Wiki https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/KDE_Plasma_6
This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.
== Summary ==
KDE Plasma 6 is successor to KDE Plasma 5 created by the KDE
Community. It is based on Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 and brings many
changes and improvements over previous versions. For Fedora Linux, the
transition to KDE Plasma 6 will also include dropping support for the
X11 session entirely, leaving only Plasma Wayland as the sole offered
desktop mode.
== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:Ngompa|Neal Gompa]], [[User:Marcdeop|Marc Deop]],
[[User:Justinz|Justin Zobel]], [[User:Siosm|Timothy Ravier]],
[[User:Tdawson|Troy Dawson]], [[User:Jgrulich|Jan Grulich]]
* Email: ngomp...@gmail.com, marcd...@fedoraproject.org,
justin.zo...@gmail.com, trav...@redhat.com, tdaw...@redhat.com,
jgrul...@redhat.com
== Detailed Description ==
KDE Plasma 6 is a new major version of the user experience environment
from the KDE community. It includes both desktop and mobile
environments. While there are some user experience improvements over
KDE Plasma 5, the majority of the work is under the hood. Notably, the
whole stack is now built on Qt 6. Qt 6 brings significant upgrades to
QML and Qt Quick as well as support for Vulkan (in addition to OpenGL
and OpenGL ES support introduced in Qt 5).
[https://pointieststick.com/2023/09/06/september-plasma-6-update/ KDE
Plasma 6.0 is expected to release in early February 2024]. The
frameworks (KDE Frameworks), shells (Plasma Desktop and Plasma
Mobile), and applications (KDE Gear)
[https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-devel/2023-September/002008.html
are all expected to be ported to Qt 6 as part of the KDE Plasma 6
release]. However, some applications may not make it in time and will
be updated later.
This upgrade is also notable that for Fedora Linux (and Fedora Extra
Packages for Enterprise Linux 10, once that materializes), KDE Plasma
will '''not''' offer an X11 session. Fedora KDE has been fully Wayland
by default from login ([[Changes/WaylandByDefaultForSDDM|since Fedora
Linux 38]]) to desktop ([[Changes/WaylandByDefaultForPlasma|since
Fedora Linux 34]]), and the SIG is confident in the quality and
development around the Plasma Wayland experience to stand fully behind
it.
== Feedback ==
Why drop the X11 session?
Three reasons for this removal:
*
[https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/9.0_release_notes/deprecated_functionality#JIRA-RHELPLAN-121048
The Xorg server is deprecated since RHEL 9.0] and will be dropped in
"a future major RHEL release".
* Graphics fallback modes are Wayland-friendly now with
[[Changes/ReplaceFbdevDrivers|SimpleDRM enabled since Fedora Linux
36]].
* NVIDIA drivers (since v495~v515) support GBM for Wayland instead of
EGLStreams. Wayland is fully supported on current NVIDIA drivers.
This will drastically reduce our support burden and give us the
ability to focus on quality for the KDE Plasma stack and continue our
feature-forward nature. The Fedora KDE SIG will maintain a single code
stream for all supported distribution targets (Fedora Linux 40+,
Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 10+).
This also does not mean that X11 applications will not work in Plasma
6, as we will still support Xwayland for running X11 applications on
Plasma Wayland.
Could we keep Plasma 5 for X11?
No. The KDE Plasma stack is fairly large and comprehensive. The SIG
does not have the resources to maintain the KDE Plasma 5 stack beyond
the lifetime of upstream's focus. It would also be fairly complex to
do so, requiring a lot of downstream patching to resolve the conflicts
between Plasma 5 and Plasma 6. The intent upstream is that KDE Plasma
5 will be EOL shortly after the release of KDE Plasma 6, so it would
be very difficult to support ourselves.
Will Plasma 6 be available for older Fedora and EPEL releases?
No. This major version upgrade is not getting backported. Some
portions (KDE Frameworks and KDE Gear) may get backported as part of
regular upgrades if Qt 5-based versions are not maintained upstream,
but the Plasma Desktop and Plasma Mobile software will not. Notably,
KDE Plasma 5 for older Fedora Linux releases (and Fedora Extra
Packages for Enterprise Linux 9) are on Plasma 5.27 and will stay
there.
== Benefit to Fedora ==
KDE Plasma is a very popular platform used as the basis for the Fedora
KDE Spin, Fedora Kinoite, and the flagship Fedora Asahi Remix
experiences. By bringing KDE Plasma 6 into Fedora, we demonstrate our
leadership and commitment to bring the latest and greatest
technologies from the KDE community to the world.
== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
** Import Plasma 6 stack into F40/Rawhide (tracked as
[https://pagure.io/fedora-kde/SIG
