KDE releases Plasma 6.8, deprecating X11 for Wayland

KDE has released Plasma 6.8, which officially retires native X11 session support in favor of the Wayland display server architecture. While native X11 support is deprecated, legacy applications can still function through the XWayland compatibility layer, and KDE applications will maintain X11 support on external desktop environments. Plasma 6.8 also introduces performance enhancements, such as Nvidia triple buffering enabled by default, and improved administrative tools like a revamped System Monitor that allows pinning processes to specific CPU cores.

Simultaneously, KDE has launched Plasma 6.6.7, the first maintenance update for its new Long-Term Support (LTS) series. This follows the Bullet-Proof KDE Initiative, which extends maintenance for the Plasma 6.6 series for three years to provide stability for users, specifically targeting Kubuntu 26.04 LTS. The 6.6.7 update focuses on bug fixes for the KWin window manager, resolving issues related to screen recording, GPU resets, and display management, alongside various fixes for the Discover software manager and desktop interface elements.