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The KDE team announced "MegaRelease 6", a big upgrade that includes Plasma 6, Frameworks 6 and Gear 24.02 with tons of improvements to this popular desktop environment that's used on the Steam Deck for Desktop Mode. Hopefully we will see Valve give it an update in the next major SteamOS release.

Bringing the future to a desktop near you, the tech under the hood has gone through some major upgrades with updates to Qt and Wayland support (with Wayland also now the default). The developers say "We have done our best to ensure that these changes are as smooth and unnoticeable to the users as possible, so when you install this update, you will see the same familiar desktop environment that you know and love" and that the upgrades "benefit Plasma's security, efficiency, and performance, and improve support for modern hardware".

There's a lot of big stuff on top of Qt and Wayland upgrades including:

  • New Desktop Overview effect that combines the Overview and Desktop Grid.
  • Partial support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).
  • Refreshed Breeze theme.
  • Improved system settings app to make it more user friendly.
  • Improved fingerprint unlock from lockscreen.
  • Plasma Search now lets you customize the ordering of search results. Plus it's faster and performs better.
  • Lots of improvements to various apps like the popular video editor Kdenlive.

Oh and my favourite, the Cube has returned! All hail hypnocube!

Lots of smaller but still useful changes have made it in too, like the controversial single-click to open files and folders has been moved to a double-click which better matches Windows and other desktop environments.

Probably one of the most exciting Plasma updates I've ever seen, and I can't wait to get my Kubuntu install on my desktop upgraded. I'm really keen to see how much Wayland support has improved, and should hopefully properly make it my own default now too.

See the full release page for all the info. There's simply far too many goodies to list here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Hope Endeavor gets it soon (my desktop) I'm sure I'll have to wait a long time to try it on Kubuntu (laptop). Good news for my favorite Desktop Environment


Last edited by TruckStopSantaClaus on 29 February 2024 at 3:33 am UTC
pilk Feb 29
Oh this release is really nice. I'll probably stay on Plasma 5 for a little while before I switch over to Plasma 6 (it is soon distrohopping time for me yet again), but I'm excited for this. Really nice to see intelligent autohide make its way to KDE, my weird quasi-macOS layout is back on the menu.
TheRiddick Feb 29
Released to Testing for Arch, I don't think any distributions have it in mainline stable yet.
Quoting: LinuxGamesTV
Quoting: Vortex_Acheronticsudo zypper ref --force
sudo zypper dup
Nothing to do.
sudo zypper ref --force
sudo zypper dup
Nothing to do.
sudo zypper ...

Where is it already!?

You need the KDE:Frameworks Repositorie: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Frameworks/ and the QT6 Repositorie: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt6/

Yep but those will also at times pull in Alpha and Beta releases which aren't particularly useful for a daily driver machine. I stay with Factory on my Kalpa machine.
Siinamon Feb 29
Looking forward to turning down my radiator and turning on `emerge` when it hits stable gentoo
Brokatt Feb 29
View PC info
  • Supporter
Looking seriously good! Great job all involved in KDE. Hopefully it will we even greater when I get around to running it. Probably on Kubuntu 24.10 :)
neoe Feb 29
How dare you use steamdeck as desktop.
I'm so envy.
My Rog Ally come with Windows 11 Home, even no remote desktop function.
Of course I will install Linux on it .
Sojiro84 Feb 29
Yesterday, I upgraded my Arch system without encountering any major issues, save for a script and a KWin effect that ceased functioning due to needing updates.

However, despite the upgrade, HDR detection remains elusive on my LG OLED. This may be attributed to the connection setup: my TV is linked to the receiver (which supports HDR) and then connected to my PC. I plan to test if connecting the TV directly will reveal the HDR option.

Interestingly, Windows has also decided to cease HDR functionality on my setup, and my Xbox insists there's no DolbyVision compatibility, despite its presence (albeit limited to 4k 30Hz, given my LG OLED's vintage from 2017).

Nevertheless, the upgrade has been commendable. While not dramatically different visually, there's a subtle enhancement overall. Dolphin, in particular, looks stunning without the framing.
harre Feb 29
How does it fare with gaming? Any tweaks and hacks, or does it just work out of the box with Wayland. I'm on xfce at the moment but I'm interested to try it out after using KDE plasma on steam deck without any issues.
DerpFox Feb 29
I haven't used KDE in years (since the beginning of KDE 4 to be precise), but I'm curious about what it looks like now. Is this version still compatible with X11? I have no interest in wayland, and honestly, I've heard so many bad things about its management I don't really trust it to be future-proof.
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