The oldest of the open source Linux desktops is planning its final steps away from X11, while an even older Unix desktop is getting freshened up.
The team behind the KDE Plasma desktop announced it is going all-in on a Wayland future. The Plasma version 6.8, “which we expect will be sometime in early 2027,” will completely drop X11 support.
You don’t need to worry just yet. Plasma 6.5 appeared less than a month ago, and it’s currently at version 6.5.3. That means there are the entire 6.6 and 6.7 release sequences to get through, which will probably take most of 2026 and some of 2027.
Im not sure about the politics or many of the reasons, but personally, not a fan of wayland. Its nothing crazy, just things don’t run as well on my hardware. X11 works in my experience, but honestly I don’t know enough to say why.
There’s always Trinity or older versions of Plasma that you can use. I actually have the former, as I’m testing that out (since it has XLibre support too). Wayland is just wrong on so many levels, plus on top of that, it’s made by former X11 devs who want to murder X11 and force everyone onto a singular DE, whether it be KDE, GNOME, or anything else IBM and/or FreeDesktop wants to force down our throats.
This comments section is interesting since thats all I have heard about wayland before, and the comments here seem the opposite.
Im not sure i have a particular opinion on the outcome of the anti x11 stuff, but outside waydroid, I have no use for wayland personally.
Still, might try out some other options outside Plasma just to try them.
If you want some X11 by default options, feel free to let me know. I know of some alternatives that help out a lot with the best of both worlds (that being WIP Wayland, though X11 is still usable regardless).
The day talon voice users are forced to dump KDE plasma
I wonder if Trinity had implemented support for Talon Voice and stylus support, since it’s X11 only (or XLibre supported if one wanted to use that).
