The official announcement of the release of KDE Plasma 6 beta 1 has been made by the KDE team. The latest version of Frameworks and Gear will be coming with this release as well. It has been nearly a decade since the team has offered a big release like this, so you can expect this new version to have plenty of features to delight all sorts of users. Although the official release won’t be available until February 2024, those who want to get a glimpse of what’s coming can finally get their chance. Beta 1 introduces several new features to the KDE Plasma 6 desktop, including the configuration of wallpapers within KDE Settings, enhanced Discover (the KDE Plasma app store), improvements to the “Night Light” system settings subpage, highlighting of active windows by the selected accent color, and a new thumbnail grid desktop switcher being the default. KDE Plasma 6 will also be shifting to the Wayland display server protocol and will use the latest version of the Qt GUI toolkit. Other features that have already been added to KDE Plasma 6 include the combination of Overview and Desktop Grid effect with improved gesture support, color management support for sRGB applications on Wayland, HDR support for Wayland, custom sort ordering for KRunner search results, the return of the Desktop Cube effect, a floating desktop panel, and a redesigned theming system. For those who wish to test the KDE Plasma 6 beta 1 release, the best option is by way of KDE Neon. Make sure to download the Unstable Edition and do not use it for production machines as there will be issues.
Experience the Delights of KDE Plasma 6 in Its Open Beta – Available for Trial Now
