KDE Plasma sets date to dump X11 as Wayland push accelerates

Steven

KDE Plasma sets date to dump X11 as Wayland push accelerates

Summary

The KDE Plasma team has announced it will go Wayland-only: Plasma 6.8, expected in early 2027, will remove X11 support entirely. Plasma 6.5.x is the current stable line, so there are two release cycles (6.6 and 6.7) before the change lands. GNOME is following a similar path with Wayland-first moves, and several distributions have already made Wayland the default, which is surfacing and helping to resolve remaining bugs.

Key Points

  • KDE Plasma will drop X11 support in Plasma 6.8, targeted for early 2027.
  • Current stable series is 6.5.x; 6.6 and 6.7 are expected to occupy most of 2026 and into 2027 before 6.8.
  • GNOME is also moving towards Wayland-only; distro defaults are accelerating testing and bug reports.
  • Wayland still has notable pain points — screenshots, screen sharing, VNC/remote control, window layout save/restore, touchscreen/trackpad gestures and accessibility — but the situation is improving.
  • Meanwhile, retro and lightweight projects remain active: CDE 2.5.3 was released, tmux 3.6 adds a per-pane scrollbar and many fixes, and new terminal projects (desktop-tui in Rust, TVTerm in C++) are emerging.

Content Summary

KDE’s announcement (linked in the original piece) sets a clear timeline for the desktop to abandon X11 in favour of Wayland, with Plasma 6.8 slated to remove X11 support. That gives users and distributors time to transition, but it also formalises the end of an era for a major open-source desktop. The article notes GNOME’s parallel moves and how distro defaults are forcing broader testing and faster bug discovery.

The write-up also covers related ecosystem news: the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) saw a fresh release (2.5.3) with bug fixes and improved mouse support, tmux 3.6 arrived with a visible new feature (scrollbars per pane) plus many fixes, and several terminal-based UI projects continue to be developed in both Rust and modernised C++.

Context and Relevance

This matters if you run KDE, maintain distributions, develop desktop or GUI apps, or manage remote-desktop and accessibility tooling. The move is part of a broader industry trend away from the legacy X11 stack towards Wayland, which promises modernised compositing and security but still requires fixes for screen sharing, remote control and assistive technologies. Organisations should start testing workflows on Wayland now if they haven’t already.

Why should I read this?

Short version: KDE has set a date to bin X11 — early 2027. If you use or support KDE, this is the kind of announcement that changes upgrade plans, testing priorities and maybe even which distributions you endorse. It’s a neat milestone in the long roll-out of Wayland; there will be rough edges, but knowing the timeline gives you time to prepare. We’ve done the slog so you don’t have to — here’s what to watch and test.

Source

Source: https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/28/kde_6_8_wayland_only/