One of the bigger pieces of news with the coming desktop environment KDE 4 is the hardware API Solid. Solid is an API (Application Programming Interface) for accessing information about the hardware. However, Solid is not about handling drivers and it is not here to replace HAL. Instead it’s a completing API built around HAL. For example, they’ve been working on improving the support for removable hardware and by that not just external storage, but everything from media players to batteries. Several of the other major updates with KDE 4 e.g. Phonon, is working through Solid for quick and easy access to the hardware and the ability to switch between pieces of hardware.
At KDE.news they also talk about the networking updates which are quite extensive to be honest. Offline support is about to get a whole new meaning. At the same time they’ve sat down and tried to improve and unite the power saving features through control and tuning of individual components power consumption.
More information about Solid can be found at KDE.news.
