The KDE Community posted plasma 6.5, a stable release that polishes the desktop experience with a multitude of changes to performance, accessibility, and visual consistency, while maintaining the focus on Wayland.
More than just a cosmetic touch-up, the update incorporates practical functions such as automatic switching between light and dark theme, a initial setup wizard for OEM equipment and improvements to the KRunner search engine and clipboard manager.
Plasma 6.5 highlights
Among the most visible changes, the environment adds finishing improvements and several long-requested functions, with focus on usability and productivity.
- Bottom corners rounded in the windows with Breeze decoration.
- Auto switch light/dark theme depending on the time of day.
- New assistant KDE Initial System Setup to configure the system on computers that come with Plasma pre-installed.
- On-screen grayscale option and filters correction for color blindness.
- Improvements in the curve of HDR tone mapping for more faithful high dynamic range content.
- Hibernation available from the login screen SDDM.
- Portal support XDG Wallpaper so that apps can request changes to the background and lock screen.
- Klipper clipboard with the possibility of mark items as favorites to save them permanently.
- KRunner adds fuzzy search and find global shortcuts in searches.
Wayland, graphics and windows
The team has strengthened graphics support and window management in Wayland with improvements that impact the fluidity and stability from day to day.
- Better window activation and lifting in Wayland, with more predictable interactions.
- Preliminary compatibility with the protocol Picture-in-Picture in Wayland.
- Support of overlay planes for more efficient compositing when hardware allows.
- Screencasts of windows including title bar, borders, shadows and emerging elements.
- Bug fixes Kwin and a visual issue with full-screen HDR content.
- Better management of nested KWin sessions for advanced scenarios.
- The zoom effect on Wayland now follows the insertion point of the text.
System, accessibility and usability
A lot of work has been done on accessibility and small details that reduce friction and make the system more legible and inclusive.
- The screen reader improves the descriptions of actions and shortcuts on the Quick Access and Autostart pages.
- Audit to eliminate cases of blink that could affect photosensitive people.
- In the Kickoff launcher, the buttons Suspend, Shutdown, and Restart are activated with the Enter key.
- Most useful Do Not Disturb mode, with button to view missed notifications.
Network, remote and connectivity
Connecting and working remotely is easier, with fewer steps and better system integration.
- In remote desktop sessions it is no longer necessary to create separate accounts: the same user account and the clipboard is synchronized between client and server.
- Compatibility to configure FortiGate VPN from the network interface.
- More clarity on the Wi-Fi page, with detected networks visible and an option to share by QR next to the password.
- Switch of Bluetooth in System Preferences and Assistant it no longer shows unnamed devices by default.
Input, devices and customization
Peripheral support is expanded and customization is fine-tuned so that every person can adapt the environment to your taste.
- configuration touch rings and dials on drawing tablets, with warning if an external driver is interfering.
- The graphics tablet page is not displayed if there is no no device connected.
- The widget Adhesive notes receives a major visual overhaul.
- Plasma panels are scrollable when they accumulate too many elements.
- Disks and Devices Widget with options for mount without checking errors or check them manually without mounting.
- The weather report updates the data upon exiting suspension.
- Easier to identify which screens are replicas of others.
- The Ocean sound theme adjusts its costumes.
- By using the button or shortcut of Mute microphone, all microphones are muted.
- When you mute the system and change the volume, it is now reactivate all playback devices.
- The Monospace font chosen in Preferences is synchronize also with GTK applications.
Discover and software in Plasma 6.5
The software center continues to mature with improvements designed to install and evaluate applications with less friction.
- Link support flatpak+https:// which open Discover directly to facilitate installation from Flathub.
- Installation of hardware drivers from the distribution repositories, integrated into the interface.
- Discover opens up more Speed and displays information about what is delaying your startup.
- Possibility of writing reviews even in apps that didn't have any yet.
- Sidebar resizable in Discover and in System Monitor.
Plasma 6.5 Availability
Plasma 6.5 will arrive in the next few days to the repositories of distributions such as openSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch Linux, Fedora Linux or KDE neon. If you use one of them, you will have the update through your distro's usual channels.
With this release, KDE strengthens its commitment to Wayland, expands accessibility and polishes many everyday details, while adding requested features such as the initial wizard, fuzzy search in KRunner, fragment pinning in Klipper and tangible improvements in HDR, all accompanied by bug fixes. stability which are noticeable from the first login.
