KDE hits 30, decides it's time to move out of the X11 era

KDE is marking its 30th birthday by showing X11 sessions the door.

The newly released KDE Plasma 6.8 is Wayland-only, though X11 applications can still run through XWayland.

The change arrives right on schedule after last month's beta.

KWin handles both window management and display-server duties.

That means X11-based screen-recording tools, for example, won't work any more.

You can't "shade" windows – roll them up into the title bar and back – and that's not planned to come back.

Restoring saved sessions can also behave differently.

Applications cannot freely position their own windows under Wayland, leaving placement to the compositor.

Saying that, there are lots of tweaks and refinements in this release.

The Spectacle screenshot tool can now include system audio and microphone input in its screen recordings.

Plasma 6.8 integrates with non-KDE tools better.

For instance, KDE's browser integration now supports the Flatpak version of Microsoft's Edge browser.

GTK2 applications also get better dark-theme matching.

Internationalization is getting better – for example, the Clock understands the Bikram Sambat calendar, and Amharic is now supported in KDE's on-screen keyboard.