KDE Plasma 6.8 to Require Wayland and Switch KWin to OpenGL ES

The KDE Plasma 6.8 desktop environment, slated for release in October 2026, will make Wayland the sole native display session. The X11 session is being removed, with legacy X11 applications running only through XWayland. This change finalises a years‑long transition to Wayland for the popular Linux desktop.

At the same time, the KWin window compositor will drop support for Desktop OpenGL and adopt OpenGL ES exclusively. Developers cite “the various incompatibilities between desktop GL and OpenGL ES” that cause rendering glitches and extra maintenance overhead. The move simplifies the graphics stack while preserving full functionality for games and other OpenGL‑dependent applications; Vulkan support remains under development.