The FESCO Committee (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), responsible for the technical development of the Fedora Linux distribution, has approved the inclusion of KDE Plasma 6 in the upcoming Fedora 40 release. This decision entails updating the KDE version and transitioning away from the X11 protocol for session support, moving towards the exclusive use of the Wayland protocol. X11 applications will still be supported through the XWayland DDX server. The decision to discontinue support for X11 sessions in Fedora 40 is due to limited resources available for maintaining an outdated branch and the main KDE project’s focus on Plasma 6 development.
The decision to abandon X11 sessions is supported by several reasons. Firstly, the X.org server is considered obsolete in the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 9) and will be completely removed in the future, starting with RHEL 10. Additionally, the availability of Wayland support in NVIDIA proprietary drivers and FBDEV drivers, which work seamlessly with Wayland, has contributed to the preference for Wayland protocol in Fedora 36. By discontinuing X11 session support, Fedora can allocate more resources towards enhancing the KDE stack and improving overall quality.
KDE Plasma 6.0, KDE Frameworks 6.0, and KDE Gear 24.02.0 are scheduled for release on February 28, 2024. Alpha testing for the KDE 6 branch will commence on November 8. The new branch will adopt the QT 6 library, introduce changes to basic settings, streamline outstanding features, and update the core libraries of KDE Frameworks 6. KDE Plasma 6 will offer a session using the Wayland protocol by default, along with a new task switching interface and a floating panel display mode.
In related news, the release of Fedora Linux 39, initially planned for October 17, has been postponed multiple times due to unresolved issues considered blockers for production. The release is now expected to occur on November 7. For further details, refer to the official announcement and the list of blocking bugs.