https://9to5linux.com/trinity-desktop-environment-r14-1-5-released-with-support-for-debian-trixie
This release also adds support for the openSUSE Leap 16, Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora Linux 43, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 operating systems.
Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) R14.1.5 desktop environment has been released for nostalgic KDE 3.5 users as the fifth maintenance release of the R14.1.x series with various new features and enhancements.
Coming almost six and a half months after Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.4, the Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.5 release introduces support for recent GNU/Linux distributions, including Debian 13 "Trixie", Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka), openSUSE Leap 16, Fedora Linux 43, and RHEL 10.
The nightly builds also support the upcoming Debian 14 "Forky" operating system (Debian Testing). Support for older distributions that are no longer supported has been dropped in this release, including Ubuntu 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur), openSUSE Leap 15.5, and Fedora Linux 41.
New features in Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.5 include tiling support on multi-monitor setups, along with user-friendly tiling band settings, support for a paste command to the KRDC remote desktop client to let you send clipboard content as text, and FFmpeg 8.0 support to the K9Copy DVD backup and DVD authoring program.
This release also brings various aesthetic improvements and new blur options to the Kicker application menu, a mute toggle button to Codeine's volume slider, support for the unzip v6 date format to the Ark file archiver, and improvements to various TDE-branded artwork and a new Flying Konqi wallpaper.
Last but not least, Trinity Desktop Environment R14.1.5 adds a new option to center the pop-up menu when using the Baghira style, support for the libgpgme 2.0 library to the tdepim component, support for OpenLDAP 2.5, and smooth resize as the default selection at start to the KolourPaint paint program.
Of course, numerous bugs were fixed, so check out the full release notes for more details about the changes included in TDE R14.1.5, which you can download for Linux distros, as well as BSD and DilOS systems from the official website.
Has anybody here used it? Any comments?
- Previously:
Trinity Desktop Environment 14.1.4 Released
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The Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) is a fork of KDE 3 which maintains the classic KDE approach and style. Trinity has received a new update, version 14.1.4, which introduces several small improvements:
"The key highlights of this version are: support for Unicode surrogate characters and planes above zero (for example emojis); new modern vector wallpapers and new colour themes; new control module to manage deb/rpm alternatives; tab support in kpdf; better context menu for tderandrtray and fixes to the handling of gamma settings; clickable links in calendar events; support for transparency, top and shadow borders and inactive windows in Dekorator; better integration of kxkb with setxkbmap, new options and various fixes for the tray feedback; ability to create VPN connections in tdenetworkmanager once again; several improvements to the codeine player; support for Ubuntu Plucky and upcoming Fedora 43." While not widely used, some projects, such as Q4OS, will likely have packages of Trinity 14.1.4 soon.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday November 12 2025, @09:54AM
I have been using TDE since it came out and it is my preferred DE that I install on every system I set up that needs a DE. I didn't like how sluggish my KDE 3.5/Debian system became when I tried KDE 4. So I looked for alternative and found Trinity, never regretted the move. Then when Debian drank the systemd kool-aid I moved to Devuan where I have remained ever since. TDE has worked beautifully on both OSs and supports several other distros as well.
I've found TDE to be stable, fast and lightweight. Though the lightweight part is probably because I go with the TDE base install and then add only what I actually use on my system. The overall look has remained the same over the versions which has made some people comment about how "quaint" or "nostalgic" it is since it still looks and works like KDE 3.5.
I would definitely recommend trying TDE if your looking for a simple clean DE that won't make your video card melt with all the animated bling that most of the desktop environs I've seen lately have.
Live images for those who would like a test drive
https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/LiveCDs [trinitydesktop.org]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 4, Informative) by ShovelOperator1 on Wednesday November 12 2025, @11:12AM (1 child)
I use it with Debian since 3.5.x version. Generally it runs on almost anything from the last 20 years, uses lower amounts of memory than modern DEs, has many interesting tools consistent with the ecosystem and is extremely configurable using its GUI. Most of X11 features are still there, accessible with an user-friendly windowed interface.
