After four months of development KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop environment release was published. To evaluate the performance of the new KDE releases, you can use builds from the projects KDE Linux, KDE Neon, and openSUSE (Argon, based on openSUSE Leap, and Krypton, based on openSUSE Tumbleweed).
Basic changes in KDE Plasma 6.6:
- Added a new login manager Plasma Login Manager, developed to replace the SDDM display manager (Simple Desktop Display Manager) and solving architectural problems specific to it. Plasma-login-manager uses a backend based on a stripped-down version of SDDM and a launch mechanism identical to that used to launch a KDE Plasma desktop session. The design of the login screen is close to the existing KDE screen locker, and the settings are unified with KDE Plasma. Instead of using QML to customize themes, it is proposed to use existing plugins for desktop wallpaper, color schemes, and Plasma themes.
Plasma Login Manager is tied to the systemd-logind service and works only on systems with systemd. The KDE developers stated that the KDE Plasma desktop environment itself remains not tied to systemd and can continue to be used on systems without systemd in the foreseeable future. The
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