F40 Change Proposal: KDE Plasma 6 (System Wide)

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Wiki  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/KDE_Plasma_6

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.



== Summary ==
KDE Plasma 6 is successor to KDE Plasma 5 created by the KDE
Community. It is based on Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 and brings many
changes and improvements over previous versions. For Fedora Linux, the
transition to KDE Plasma 6 will also include dropping support for the
X11 session entirely, leaving only Plasma Wayland as the sole offered
desktop mode.

== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:Ngompa|Neal Gompa]], [[User:Marcdeop|Marc Deop]],
[[User:Justinz|Justin Zobel]], [[User:Siosm|Timothy Ravier]],
[[User:Tdawson|Troy Dawson]], [[User:Jgrulich|Jan Grulich]]
* Email: ngompa13@xxxxxxxxx, marcdeop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
justin.zobel@xxxxxxxxx, travier@xxxxxxxxxx, tdawson@xxxxxxxxxx,
jgrulich@xxxxxxxxxx


== Detailed Description ==
KDE Plasma 6 is a new major version of the user experience environment
from the KDE community. It includes both desktop and mobile
environments. While there are some user experience improvements over
KDE Plasma 5, the majority of the work is under the hood. Notably, the
whole stack is now built on Qt 6. Qt 6 brings significant upgrades to
QML and Qt Quick as well as support for Vulkan (in addition to OpenGL
and OpenGL ES support introduced in Qt 5).

[https://pointieststick.com/2023/09/06/september-plasma-6-update/ KDE
Plasma 6.0 is expected to release in early February 2024]. The
frameworks (KDE Frameworks), shells (Plasma Desktop and Plasma
Mobile), and applications (KDE Gear)
[https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-devel/2023-September/002008.html
are all expected to be ported to Qt 6 as part of the KDE Plasma 6
release]. However, some applications may not make it in time and will
be updated later.

This upgrade is also notable that for Fedora Linux (and Fedora Extra
Packages for Enterprise Linux 10, once that materializes), KDE Plasma
will '''not''' offer an X11 session. Fedora KDE has been fully Wayland
by default from login ([[Changes/WaylandByDefaultForSDDM|since Fedora
Linux 38]]) to desktop ([[Changes/WaylandByDefaultForPlasma|since
Fedora Linux 34]]), and the SIG is confident in the quality and
development around the Plasma Wayland experience to stand fully behind
it.

== Feedback ==

==== Why drop the X11 session? ====

Three reasons for this removal:

* [https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/9.0_release_notes/deprecated_functionality#JIRA-RHELPLAN-121048
The Xorg server is deprecated since RHEL 9.0] and will be dropped in
"a future major RHEL release".
* Graphics fallback modes are Wayland-friendly now with
[[Changes/ReplaceFbdevDrivers|SimpleDRM enabled since Fedora Linux
36]].
* NVIDIA drivers (since v495~v515) support GBM for Wayland instead of
EGLStreams. Wayland is fully supported on current NVIDIA drivers.

This will drastically reduce our support burden and give us the
ability to focus on quality for the KDE Plasma stack and continue our
feature-forward nature. The Fedora KDE SIG will maintain a single code
stream for all supported distribution targets (Fedora Linux 40+,
Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 10+).

This also does not mean that X11 applications will not work in Plasma
6, as we will still support Xwayland for running X11 applications on
Plasma Wayland.

==== Could we keep Plasma 5 for X11? ====

No. The KDE Plasma stack is fairly large and comprehensive. The SIG
does not have the resources to maintain the KDE Plasma 5 stack beyond
the lifetime of upstream's focus. It would also be fairly complex to
do so, requiring a lot of downstream patching to resolve the conflicts
between Plasma 5 and Plasma 6. The intent upstream is that KDE Plasma
5 will be EOL shortly after the release of KDE Plasma 6, so it would
be very difficult to support ourselves.

