I attended KDE India Conf (conf.kde.in, CKI) 2025 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. My last and first CKI was in 2020 in Delhi. Had written a blog then.
There was a CKI last year in Pune but I was unable to attend it. So it’s been 5 years. The constant from then and now is Bhushan :)
My talk
Title of the talk was “Learnings from creating an input method for KDE”. My primary desktop environment since 2018 is KDE Plasma. Varnam input method was created to use in KDE. The talk was about the learnings of creating the input method.
The talk has been uploaded here: https://mirror.freedif.org/KDE/files/confkdein/2025/learnings-from-creating-an-input-method-for-kde.mp4
Emoji picker
The current way to input emoji in KDE Plasma is by copy-pasting the emoji from a window. GNOME has a better emoji input where you could open the emoji suggestions box anywhere you type and directly insert it. Behind the conference, I looked at whether this can be improved.
I tried to make an emoji input method just like Varnam. The source code is here: https://github.com/subins2000/semoji
It was partially successful, it works, but one month in I still use the KDE copy-paste one.
I later saw that one of KDE goals this year is this, “We care about your input”. There is already an issue open: https://invent.kde.org/teams/goals/we-care-about-your-input/-/issues/15
This is a very core thing to Qt, so it is beyond my expertise. I’m just gonna watch in the sidelines, and meanwhile I’ll survive with copy paste 🙂.
Conference
Like all other free software conferences, I met people who shared the same interests as me, so there was lot to talk about!
Rishi has done an elaborate write up about the conference, so I’m not gonna repeat things. Link to Rishi’s blog.
Rishi had also brought a Steam Deck which was fun to use! A popular mainstream device that comes with GNU/Linux? That has been a dream once. That too gaming!
One thing I have to mention here is Joseph’s talk on End of 10. Windows 10 is about to end its support in 2025 October 14. The newer Windows 11 requires modern hardware. This would mean millions of working devices will end up being unupgradable, and potentially e-waste.
My personal computer from 2010 to 2018 was a 2GB RAM machine. I had to use Linux Mint + XFCE + i3wm to get the maximum out of the system. Windows 8 and 10 was uninstallable in that machine.
There was a BoF on the same, and one major thing about India at least is that “if it works, then don’t touch it”. I’ve seen retail stores using Windows 7 to even Windows XP (A display in Cochin international airport). When they have a working flow, it’s difficult for them to change.
Adobe Pagemaker that was deprecated in 2003 is still being used here. It works because Windows is very good in backwards compatibility. If Windows ever breaks it, maybe they’d upgrade.
My state Kerala already uses GNU/Linux widely across school, government departments etc. School students are usually given a laptop which is low-end hardware that already runs GNU/Linux. No way can these laptops and machine run Windows, even Windows 10.
Next conference
This is the second time CKI has been ogranized in Gandhinagar. I’ve lowkey suggested that maybe Kerala can host it next year 🤞. Last time it happened in Kerala was in 2015, that’s 10 years ago!
A good place to do it would be a university. I’ve been helping organizing Kochi FOSS meetups for the past 2 years. There is definitely audience for the conf, it’s just that where would we do it.
Let’s see.