KDE has announced that it will go Wayland-only in future releases of the Plasma desktop. It will not support X11 sessions from 2027.
KDE Plasma 6, released in February 2024, switched from X11 to enable Wayland as the default display server. Initially, the developers did not plan to remove X11/Kwin before Plasma 7, however Kwin’s codebase split This year, one for X11 and another for Wayland.
(Image via KDE)
Now, KDE has announced Xorg/X11 will be completely removed in the future. There are plans to make Wayland specific in Plasma 6.8. He is still away. For reference, the current version is KDE Plasma 6.5Which was released in October 2025, and supports X11 sessions. KDE says the LTS distribution that comes with older versions of Plasma will be ideal for users who need X11 support.
But, you can use the Xwayland compatibility layer to run X11 apps, although screenshot/screencasting apps may require some additional changes. KDE apps will still support X11 as well. The official article highlights Wayland’s improvements like support for accessibility tools like screen readers, sticky and bounce keys, zoom controls, an improved gaming experience, adaptive sync, optional tearing, and high-refresh-rate multi-monitor setups and HDR (with tweaks). It was also noted that NVIDIA drivers for Linux have been significantly improved, and older GPUs can use the open source nouveau driver if necessary.
Games run fine on Linux with Proton, and big YouTube channels are abandoning Windows for their videos. Of course, there’s the Steam Machine, which runs on Arch-based SteamOS3, coming in early 2026.
KDE says most Plasma users are already using a Wayland session, it’s the default on most distributions. KDE also has its own distro, but it is still in alpha. If you don’t know, GNOME removed support for X11 in GNOME 49, but later added it back. It is ending in GNOME 50. However, some distros have already stopped supporting Xorg. Fedora 43 has already abandoned X11 in favor of Wayland Display Server as the only option. Ubuntu 25.10 does not support X11 sessions, nor does Kubuntu 25.10 which uses KDE Plasma. The Linux Mint team is also working on improving Wayland support in Mint 22.3, which is expected to be released in December 2025.
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