==== Will Plasma 6 be available for older Fedora and EPEL releases? ====

No. This major version upgrade is not getting backported. Some
portions (KDE Frameworks and KDE Gear) may get backported as part of
regular upgrades if Qt 5-based versions are not maintained upstream,
but the Plasma Desktop and Plasma Mobile software will not. Notably,
KDE Plasma 5 for older Fedora Linux releases (and Fedora Extra
Packages for Enterprise Linux 9) are on Plasma 5.27 and will stay
there.

== Benefit to Fedora ==
KDE Plasma is a very popular platform used as the basis for the Fedora
KDE Spin, Fedora Kinoite, and the flagship Fedora Asahi Remix
experiences. By bringing KDE Plasma 6 into Fedora, we demonstrate our
leadership and commitment to bring the latest and greatest
technologies from the KDE community to the world.

== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
** Import Plasma 6 stack into F40/Rawhide (tracked as
[https://pagure.io/fedora-kde/SIG/issue/383
pagureio#fedora-kde/SIG#383])
*** Ensure <code>kwin-x11</code> is obsoleted by <code>kwin-wayland</code>
*** Ensure <code>plasma-workspace-x11</code> is obsoleted by
<code>plasma-workspace-wayland</code>
** Modify select KDE Frameworks 5 packages to be co-installable with
KDE Frameworks 6
[https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Plasma_6#Coinstallability per
upstream guidance].
** Enable tracking the Plasma 6 stack in ELN for branching to EPEL 10
once CentOS Stream 10 is available.

* Other developers:
** Optional: Packagers with software that can choose to build against
either Qt 5 or Qt 6 should make the switch to Qt 6. Community
maintenance of Qt 5 will be drastically reduced once KDE Plasma 6 is
released.

* Release engineering: [https://pagure.io/releng/issue/11669 #11669]

* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

* Alignment with Community Initiatives: N/A

== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
Fedora Linux users using Plasma X11 upgrading to Plasma 6 will find
themselves switched to Plasma Wayland automatically as the X11 session
will no longer be available. The KDE SIG strives to ensure the upgrade
path is smooth for all users. Configuration files will be migrated
automatically after first login to Plasma 6.

== How To Test ==

A COPR with pre-release versions of Plasma 6 will be available from
the KDE SIG in the near future. At the moment, we have a
[https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/kdesig/kde-nightly-qt6/ KDE
Plasma 6 nightly COPR] containing snapshot builds in various states.
It is strongly advised that testing is done in a non-production
environment using a Fedora spin that doesn't include and use KDE
Frameworks at all (such as [https://fedoraproject.org/spins/budgie/
the Fedora Budgie Spin]) as the packages are unstable and are not
co-installable with any Qt5+KF5 based environment at all.

Once packages are integrated into Rawhide, users should grab
[https://openqa.fedoraproject.org/nightlies.html nightly composes] of
the Fedora KDE Spin and Fedora Kinoite to try it out.

== User Experience ==
The user experience provided by KDE Plasma 6 will not be significantly
different from what users expect from KDE Plasma 5. The main change
will be the removal of the X11 session, as everyone will be
transitioned to the Wayland experience.

== Dependencies ==
Plasma 6 depends most notably on Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 packages.
Qt 6 is already available in Fedora Linux, and KDE Frameworks 6 is in
the process of being imported.

== Contingency Plan ==
* Contingency mechanism: KDE SIG will roll back the Plasma Desktop and
Plasma Mobile packages to KDE Plasma 5. Doing so will require epoch
bumps across the stack.
* Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
* Blocks release? Yes

== Documentation ==
There is not yet upstream release notes for Plasma 6.0, as it is not
released yet.
* [https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Plasma_6 Developer documentation
tracking progress on Plasma 6.0]

== Release Notes ==
Fedora Linux now ships KDE Plasma 6.0, a new major version of the KDE
user experience from the KDE community. As part of this change, KDE
Plasma on Fedora Linux runs on the Wayland display technology. X11
applications are still supported on KDE Plasma.



-- 
Aoife Moloney

Product Owner

Community Platform Engineering Team

Red Hat EMEA

Communications House

Cork Road

Waterford
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