Contrary to modern KDE, it has a full Konqueror, with a side panel doing what it should do. Unfortunately, it also means that different file/folder views do not share usage mechanics, so e.g. renaming a file in detailed view will select only the name, without extension, and in other views it will select all. It is also not possible to save some information about directory view per directory, a thing that has been introduced in KDE 4 shortly before Dolphin took off.
Some problems will emerge when using GTK applications with it - the Gtk-TQt bridge for user interface consistency is notoriously broken (although there are some accounts that someone made it run, but only for specific programs), and it's not done from the TQt's end, so it's better to use some more or less similarly looking GTK theme.
The funny thing is that at times of KDE 3.5 there was a distribution of KDE for Windows. It was quite slow, but quite operable.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 13 2025, @03:15AM
KDE for Windows was KDE4. I still have it installed (it runs on XP on up, and it tolerates being dragged from one PC to the next without a reinstall). Some parts worked really well and others not so much, but I liked having Kate and Okular on Windows back before the binary factory made them routinely available.
I used Trinity for a while and found it both lovely and frustrating. Could get it to look and behave exactly as I wished, but weird disruptive bugs... hopefully by now all fixed, I'll have to take a look. Similarly I love Konq but found it likewise frustrating -- all this power and flexibility yet once I got into one of the secondary views I couldn't go back without restarting, that sort of thing. It was abandoned for a long time but I see is now being maintained again, so hopefully some of these quirks will get cleaned up. And perhaps as retaliation for KDE's Konq being only half there, Trinity's Dolphin was some early beta with hardly any functionality. Can't we all just get along?? :P
Trinity (at least on PCLOS) can scrape by on something like 300MB of RAM, so yes it's a great choice for a limited system.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crb3 on Wednesday November 12 2025, @02:49PM (10 children)
My work habits were formed in KDE1.1 on RHL6.2: a global taskbar broken out of the kicker bar and put up top, and 8 desktops in the pager at bottom. With that, it's instinctual to switch apps up top or drop into an empty desktop down bottom, and I get to have a desktop per topic. When MEPIS8, with KDE3.5, became MEPIS8.5 with KDE4, they broke that layout, so I left MEPIS and went looking.
My current standard rollout is Exe-Gnu [exegnulinux.net]: TDE over Devuan (it's on the Live-CD list). 'Quaint and nostalgic' means 'nothing broke': things are where you expect them, so your work rhythms and habits aren't impeded. For people like me who just need to get shit done, that's perfect.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 12 2025, @05:13PM (9 children)
I have fond memories of KDE 3.5. It was such a shame when KDE 4 came out. It's been so long now that I wonder if I could ever go back. But I loved how customizable it was.
Revolver, or semi automatic modified to be fully automatic -- which is best for senior citizens in their porch swings?
(Score: 3, Informative) by crb3 on Wednesday November 12 2025, @06:22PM
Got a spare machine? Load one of the LiveCD candidates into a USB stick, boot into it and try it out and maybe install it so you can see what all is in the repos (TDE, Devuan, Debian). ExeGnu still has a 32bit ISO if the spare is that old. One thing I like is that you can install and run KDE apps in the TDE environment as well as the older-design "-trinity" variants.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 13 2025, @03:03AM (7 children)
I heard all the complaints about KDE4, but I experienced it as PCLinuxOS's "Full Monty" which was the most amazing setup, preconfigured as six visually-distinct desktops sorted by application type (this can no longer be done, the capability was removed in KDE5). Tho I settled on KDE and still use it, PCLOS has a Trinity edition, and if you want a complete classic-styled DE with great performance on minimal hardware, it's hard to beat.
I do miss the color confiugration that's gone out of our bland black-or-white modern world...
http://doomgold.com/images/linux/trinity-snapshot3.jpg [doomgold.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by crb3 on Thursday November 13 2025, @04:44AM (6 children)
From what I've read since, the problem with the KDE4 in MEPIS8.5 was that it was alpha-state, not-ready-for-primetime, when MEPIS picked it up; it improved later. Whether it ended up capable of supporting my preferred layout (starting with KDE0.99 on RHL5.2 IIRC), I can't say.
