KDE announces long-term goals and releases Plasma 6.8 Beta 2

KDE has announced long-term strategic goals for 2026 and beyond, focusing on enterprise readiness, documentation, and styling. The enterprise initiative aims to improve security and administration through features such as single sign-on (SSO) support, LDAP integration, password expiry management, and enhanced network printer settings. Additionally, the project seeks to modernize its documentation and unify its styling system through the Ocean design project and the Union theming engine.

In parallel, the second beta of KDE Plasma 6.8 has been released. This update expands the Union theming engine to legacy QtWidgets applications, including Dolphin and Kate, providing a more consistent visual experience across the desktop. The release also integrates Kup, a btrfs-based backup scheduler, as a core module. Other technical updates in this build include the removal of X11 login support, default NVIDIA triple buffering, and improvements to HDR, screen recording, and remote desktop functionality.