What’s new in Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44

Fedora has released Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition 44 to the public.

The Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition is suitable for many needs. It combines the trusted and reliable Fedora Linux base with the KDE Plasma Desktop environment. It offers a selection of KDE applications that are simple by default but powerful when needed.

The KDE community makes your life easier with the latest version of KDE Plasma. It builds on the foundations of Plasma 6 to provide a seamless, friendly and familiar experience.

Fedora KDE 44 ships with Plasma 6.6.4 with:

• Custom global theme creation by saving the current theme configuration
• More options for using color accents in windows with tint intensity for window frames
• Support to connect to Wi-Fi networks by scanning QR codes
• Per-app volume adjustment from the task manager
• New grayscale filter for color blindness correction
• New screen magnifier feature that follows the mouse cursor
• New settings for “slow keys” and “reduced movement”.
• Spectacle can do OCR scanning of images to capture text
• Filter by window from screencast through the menu in the title bar

There are so many more details available in the Plasma 6.6 release announcement.

Besides just the updates included in KDE Plasma 6.6, there are some important new features with Fedora KDE on Fedora Linux 44.

• Fresh installations now use the brand new Plasma Setup and Plasma Login Manager. It provides a more cohesive and integrated experience from the moment the computer is first turned on. The installation process is simplified. This now allows you to easily set up a computer with Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop for a friend or a loved one.
• The on-screen keyboard uses the new Plasma keyboard, which offers a fresh and future-proof implementation for keyboard input.

Some broader changes in Fedora Linux also directly affect Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition, notably:

• PackageKit now uses version 5 of the DNF package manager as the backend.
• Support for certain Qualcomm-based laptops.
• The /etc/pki/tls/cert.pem file no longer exists by default. This may affect some programs that expect this file to provide CA certificates for system libraries instead of using behavior built into cryptographic security to present this information.

The Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44 edition is fully supported within the fedora Rready program Fedora KDE is actively working with hardware vendors to support Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop on their devices.

We are happy to announce it Star Labs offers pre-installed Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop as an option for their portfolio of devices. As PC makers with an open source ethos embedded at the core of their products with even open source firmware powered by Coreboot, they share many of the same principles that the Fedora community values. This is a very exciting moment for Fedora KDE and we look forward to deepening our collaboration with Fedora Ready participants and expanding to other vendors. If you are a vendor who might be interested in Fedora Ready, please issue!

The Fedora KDE SIG hopes that you will find the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44 to be a great experience. When you’re ready to try it, click here for download links and verification instructions. If you want to learn more, check out the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop website.

Neal Gompa

Neal Gompa is a contributor across a number of spaces in the Fedora project, but is primarily known as the lead for Fedora KDE. Neal focuses primarily on the base Linux system components, such as package and software management, and desktop Linux. He believes in “upstream first”, which has led him all over the open source world. In addition to open source work as a consultant through Velocity Limitless, he is also a co-host on the Sudo Show podcast where he talks about “the business of Linux.”