KDE developer David Edmundson has blogged about the upcoming purge of X11, as KDE Plasma moves to a Wayland-only world. As previously announced last year, KDE Plasma is doing away with the X11 session as the Linux world moves on fully towards Wayland and now Edmundson has a new blog post up to talk a little about moving forward.
Edmundson mentions in the post that "As of today, the Plasma X11 session you can log into has been officially removed, and we will start a mass cleanup of X11-specific code soon". This change will arrive in Plasma 6.8 so that's when it will affect end-users who will wave goodbye to X11 where only Wayland will be a session login option.
For Plasma 6.8 they said "all X11-specific code paths in Plasma for Plasma Shell, System Settings, and device configuration will be gone".
Of course with the likes of XWayland, most apps will continue working as normal. Wayland the protocol and Plasma support for Wayland is working very nicely nowadays, I've been running it for quite some time now without problems gaming and in general day-to-day work. Nice and smooth.
Edmundson did note also that "Plasma Login Manager will continue to be able to log you into X11 sessions of other desktop environments".
The main point though is this gives the KDE team one area of focus, instead of trying to retain compatibility across two rather different systems - they can spend more time improving Plasma with Wayland and Plasma desktop as a whole.
Their own internal metrics within KDE show that over 95% of users of Plasma 6.6 are already on Wayland, with it gradually increasing with each release so this will really only affect a small minority of holdouts and "basically no one is testing or developing Plasma on X11 anymore" so you pretty much have to move anyway.
Plasma 6.8 is due out around October 14th.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Squires-Hand
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can follow me personally on Mastodon [External Link].
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20 comments
Thats probably for the best though for gaming X11 can still be better for older graphics cards like nvidia-580's. But of course in those cases people can choose any other DE that still supports X11.
But outside of gaming Plasma Wayland works on all systems I tested even on intel graphics from around mid 2000's.
But outside of gaming Plasma Wayland works on all systems I tested even on intel graphics from around mid 2000's.
0 Likes
Quoting: poisondRIP KDE😆
I'm on KDE on X at the moment, but Wayland is the future, and they're not doing this for fun.
Getting rid of old convoluted code every now and then is a good thing.
11 Likes
Dmitri Seletski 7 hours ago
I am a little confused.
I thought X11 libraries are still needed to for any proton and Linux games explicitly depending on X11?(X11 apps were running local X11 server within Wayland environment, or so i thought)
I know proton in some at least or may be most games now supports Wayland. But its not working with Wayland by default.
Is there emulation layer or anything in KDE or in wayland protocol itself?
Because if its the case, than yea, i agree with poisond, RIP KDE.
I thought X11 libraries are still needed to for any proton and Linux games explicitly depending on X11?(X11 apps were running local X11 server within Wayland environment, or so i thought)
I know proton in some at least or may be most games now supports Wayland. But its not working with Wayland by default.
Is there emulation layer or anything in KDE or in wayland protocol itself?
Because if its the case, than yea, i agree with poisond, RIP KDE.
0 Likes
Liam Squires-Hand 7 hours ago
Quoting: Dmitri SeletskiI am a little confused.You're thinking of XWayland.
I thought X11 libraries are still needed to for any proton and Linux games explicitly depending on X11?(X11 apps were running local X11 server within Wayland environment, or so i thought)
I know proton in some at least or may be most games now supports Wayland. But its not working with Wayland by default.
Is there emulation layer or anything in KDE or in wayland protocol itself?
Because if its the case, than yea, i agree with poisond, RIP KDE.
9 Likes
Pretty sure the KDE team somehow discussed and got the greenlight for this change from one of their most valuable customers: Valve.
And this means that in the (not too?) distant future, SteamOS and Steam themselves could support, or even move to, Wayland - with the obvious fallback of XWayland kept around just in case.
And this means that in the (not too?) distant future, SteamOS and Steam themselves could support, or even move to, Wayland - with the obvious fallback of XWayland kept around just in case.
0 Likes
williamjcm 6 hours ago
Honestly, it's a goddamn shame X11 is being dropped, because Plasma Wayland is still lacking an off switch for its built-in drawing tablet support (preventing people from using official or other drivers as the two will interfere), and judging by [a blog post](https://nocoffei.com/?p=451) I've read a few days ago, Wayland in general is still lacking a lot of accessibility features meaning that people who need those features won't be able to use KDE Plasma anymore.
Last edited by williamjcm on 4 Jun 2026 at 10:53 am UTC
Last edited by williamjcm on 4 Jun 2026 at 10:53 am UTC
3 Likes
Quoting: syylkPretty sure the KDE team somehow discussed and got the greenlight for this change from one of their most valuable customers: Valve.SteamOS 3.8 (Beta) already moved to Wayland, the desktop session defaults to Wayland now. Steam itself is still XWayland.
