KDE Releases Plasma 6.8 on 30th Anniversary, Phases Out X11 Support

On October 14, KDE celebrated its 30th anniversary with the release of Plasma 6.8, which is referred to as the "30th Anniversary Edition." This update marks the retirement of Plasma's native X11 session support, although legacy X11 applications will still operate through the XWayland compatibility layer. KDE applications will continue to support X11 in other desktop environments. The X11 protocol, which has been in use for 42 years, is losing support from another major desktop environment as Plasma transitions to the Wayland system. Users who choose to remain on Plasma 6.7 will retain their current sessions for the time being. The decision aligns with GNOME's plan to discontinue X11 sessions by default in 2025. Plasma 6.8 introduces several enhancements, including improved support for window decorations in third-party applications, a more streamlined Union theming system, Nvidia triple buffering enabled by default, and integration of Kup backup utility into Plasma. Additionally, a new command-line utility, kscreenctl, has been introduced to help users adjust display configurations.