KDE has pushed out the Plasma 6.7 beta, and the headline addition is the first public tech preview of Union, a new theming system that aims to overhaul how QML and Kirigami applications are styled across the desktop. The beta also introduces a fresh plasma-bigscreen module alongside the Union package itself.
Once the union package is installed, Union takes over styling duties for every QML and Kirigami app on the system, including System Settings, System Monitor, Discover, Spectacle, NeoChat, Haruna, and the configuration dialogs for Plasma widgets. The stated goal for this first preview is parity rather than reinvention: the dev team wants apps under Union to look as close as possible to how they appear under the existing styling stack, which gives users a clean baseline to spot regressions.
KDE is explicitly asking testers to hunt for visual discrepancies. To check whether a given quirk is Union-specific, you can launch any affected app with the environment variable QT_QUICK_CONTROLS_STYLE=org.kde.desktop set, which falls back to the legacy styling system for a side-by-side comparison. Confirmed Union bugs can be filed through the dedicated Bugzilla product, and broader Plasma feedback is welcome on the #Plasma Matrix channel, the KDE Forums, or the Plasma-devel mailing list.
The rest of the release is a more conventional point-update grab bag, with the full changelog covering everything from the 6.6.5 baseline. For anyone running Plasma on Linux or BSD, the beta is a low-friction way to put Union through its paces before the styling system graduates to wider use in a stable Plasma release.
