The desktop most associated with Linux gaming just tightened its grip on the display pipeline. KDE Plasma 6.7 removes a long-standing either/or choice in its color stack: HDR content and ICC profile-based color management can now run at the same time, where previously you had to pick one. The release also adds per-display control over whether colors shift redder at very low brightness on many AMD laptops, and the team spent significant effort on optimization, yielding better performance and lower power draw for CPU-rendered apps, many full-screen windows, and integrated Intel GPUs. Plasma already carries the most mature VRR and HDR implementation among Linux compositors, and these changes extend that lead for the creators and gamers who care about accurate output.
This is also the end of an era. Plasma 6.7 is the final release to ship a dedicated X11 session; Plasma 6.8, due around October 2026, will be Wayland-only, with KDE reporting that more than 95 percent of Plasma 6.6 users are already on Wayland. Legacy X11 applications will keep running through XWayland after the cutover, so for most users the login screen losing its X11 option is the only visible change. In keeping with that direction, 6.7 expands support for many more Wayland protocols and portals, and surfaces apps using the newer "Background Apps" system (common for Flatpak packages) directly in the system tray alongside traditionally backgrounded processes.
For anyone who has tried to build or maintain a Plasma theme, the most interesting addition is Union, a new theming system shipping its first tech preview here. Union aims to replace Plasma's fragmented theming workflow with a single set of CSS that can style Plasma itself, QtQuick apps, and QtWidgets apps together, leaning on the most widely documented open standard for the job. This release covers the QtQuick style; the developer has posted details on the current state and roadmap. Ahead of KDE's 30th anniversary later this year, the team also restored the Oxygen theme used by default in KDE 4 to parity with Breeze, brought back the Air light style with adaptive opacity support, and returned the classic Air and Horos wallpapers.
The rest of the release is a long list of refinements. Per-screen virtual desktops have finally landed after 21 years, letting each monitor hold its own desktop set. A panel toggle now switches instantly between light and dark Global Themes, drag and drop adds or removes favorites in the launcher widgets, and the Discover software center gets a clearer Install button, redesigned app cards, and software grouped by type. Other touches include a microphone volume test, press-and-hold special character entry on the virtual keyboard, a global push-to-talk shortcut, time-zone offset display in the Digital Clock, a full print queue manager with easier setup for shared printers on Windows networks, and type-ahead file selection on the desktop. The Plasma 6.7 wiki page and the complete changelog cover the full set.
Plasma 6.7 is free and open source, released 2026-06-16, and will reach desktops as distributions package it over the coming weeks. The release is dedicated to longtime KDE supporter Eric Laffoon, who passed away in May.
