KDE marked its 30th anniversary on October 14 by releasing Plasma 6.8, debuting a movie, and retiring Plasma's native X11 session support.
The release is labelled the "30th Anniversary Edition" and is described by the project as preparing Plasma for the future. The X11 change is the significant one: Plasma will not start new X11 sessions, completing a move to Wayland.
Nothing breaks immediately. Legacy X11 applications still run through the XWayland compatibility layer, and KDE applications continue to support X11 under other desktop environments. Users who stay on Plasma 6.7 keep their existing sessions.
X11 has been in service for 42 years. Plasma is the latest major desktop to drop it, a move that had been expected as GNOME and others made the same transition.
Why it matters
- If you maintain anything that assumed a native X11 session, this is the release where that assumption stops holding.
- XWayland covers most applications, but it is a compatibility layer, not the same environment.
- Staying on 6.7 is a real option for now — the sessions keep working — but it is a deferral, not a fix.