Regardless, it didn't do what I needed when I needed it, and TDE did, so I ventured on, first on a single lonely TDE Sparky-Linux release, then Tribuntu (TDE on Ubuntu) which IMO wallowed a bit on a P4 thanks to all the Ubuntu underpinnings, and finally ExeGnu which stayed stable even as it switched from Debian to Devuan (Devuan repos for the non-systemd bits, Debian for the rest), so that's what I've run since.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 13 2025, @05:28AM
Well, shouldn't be shipping alpha software... Devuan used to be kind of a mess, but last I looked they'd switched to the PCLOS incarnation of KDE, and it all hung together much better. Wonder if they're using our Trinity too?? :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday November 13 2025, @11:58AM (4 children)
"starting with KDE0.99 on RHL5.2 IIRC"
That is where I started with it too, my first GNU/Linux install over twenty-six years ago now, how times flies when you are having fun. Quickly moved onto the Mandrake which had the KDE already installed, so you got to skip the sacrificing a chicken while dancing naked in the full moonlight step to get something installed in RPM that was Redhat's (and their KDE installation) hell so you could upgrade safely. The Gnome trolls did not much like it back then or even now for that matter, they still spread their garbage into GNU/Linux all the time to this day, with the pulse audio, systemd and Wayland junk among other scummy actions . I cloned my Devuan install and put the Trinity on it, it runs reasonably well enough, though the visual style is definitely a blast from the past. I found the Q4OS version of it where I borrowed their Debonaire style for use on my Devuan Trinity a considerable improvement in the looks of it. Makes me wonder why the Trinity developers do not do something similar to improve the OOB experience getting people to think they have slick modern desktop they are running, because that is what it is, not some stuck more than twenty years in the past idea you get now.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 13 2025, @08:56PM (3 children)
Devuan has a package called trinity; it's a system call fuzz tester.
Presumably not the desktop environment you guys are talking about.
What package is the actual desktop?
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedGreen on Friday November 14 2025, @12:06AM (2 children)
"What package is the actual desktop?"
Depends on what you want. If wanting the full desktop then tde-trinity gives you everything and the kitchen sink or tde-base will give the basic desktop installed. All the packages from them have a -trinity on them so if wanting kate and it is not install then "apt install kate-trinity". It prevents normal KDE packages from getting clobbered and having install errors with identical package names. This after creating you sources entry and firstly downloading then installing their keyring file. The instruction for doing it are here.
https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Devuan_Trinity_Repository_Installation_Instructions [trinitydesktop.org]
For the old style sources.list, if wanting to use the new style then.
root@9600k:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/trinity.sources
# This file trinity.sources adds the settings needed to install the TDE stable or testing
# desktop on Devuan Excalibur.
# Trinity R14.1.x Stable Release (not for testing/unstable)
Types: deb
URIs: http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/deb/trinity-r14.1.x [trinitydesktop.org]
Suites: excalibur
Components: main deps
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/trinity-archive-keyring.gpg
Enabled: no
# Testing builds
Types: deb
URIs: http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity-testing [trinitydesktop.org]
Suites: excalibur
Components: main deps extra
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/trinity-archive-keyring.gpg
Enabled: no
Simply change the no to yes in the Enabled line to get the version you want.The 4.1.x gets you the current stable release of it, the testing get you periodic builds of the development version. If running different supported release then change the Suites: line to reflect which one you are running.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 16 2025, @12:51AM (1 child)
So trinity isn't in the regular Devuan repositories, and I have to provide other sources.list entries to get it. That explains why I couldn't find it.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Sunday November 16 2025, @12:34PM
"So trinity isn't in the regular Devuan repositories, and I have to provide other sources.list entries to get it."
Exactly they have their own repository for the various OSs they support. The only things in the Devuan repositories are their packages they bring in from Debian that are not blacklisted. The blacklisted ones are the packages they modify to get rid of the systemd crud. If not possible to get rid of it then it does not get used.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.