And this means that in the (not too?) distant future, SteamOS and Steam themselves could support, or even move to, Wayland - with the obvious fallback of XWayland kept around just in case.
3 Likes
with my gtx660 i must change pc (bad moment) or jump to nouveau+nvk with manual reclocking
0 Likes
Well, it was time to rip the bandage. That being said, hello (whatever X11 DE are still available), since I still need X11. Sucks.
1 Likes
Quoting: dubigrasuWell, it was time to rip the bandage. That being said, hello (whatever X11 DE are still available), since I still need X11.Why?
0 Likes
While I'm sad because KDE Wayland doesn't handle saving the layout based on monitors (I want secondary only while plugged into the doc but the docked bar doesn't move with Wayland), I'm glad they are moving forward.
I'm still remember when XOrg was new and all the teething problems I had with that.
I'm still remember when XOrg was new and all the teething problems I had with that.
1 Likes
Quoting: dmoonfireWhile I'm sad because KDE Wayland doesn't handle saving the layout based on monitors (I want secondary only while plugged into the doc but the docked bar doesn't move with Wayland)Is your concern still valid? I run Wayland and:
- When my laptop is unplugged my panel is on my internal screen.
- When it's plugged to my 2 external screens at my desk I get all 3 screens but only the external screens have panels.
- When I plug into my TV my internal screen turns off and my TV screen has my panel.
I don't remember exactly how I set it up, but I don't think I had to do anything special to get this behavior.
1 Likes
Quoting: EikeAh, for my OG Steam Controller. On wayland the mouse is not displayed (is present but invisible).Quoting: dubigrasuWell, it was time to rip the bandage. That being said, hello (whatever X11 DE are still available), since I still need X11.Why?
There are some workarounds, using gamescope or extest, but none satisfactory. Also some games are still running somewhat worse on wayland (although I could live with that).
All in all I find wayland ready to go, but with some nasty papercuts.
1 Likes
Summary from the blogpost and (other sources)
Changes in Plasma 6.8:
- No X11 session in the login screen (only Wayland)
- XWayland support remains present, so X11 applications (Including games) will continue to work
- For KDE applications on another desktop environment, this change will have no effect. KDE applications will continue to work on X11 for the foreseeable future.
- Plasma Login Manager will continue to be able to log you into X11 sessions of other desktop environments.
- Anyone still using Plasma 5 (or any release older than Plasma 6.8), won't be affected by changes in Plasma 6.8, and nothing will be applied retroactively.
SteamOS 3.8 preview KDE Plasma desktop (ver. 6.4.3) is using Wayland by default.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/532126482488623649
Seems like the developer of xdotool got Talon (accessibility tool) to work on Wayland (wip)
https://hachyderm.io/@whack/116671651756618157
Changes in Plasma 6.8:
- No X11 session in the login screen (only Wayland)
- XWayland support remains present, so X11 applications (Including games) will continue to work
- For KDE applications on another desktop environment, this change will have no effect. KDE applications will continue to work on X11 for the foreseeable future.
- Plasma Login Manager will continue to be able to log you into X11 sessions of other desktop environments.
- Anyone still using Plasma 5 (or any release older than Plasma 6.8), won't be affected by changes in Plasma 6.8, and nothing will be applied retroactively.
SteamOS 3.8 preview KDE Plasma desktop (ver. 6.4.3) is using Wayland by default.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/532126482488623649
Seems like the developer of xdotool got Talon (accessibility tool) to work on Wayland (wip)
https://hachyderm.io/@whack/116671651756618157
2 Likes
PlayingOnLinuxphone 2 hours ago
On Debian with KDE 6.3 there are still a lot of issues with multi-window applications on multi-monitor-setups with different resolutions to make an extreme example. I don't know if 6.8 will have fixed this. There is a chance, but no guarantee. That is the most important fix I want to see. Maybe I should try it out on Debian Sid or Testing VM.
0 Likes
Caldathras 1 hour ago
Quoting: kuunha- XWayland support remains present, so X11 applications (Including games) will continue to workExcellent summary. However, it does mean that KDE is abandoning anyone who has a video card whose drivers won't support Wayland. Not sure how this will impact Intel iGPUs or older AMD GPUs, but Nvidia will definitely be impacted. Those with older cards will have to fall back to the less robust Nouveau drivers or switch to a different desktop that still supports X11.
0 Likes
Gnome is already wayland only, Cosmic is wayland only, now KDE will be. Pretty soon there won't be any modern de that supports x11 at all. You'll have to go with some ancient out of date de with no modern support. I think this is a good thing for the developers of the de, allowing them to focus on only one thing instead of both.
0 Likes
Eduardo Medina 13 minutes ago
It's funny to see people saying that KDE Plasma will die while the 95% of Plasma 6.6 users use Wayland.
0 Likes
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