The KDE Project rolled out today KDE Plasma 6.0.5, marking the fifth and final maintenance update for the newest version of KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment series. The update was dedicated to fixing various bugs and enhancing performance.
This update arrives five weeks after KDE Plasma 6.0.4, and it improves the scrolling capability of extended scrollable views within the Plasma Discover package manager. It also optimizes HDR mode while using Night Color, provides support for screens utilising fractional scaling, and adjusts the search/filter field within Plasma’s Printers widget.
KDE Plasma 6.0.5 enhances the Plasma Digital Clock’s Islamic calendar feature, now respecting locale-specific numbering systems. This change allows users in Arabic-speaking countries who use Western-style Arabic numerals to see these numbers instead of Eastern-style Arabic numerals.
The screen chooser OSD in Plasma has also been upgraded in this release to operate as anticipated on X11. Also, X11 users now have operational multi-monitor screenshots with the Spectacle screenshot tool, a change also expected to be incorporated in the forthcoming Spectacle 24.05 release that is a part of the KDE Gear 24.05 software package.
On Wayland, KDE Plasma 6.0.5 improves the KWin window and composite manager to no longer crash when it can’t open a socket to XWayland. Also fixed are two longstanding issues that could cause the Plasma desktop to crash when it didn’t find all the connected screens when waking up or booting the system.
The System Settings app has been updated to no longer let you choose GNOME’s Adwaita or High Contrast icon themes as your system-wide icon theme due to the fact that they are no longer designed to be used this way despite registering themselves as FreeDesktop-compatible icon themes, breaking everything from KDE.
The Plasma Discover package manager received some attention as well to no longer misleadingly and incorrectly claim that apps with no licenses are proprietary, no longer leave gaps in the updates list when updating the system, and no longer show annoying error messages when viewing content from store.kde.org.
KDE Plasma 6.0.5 enhances the Plasma System Monitor app, rectifying a crash when navigating to the Applications page, refining the Grid layout for sensors in limited spaces, preventing Plasma from freezing when activating a system monitor widget showing GPU sensors in the system tray through Qt 6.7, and remedying a color mismatch issue in some UI controls and icons in config windows when using a mixed light and dark global theme like Breeze Twilight.
In addition to that, KDE Plasma 6.0.5 is on board to tackle several issues concerning keyboard focus and selection with search results in Plasma’s Application Dashboard widget, and fix an overlap regression in panel widgets when an Activity Pager widget is on a horizontal panel. The update also boosts the reliability of Plasma’s ability to recall the last status of Bluetooth—whether it was switched on or off.
In this release, numerous other bugs were addressed, such as a crash in the authentication system that barred apps from seeking authentication, a Plasma crash triggered when altering the favorite apps set in the Kickoff application launcher, Kicker applications menu, or another launcher menu using the same backend. It also mitigated another Plasma crash that occurred upon eliminating standalone launcher widgets for apps with no “Open With” context menu action.
Multiple issues have been addressed in KDE Plasma 6.0.5, such as instances where parts of the Plasma desktop were not saving changes to settings due to crashing, unexpected exits, or unclean terminations. Additionally, an odd issue was rectified where Plasma panels and other windows would ignore clicks when opening windows of IntelliJ IDE apps.
This release also enhances the KWin window and composite manager’s reliability when screens are turned off due to hardware and driver quirks. The size of the panel icons for Kickoff and Kicker widgets, the capability of floating panels to undo floating when a window is sufficiently far from them, and support for systems using adaptive sync to avoid flickering and stuttering, have all been improved.
Enhancing the search functionality in Plasma’s Clipboard widget to return “No matches” when no results match a search and improving support for quickly-tiled windows so they do not disappear when the system wakes from sleep are additional improvements. For more details, refer to the full changelog.
As you can see, this is a pretty big update and it’s recommended for all Plasma 6 users. Keep an eye on the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distributions for the KDE Plasma 6.0.5 packages and update your installations as soon as possible.
Last updated 4 hours ago