KDE developers dropped the first beta of Plasma 6.7 today. The release brings two brand-new modules into the fold. It also packs dozens of refinements that touch everything from graphics performance to daily interface habits.
Users can test the beta now in KDE neon unstable or openSUSE Tumbleweed developer editions. A second beta follows on May 28. The final version lands June 16. KDE.org hosts the announcement and live images for easy trials.
New Modules Signal Bigger Ambitions
Plasma-bigscreen joins the official lineup. The module revives focus on living-room TVs and large displays. Developers see strong potential for Steam Deck docked to televisions or dedicated home theater setups. Background details sit at plasma-bigscreen.org.
Union arrives as the second addition. This CSS-based theming engine powers QML and Kirigami applications when the union package is installed. The first public tech preview ships inside the beta. KDE wants these apps to match the classic look exactly. Testers should hunt for visual differences in System Settings, Discover, Spectacle, and similar tools.
Run suspect apps with QT_QUICK_CONTROLS_STYLE=org.kde.desktop to compare against the old style. Report confirmed Union-specific bugs directly to the new product on bugs.kde.org. The call for stress-testing comes straight from the KDE announcement.
But the real story lives in the details. KWin gains per-screen virtual desktops at last. One monitor can run its own set of workspaces while another stays fixed. The Alt+Tab switcher can now limit itself to the primary display. Notifications slide in with a fresh effect. And support for the ext-background-effect-v1 Wayland protocol opens the door to consistent blur and other background treatments across applications.
Performance work stands out. Xaver Hugl improved CPU-based rendering under Wayland by switching to UDMABUF. The change cuts buffer copies. Scrolling in KDevelop dropped KWin CPU usage from 80-90% on one core to around 20%. Phoronix reported the numbers and quoted Hugl: “These improvements will be in Plasma 6.7 and Qt 6.11.2. I would recommend other toolkits and applications that use shm buffers to make the same changes as I did in Qt, it can make a really noticeable difference.”
Intel GPUs now enable overlay planes by default in release builds. The move saves power and boosts frame rates for certain games and apps. NVIDIA receives targeted fixes. Direct scan-out handling gets smarter for full-screen games. HDR sees continued gains including ICC profile support in some modes. Vulkan work in KWin advances steadily.
Daily use changes feel thoughtful. A toggle switch in the Brightness & Color widget flips between light and dark modes instantly. Global push-to-talk receives a configurable keyboard shortcut. The Emoji Selector now offers easy mixed skin tone combinations. Press-and-hold on the Plasma Keyboard produces special characters missing from physical boards. Type-ahead search on the desktop arrives, though disabled by default to avoid surprising longtime users.
Widgets pick up polish. The Digital Clock shows time zone offsets and opens the Calendar on middle click. Kicker gains a Recent Locations entry. The Window List supports custom sorting and grouping. Drag-and-drop now adds or removes favorites across Kickoff, Kicker, and the Dashboard. Printer users receive a full-featured queue viewer application, badge counts on the Printers widget, and a dedicated UI for Windows-shared printers.
System Settings gains clarity. The subcategory back button behaves like a conventional browser control. Notifications page lets users preview sounds even when muted. Default Applications page lets users pick their preferred calendar app. A new Projects folder location can be set. Network connections can be duplicated for batch edits. Storage units now respect user preference in monitors and widgets.
Breeze theme receives rounded selection highlights in QtWidgets apps. Menu items show click effects with opaque backgrounds. Discover’s browse lists and headers get a complete redesign. Sound themes can be installed from downloaded files. The System Tray can reverse item order.
Wayland protocol support expands. The release adds xdg-session-management-v1, xx-fractional-scale-v2, version 2 of the Input Capture portal, and the portal notifications system. These additions tighten integration with modern Linux graphics and security standards. Sandboxed applications gain better screencasting and remote desktop handling. Window rules can permanently exclude titles from recordings.
Power management receives attention too. Full-screen windows and effects that gain nothing from direct scan-out now consume less energy. AMD laptops can control whether colors shift at low brightness. FreeBSD users see network activity monitoring. VPN configuration pages for OpenVPN and OpenConnect receive updates.
The beta also carries forward HDR improvements, better multi-GPU detection in System Monitor, and 3D LUT support to reduce GPU load where hardware color pipelines exist. KRunner’s Global Shortcuts plugin activates by default. Mouse Mark effect works more cleanly on touchscreens.
Developers hardened the stack in recent point releases. Plasma 6.6.5 already fixed some NVIDIA performance problems that benefit this branch. The Sovereign Tech Fund investment of over 1.2 million euros, covered by Phoronix, provides extra resources as the project ships these changes.
Early feedback from today’s release focuses on Union stability and the new bigscreen module. Michael Larabel at Phoronix highlighted the HDR work, CPU rendering gains, Intel overlay planes, per-screen desktops, and Vulkan progress in KWin. He noted Plasma Bigscreen’s potential for Steam Machine-style living room PCs.
9to5Linux outlined many user-facing additions in its earlier preview, including the panel dark-mode switch, global push-to-talk, print queue app, Windows printer setup, and rounded Breeze highlights. The site also mentioned character input via press-and-hold and custom sound theme installation. Those features now sit inside the beta available for download.
So the beta lands at an interesting moment. KDE has matured its Wayland story. Hardware vendors ship better drivers. Users expect both eye candy and efficiency. Plasma 6.7 tries to deliver both without asking for trade-offs. Whether Union survives its public debut in good shape will shape the theming conversation for years. The bigscreen module could open new form factors.
Testers should grab the live images from KDE’s community wiki. Report issues through the normal channels. The next six weeks will decide which refinements make the final cut for the June stable release. The list of changes already stretches long. And more fixes will arrive before the branch closes.
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