This blog post is already quite long, so it will omit changes merged for Plasma 6.5 (releasing in October, to be announced in a future post).

With the Plasma 6.2 release, we moved Plasma Dialer and Spacebar to the Plasma release cycle, allowing us to have consistent releases of the two apps. This completes our year long move to having all Plasma Mobile related projects released as part of wider KDE releases, streamlining the work for distributions and taking a load off us on having to maintain a separate release cycle!

In other news, a Fedora spin for Plasma Mobile was released! It will only be targeting devices that can currently boot Fedora (i.e. not ARM phones), but is very exciting nonetheless!

The Dev Log: April 2024 - June 2025

The Plasma Mobile team is happy to announce the developments in the project over the past few months! Housekeeping This blog post was completed much later than originally planned. In the meantime, several releases have taken place:

^{The Dev Log: April 2024 - June 2025}

Sawmills, furniture plants, and forestry operations generate vast volumes of wood residues—offcuts, shavings, bark, and dust—that are often underutilized or disposed through open burning. Converting this biomass into high-quality charcoal through thermochemical treatment addresses both waste management and energy transition objectives. Deploying a modern charcoal machine enables controlled carbonization, producing clean, energy-dense solid fuel suitable for industrial and household use.

Feedstock Characteristics and Suitability

Hardwood residues—such as oak, beech, or acacia—are ideal for charcoal production due to their dense lignin structure and low ash content. Softwoods, while abundant, tend to produce lower fixed carbon and more volatile byproducts. Mixed sawdust can also be used but often requires densification through briquetting to maintain consistent feed into a continuous reactor.

Moisture content is critical. Wood waste above 15% moisture reduces thermal efficiency and increases condensate volume. Pre-drying, either through solar racks or low-temperature belt dryers utilizing waste heat from the wood charcoal making machine, ensures optimal pyrolysis conditions.

Controlled Pyrolysis for Clean Combustion

Traditional kilns emit smoke, tar, and particulates, contributing to local pollution. In contrast, modern woody biomass pyrolysis plant systems use indirect heating to initiate pyrolysis under oxygen-limited conditions. This process converts wood biomass into fixed carbon while releasing volatiles that are either condensed or combusted in a secondary chamber.

Operating temperatures between 450–600 °C produce high-grade lump or granular charcoal with carbon content above 75%, minimal ash, and low sulfur emissions. The enclosed system architecture ensures complete gas capture, allowing for the production of clean-burning charcoal without atmospheric contamination.

Gas and Energy Recovery

During pyrolysis, wood volatiles—including methane, carbon monoxide, and light tars—are released. These gases can be routed back into the heating system of the charcoal machine, reducing external fuel input by up to 80%. Excess thermal energy may also be harvested for pre-drying wood feedstock, powering steam turbines, or generating process heat for adjacent industrial units.

This closed-loop approach minimizes the plant’s carbon footprint and improves the overall energy balance of the facility.

Emission Control and Environmental Compliance

Advanced units include gas scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, and thermal oxidizers to treat off-gases before atmospheric release. This ensures compliance with tightening emissions regulations in regions such as the European Union or Southeast Asia.

Additionally, integrating baghouse filters to capture particulates during feed handling and post-processing minimizes workplace exposure and environmental discharge.

End Product Applications

Charcoal derived from wood waste has a wide range of applications:

• Industrial fuel: Used in metallurgy, ceramics, and lime kilns due to its high calorific value (\~7,000 kcal/kg) and low ash.
• BBQ and household heating: When shaped into briquettes or lump form, the clean burn profile and low smoke output make it suitable for residential use.
• Activated carbon precursor: Hardwood charcoal with high porosity can be further processed into activated carbon for filtration and purification industries.
• Soil amendment: Fine charcoal powder serves as biochar, improving soil water retention and nutrient cycling.

By tailoring process parameters—such as heating rate, residence time, and final temperature—the charcoal machine can be optimized to produce targeted carbon products for specific markets.

Economic and Operational Considerations

A mid-scale charcoal machine plant processing 2–3 tons of dry wood waste per hour typically requires 300–500 kWh of auxiliary power and operates with minimal manual intervention. Maintenance focuses on refractory integrity, rotary seal condition, and heat exchanger cleaning. Return on investment is driven by feedstock availability, proximity to end-use markets, and potential carbon offset revenues.

In many forestry regions, such conversion plants qualify for green financing or government incentives under circular economy and biomass valorization programs.

Transforming wood processing waste into clean charcoal not only diverts biomass from waste streams but also supplies a renewable energy source aligned with environmental and economic imperatives. Through efficient use of a charcoal machine and integrated process design, this approach establishes a sustainable model for decarbonized fuel production from industrial wood residues.

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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:41 Sponsor: Squarespace
01:42 Goodbye X11
04:00 Open Source Nvidia for everyone
05:52 10% market share with ChromeOS added
07:33 Gaming: more Linux gaming devices
10:11 Packaging formats: still messy
11:37 Immutable distros: not mainstream
12:51 App support: no changes
13:57 Parting thoughts
15:27 Sponsor: Tuxedo Computers
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First, X.org will be even more abandoned. I'm not saying every distro will drop it entirely, but I'm expecting way more distributions and desktops to announce in 2024, that X.org won't be a supported platform anymore in 2025, or at the very least won't be the default session.

I would be surprised if, in 2024, Ubuntu didn't announce something similar for the following year.

The second thing I think we'll see is a fully open source stack for nvidia being available for Linux users. With the Linux kernel 6.7 bringing support for the GSP firmware, letting Nvidia GPUs be reclocked by the open source Nouveau drivers, and NVK now part of Mesa, and providing decent performance already, I'd say 2024 will be the year where Nvidia users can finally enjoy a good experience on Linux without anything extra to install.

In terms of market share, we've seen some healthy growth in 2023, ending the year on a potentially anomalous 3.8%, the highest the Linux desktop has ever been. In 2024, I'd expect this trend to continue: people don't seem to enjoy WIndows 11 that much, and they already didn't enjoy Windows 10 all that much either, and with Microsoft cramming more and more ads in their OS, and potentially moving to a subscription based model for Windows 12, I'd expect more people to give Linux a go, and mathematically, some of them will stick with it.

All in all, I don't think we'll jump to something like 8 or 10%, but I'd be surprised if the Linux desktop didn't reach 5 or 6% on its own, and about 10% combined with Chrome OS.

I would also expect 2024 to see a standalone release of SteamOS for any computer, and I'd say our market share will probably rise to about 3, maybe 3 and a half percent, but it won't be a major change, and the situation in terms of how many games we can play will be relatively stable, with major names still missing.

Now let's talk about the things I feel will stay exactly the same in 2024: starting with packaging formats. What we might see is more distros deciding to provide specific apps using the official snap or flatpak, like RHEL is doing with LibreOffice, because for some apps, it simply makes no sense to repackage them all the time, but that won't change the status quo.

Same thing for what we generally call Immutable distributions. I don't think they'll gain that much popularity in 2024, because they're often linked to using either flatpak or snap, or Nix packages, can't forget about Nix or I'll get comments again, and since we're not making these formats the only choice any time soon, I don't think this group of Linux distros will conquer the general Linux desktop audience either.

As per app support, that's another area where I feel we're not going to see much progress. And I'm talking big name apps, like Office, the Adobe Suite, Autocad, and the like. Even if my predictions for Linux market share come true, the potential revenue from supporting Linux is still low and will still be low, compared to the effort of porting the app, finding a packaging format that allows you to do everything you want, and then supporting that version.

Do you have ADHD and also meditate?

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