KDE MegaRelease is here with Plasma 6, Frameworks 6, and Gear 24.02

KDE has announced its MegaRelease, featuring the much-awaited KDE Plasma 6, Frameworks 6, and Gear 24.02. This release follows an alpha, a beta, and two release candidates.

Plasma 6 introduces two significant upgrades to the technology stack: a shift to the latest version of the application framework, Qt, and a migration to Wayland, a modern Linux graphics platform. These upgrades enhance the security, efficiency, and performance of Plasma, offering improved support for modern hardware and a more reliable user experience.

Despite these advancements, KDE will continue to provide support for the legacy X11 session for users who wish to keep using it.

Plasma 6 comes with a slew of new features including a new Overview effect, partial High Dynamic Range (HDR) support, color blindness correction filters, a dynamic wallpaper, a floating panel, a refreshed Breeze theme, reorganized settings, and new defaults. The MegaRelease also sees the return of the cube effect and improvements to Plasma Search, which now allows users to customize the ordering of search results.

KDE Gear 24.02 has upgraded many applications to Qt 6. In line with the changes in Breeze, many applications have adopted a more frameless interface. The Kontact suite has seen numerous improvements, particularly in security and privacy.

KDE Plasma 6 also includes updates to many apps, an improved fingerprint unlock feature from the lockscreen, and many other new features and enhancements. Additionally, the mobile version of Plasma has received several enhancements as well.