thing you know you'll be looking at the clouds with your robot buddy and it'll say "99.99% chance of that cloud looking like a puppy. BEEP". Oooorrrrr maybe a school bus, but you get what I mean.

Oh right I forgot this is Slashdot. MACHINES WILL DOMINATE US HELP. Peasants. Not like this display of reality will stop the rampart paranoia of people that works with computers and machines all day long... ...
ironic.