Hey everyone! Big news from the KDE community this week - the Plasma 6.2 beta has been released! This update is all about making things more stable and reliable, and it’s packed with some exciting new features.
Table of Contents
What’s New in KDE Plasma 6.2 Beta
For the Artists
If you’re into digital art, you’re going to love this. Plasma 6.2 brings a bunch of improvements that make your creative process smoother.
Better Tablet Control
You now have more control over your drawing tablet’s stylus buttons, screen mapping, and calibration settings.
Color Management
Plus, support for KWin’s Wayland color management protocol is now enabled. This means you can even use your monitor’s built-in color profile data, making your colors more accurate and vibrant.
Power Management & System Updates
Moving on to power management and system updates, Plasma 6.2 focuses on making your system more efficient and user-friendly.
Per-Monitor Brightness
You can now adjust the brightness for each monitor individually, which is a huge plus if you’re working with multiple screens.
You can read more about this feature in the following link:
Sleep & Screen Lock
Apps that prevent your system from sleeping or locking the screen can now be overridden, giving you more control over your workflow.
Battery Widget
The battery widget has also seen some updates, with a power profile badge and persistent visibility during charging.
System Updates
When it comes to system updates, you can now choose to shut down your system after installation. Discover, KDE’s app store, also gets support for PostmarketOS and improved app review functionality.
Accessibility & Design
Plasma 6.2 makes the desktop more accessible and visually appealing.
Sticky Keys
Full Sticky Keys support is now available on Wayland, making it easier for those who need it.
Accessibility KCM
The Accessibility settings have been redesigned for a better experience.
Visuals
Visually, the update brings accent color support for Breeze Dark and Twilight themes, a redesigned System Tray grid view, and modern UI updates to various components.
SVG Cursors
Initial support for SVG cursor theming is also included, adding a touch of customization to your desktop.
Download Plasma 6.2 beta
If you want to experience all these goodies, download the Plasma 6.2 beta and give it a try. Live images, Docker images, and package downloads are available on the KDE website.
For Arch-based distributions, the kde-unstable repository hosts the 6.2 beta. Keep in mind that using unstable repositories can introduce system instability, so it's recommended for users who are comfortable troubleshooting potential issues.
KDE Neon users can try out the 6.2 beta by using the Neon Testing edition. This edition is designed for testing upcoming releases and may not be suitable for everyday use.
Remember that since this is a beta release, you might encounter bugs or instability. It's always a good idea to back up your important data before trying out beta software.
Beyond the Beta
While the Plasma 6.2 beta is the star of the show, there were other improvements this week.
Immutable Tool View Tabs
Immutable tool view tabs got a fresh new style, though you’ll have to wait for Plasma 6.3 to see them everywhere.
Power Profiles
The Meta+B shortcut for switching power profiles has been refined to cycle through profiles sequentially.
System Settings
The Login Screen page in System Settings has received visual improvements and now displays sharper preview images.
Bug Fixes & Performance
Window Management
On the bug fixes and performance side, a high-priority crash related to window management has been fixed.
Multi-GPU Systems
A performance bottleneck in KWin affecting multi-GPU systems has been resolved, which also benefits Plasma Mobile on the Librem 5 phone.
And, that's all for this week. The release of the Plasma 6.2 beta is a big milestone. Don’t hesitate to get involved, test out the beta, and report any issues you encounter.
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