Every few years we port the key components of our software to a new version of Qt, taking the opportunity to remove cruft and leverage the updated features the most recent version of Qt has to offer us.

It has been nearly 10 years since the last big release of our flagship Plasma desktop environment, and the time has come again. KDE is making available today the Beta version of all the software we will include in a megarelease scheduled for the end of February 2024.

To ensure all parts of KDE’s software stack are working together, we are releasing all our major bundles at the same time. Today sees the continuation of that journey with the Beta releases of Plasma 6, KDE Frameworks 6 and the KDE Gear bundle of apps.

This is a very early preview intended for developers and testers only. We hope it will be picked up by rolling unstable distros, but it is far from being ready for day-to-day use yet.

Read on to find out more about KDE’s 6th Megarelease, what it covers, and how you can help make the new versions of Plasma, KDE’s apps and Frameworks a success now.