KDE Plasma Desktop 5.12, a new long-term support release, was released a day ago. Here’s how to install it in (K)Ubuntu 17.10 via PPA.

Plasma 5.12 is the second LTS release from the Plasma 5 team. It features:

• Many improvements to the Discover in stability and user interface.
• Add support for interactive previews in the notification system
• Much more usable Wayland support
• Global Menus have returned in Plasma 5.12.
• Folder View is now the default desktop layout.
• Media controls have been added to the lock screen.
• New System Settings interface
• And many other changes, see release note for details.

How to Install Plasma 5.12 in Ubuntu 17.10:

Kubuntu backports PPA has made the packages for (K)ubuntu 17.10.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

Type in your password when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. Then upgrade your system to get the latest Plasma Desktop via either Update Manager or command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

After the upgrade process has completed, and assuming everything went well, reboot your computer.

For non-Kubuntu user, you may first install the kubuntu-desktop package either from Ubuntu Software or by running below command before doing the upgrade.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop

How to Uninstall:

To undo the changes and restore to the stock version of Plasma Desktop in your main Ubuntu repository, purge the PPA via command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports