KDE Enjoyed A Stellar 2024 With The Debut Of The Plasma 6 Desktop

The KDE desktop progress made over the course of 2024 was particularly stand-out thanks to the Plasma 6.0 debut near the beginning of the year and then Plasma 6.1 and 6.2 further stabilizing and polishing this open-source desktop. It was a very fine year for the KDE desktop.

The KDE Plasma 6 desktop has been a grand success, the Wayland support is in good standing now, there’s been nice progress with HDR support, and much more accomplished this year in the KDE space both for the desktop itself and its large number of applications. In reliving some of the best moments for KDE in 2024, here is a look back at the most popular KDE news from 2024.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Beta Released With Wayland Explicit Sync, Input Capture Portal & More
The beta release of Plasma 6.1 is now available for testing over the US holiday weekend.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Lands Dynamic Triple Buffering Support
The four month old KWin merge request by Xaver Hugl to allow for triple buffering has been merged and just in time for the Plasma 6.1 code branching!

KDE Plasma 6.1 Performing Much Better On Older Intel Integrated Graphics
With the recently released KDE Plasma 6.1 desktop environment, those still relying on old Intel integrated graphics should have a much more pleasant experience thanks to improvements made to the KWin compositor. For very old Intel integrated graphics, it can effectively be a night and day difference upgrading to the new Plasma 6.1 desktop.

KDE Receives New Human Interface Guidelines For 2024
Prominent KDE developer Nate Graham has been working with various KDE designers and developers to establish a new set of Human Interface Guidelines (HIG).

KDE Making Good Progress On HDR, Better Gamescope Integration
KDE developer Xaver Hugl has written a third blog post outlining some of the latest HDR and color management improvements that have been readied for KDE’s KWin compositor as well as ongoing improvements to Valve’s Gamescope compositor.

Fedora 41 Looks To Offer A KDE Plasma Mobile Spin
Two new change proposals have been filed for enhancing the KDE offerings with this autumn’s Fedora 41 release.

KDE On The Importance Of Wayland Explicit Sync
With the recent Mesa 24.1 support for Wayland explicit sync with Vulkan drivers, GNOME merging explicit sync support, Wayland-Protocols 1.34 introducing linux-drm-syncobj, and XWayland explicit sync also nearing the state of being merged, there’s been much talk recently about Wayland explicit sync. KDE KWin developer Xaver Hugl has written a detailed blog post for those interested in the topic.

KDE’s Amarok 3.0 Music Player Released After Six Year Hiatus – Now Ported To Qt5
Released back in March of 2018 was the Amarok 2.9 music player for this KDE project. Shipping today is finally Amarok 3.0 as the first major release in six years and now ported to Qt5 and KDE Frameworks 5.

KDE Landed Many Last Minute Features Ahead Of The Plasma 6.1 Beta
It was a busy week for KDE developers ahead of yesterday’s Plasma 6.1 Beta release. KDE developer Nate Graham in his weekly development summary outlined all of the interesting changes to make it into the Plasma 6.1 desktop ahead of the feature freeze that went into effect with the beta release.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Is Looking To Be A “Good One”
The KDE Plasma 6.1 desktop is due for release in a little more than one week. Prominent KDE developer Nate Graham thinks this is going to be a “good one” with a lot of new features, better performance, and more.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Prepares For Release Next Week
KDE Plasma 6.1 is preparing for release next week on 18 June. KDE developers this week have thus been very busy with last minute finishing touches to this updated desktop while also already beginning feature work on Plasma 6.2.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Released With Easier Remote Desktop Support, Wayland Explicit Sync
Right on schedule today KDE released Plasma 6.1 as the first feature update to the Plasma 6 desktop stack that debuted back in February.

KDE’s KWin Merges Wayland Explicit Sync Support
A day after explicit sync support was merged for XWayland, a week after explicit sync support for Mesa Vulkan drivers hit Mesa 24.1, and GNOME’s Mutter enabling explicit sync at the end of March, KDE’s KWin compositor has now merged its Wayland explicit sync support!

KDE Readies More Changes For Next Month’s Plasma 6.1
KDE developers have been busy the first few days of May with all eyes shifting to the upcoming Plasma 6.1 desktop.

KDE Plasma 6 Sees More Features Merged Ahead Of Plasma 6.1
KDE developers had another busy week as more features were merged ahead of next month’s Plasma 6.1 release.

KDE Plasma 6.2 To Support libinput’s Auto-Scrolling Feature
It’s been a busy start to July with KDE developers tackling more features for Plasma 6.2 while continuing to deliver fixes to the modern KDE Plasma desktop stack.

KDE’s Cube Effect Now Launches More Reliably & Other Post-6.1 Plasma Fixes
Following this week’s great KDE Plasma 6.1 desktop release, developers have been fixing some minor bugs and other issues that were raised by early users of this updated open-source Qt6-powered desktop.

KDE Apps Improving Experience When Running Outside Of Plasma
KDE development remains very busy ahead of next month’s Plasma 6.1 desktop release.

KDE Is Soliciting Ideas For Their Goals To Pursue Over The Next 2~3 Years
Back in 2022 the KDE project laid out new goals to improve accessibility, develop more environmentally sustainable software, and automate more processes for easing the development of KDE. These overarching KDE Goals are refined every 2~3 years and they are now soliciting ideas from the community for what they should focus on ahead.

KDE Fixes Adaptive-Sync Issues & Less Glitches During GPU Resets
KDE developer Nate Graham is back from the latest KDE sprint in Germany and out with his new weekly status report to highlight all of the interesting KDE changes that landed this week.