Today KDE is proud to announce the immediate availability of the KDE Slimbook, a KDE-branded laptop that comes pre-installed with Plasma and KDE Applications (running on Linux) and is assured to work with our software as smoothly as possible.
The KDE Slimbook allows KDE to offer our users a laptop which has been tested directly by KDE developers, on the exact same hardware and software configuration that the users get, and where any potential hardware-related issues have already been ironed out before a new version of our software is shipped to them. This gives our users the best possible way to experience our software, as well as increasing our reach: The easier it is to get our software into users' hands, the more it will be used.
Furthermore, the KDE Slimbook, together with KDE neon, offers us a unique opportunity to isolate and fix issues that users have with our software. When something in Plasma, a KDE Application or some software using a KDE Framework does not work as intended for a user, there are at least three layers that can cause the problem:
  The KDE software itself
  The operating system
  The hardware or its drivers
Of course KDE always tries to reduce bugs in our software as much as possible. Problems can occur in any of the aforementioned layers, however, and often times it is difficult for us to pin-point exactly where things are going wrong. Last year, KDE neon joined the KDE community with the promise to give us control over the operating system layer. This does not mean we won't make our software available on other distributions or operating systems, of course, but it allows us to eliminate that layer as a possible source of a problem.
This left us still with one layer we had zero control over, though: The hardware layer.
Fast-forward to late last year, when the Spanish laptop retailer Slimbook approached KDE with the idea to offer KDE-branded laptops that come pre-installed with Plasma and KDE Applications. We were excited about the idea, and put our designers and developers to the task of creating a branding for such a device and making sure that KDE neon runs without any hardware-related issues on it.
For now, the KDE Slimbook will always come pre-installed with KDE neon, but we are open to offering other distributions that come pre-installed with Plasma for customers to choose from.
The KDE Slimbook is for people who love KDE software, regardless of whether or not they are active contributors to KDE.
For more information, visit the KDE Slimbook website.