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KDE announced the Plasma Desktop 6.8 yesterday, as the 30th anniversary edition.<\/p>\n
The new version of this popular Linux Desktop environment introduced many new features, performance improvements and various fixes.<\/p>\n
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First, Plasma 6.8 improved its built-in remote desktop with bi-directional clipboard synchronization<\/b>. Meaning you can copy text on server side and paste it in client machine, as well copy text in client then paste to the server side.<\/p>\n
It introduced an optional exclusive mode<\/b> that locks the server’s screen and provides the client with a virtual screen that exactly matches its window size. <\/p>\n
And, the remote desktop performance has been updated to keep the screen responsive with minimize latency, even when the network is slow or the screen changes frequently.<\/p>\n
Spectacle, the screenshot and screen recording software, has been updated with ability to record system audio and microphone input<\/b>. <\/p>\n
And, the screen sharing portal dialog now support to specify screen resolution when trying to share a virtual screen.<\/p>\n
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NVIDIA GPUs now use triple buffering by default<\/b> instead of two. Meaning there’ll be frame buffers, first for the frame currently being displayed on the screen, second for a frame being rendered for display, and third allows GPU to prepare another frame while waiting for the next display refresh.<\/p>\n
In the case, GPU can keep rendering frames instead of waiting for the display to be ready, which may improve performance and reduce stuttering.<\/p>\n
Like GNOME, KDE Plasma 6.8 retired X11 sessions support<\/b>. Legacy applications that require X11 still work the \u201cXWayland\u201d compatibility layer. And KDE apps will continue to support X11 for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
It as well includes new dwell clicker<\/b> Accessibility option to automatically send a mouse click after when the pointer stops moving, ability to assign process to specific CPU cores in System Monitor, and new global shortcuts to circle between the previous and next tasks.<\/p>\n
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Other changes include:<\/p>\n
kscreenctl<\/code> CLI tool to manage displays.<\/li>\n- HLG transfer function support to make some apps work in HDR.<\/li>\n
- Support Bikram Sambat calendar in the Digital Clock.<\/li>\n
- Support Amharic language in the on-screen keyboard.<\/li>\n
- Show VRAM load as easy-to-ready percentage in system monitor.<\/li>\n
- Beta release of Union Union theming system.<\/li>\n
- EAP-TTLS authentication support for StrongSwan VPNs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Get KDE Plamsa 6.8<\/h3>\n
The new desktop version has been made into Arch Linux (extra-testing) and Fedora Rawhide repositories.<\/p>\n
For Debian and Ubuntu, it’s not available in the distribution repositories at the moment. But you may keep an eye on this KUbuntu PPA<\/a> which may or may not build the new release for next (K)Ubuntu 26.10.<\/p>\n