Post Syndicated from jzb original https://lwn.net/Articles/1100429/

Version 6.8 of
the KDE Plasma desktop has been
released. The The KDE project has timed the release to coincide with the 30th
anniversary of Matthias Ettrich’s email announcing the
project:

Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a
consistent, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are several
nice either free or low-priced applications available, so that Linux/X11 would
almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.

Notable changes include accessibility improvements, inclusion
of the Kup backup
tool as part of Plasma, as well as the ability to include system audio and
microphone input in Spectacle
screen recordings. Plasma 6.8 also drops support for Plasma X11 sessions, as was announced
in November 2025. X11 applications are still supported via XWayland, and KDE
applications will continue to support X11 “for the foreseeable
future“.

See the KDE wiki for a
list of major user-facing changes, and the changelog
for all changes since Plasma 6.7.5.