Plasma 6 - KDE Plasma Desktop version 6
Contents
Intro
DebianTrixie will release with Plasma 6.
Please see PkgQtKde/TrixieReleasePlans for a more in-depth view of what we'll be shipping for Trixie.
Upgrade Strategy for KDE/Plasma 5 users
A major upgrade like KDE 6 brings a lot of changes.
Configs and settings for your default user might not work or only partially.
You may want to:
have backups (always)
- Create a new user for first test login.
- Test the upgrade on a non-critical machine.
Install an alternative Desktop-Environment for rescue scenarios, e.g. Xfce is a lightweight DE.
In any case, go through the Upgrade Quirks below.
Default Graphical Session
Plasma/Wayland has been the default since Debian 12/bookworm. In graphical login-manager like SDDM you can select Plasma/X11 if desired.
Upgrade Quirks
Q: After the upgrade, the start menu is completely empty and no icons are displayed on the status panel.
Running kbuildsycoca6 --noincremental should restore all icons.
Q: After the upgrade a lot of icons are missing.
Please make sure that qt6-svg-plugins is installed. It is just a Recommends of libqt6svg6 so it may be missing.
Q: Icons-Only Task Manager and/or Icons-and-Text Task Manager don't show anything
Log out and log back in.
Q: Window List just shows a single Entry "Plasma Desktop"
Please add answer here
Q: Virtual Desktop Pager doesn't show Window Outlines and/or icons even if configured that way
Please make sure that qt6-svg-plugins is installed. It is just a Recommends of libqt6svg6 so it may be missing.
Q: Scrollbars behave differently than before, clicks above or below the scroll thumb move the thumb to the positoin of the thumb and not scroll pagewise any more.
That's a new default setting, that can be changed back to the old behavior in System Settings in "Workspace / General Behavior / Clicking in scrollback track".
Q: Touchpad is not working in Plasma/X11
If you're using X11, make sure that xserver-xorg-input-synaptics is not installed and xserver-xorg-input-libinput is installed instead.
Q: sddm comes up with an on-screen/virtual keyboard by default
The on-screen keyboard can be removed inside a session by clicking on the on-screen keybaord key.
For permanent removal, there is a useful comment in bug report ?https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1091343#22:
The default Plasma install uses sddm-theme-debian-breeze which should correctly detect that a physical keyboard is connected and shouldn't show the virtual keyboard without a reason.
If another theme should be installed and there is no need for a virtual keyboard you can uninstall the qt6-virtualkeyboard-plugin to get rid of thevirtual keyboard.
There is also a ?https://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2025/02/msg00025.html on the ?https://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/.
Q: All windows are opened on a single virtual desktop at login
That seems to be a limitation, if you are running on Wayland. On X11 each windows should be reopened on the virtual desktop it was at the previous logout or shutdown.
Package Changes
Packages removed or replaced upstream
- khotkeys
- plasma-bigscreen
- plasma-remotecontrollers
- KDE Telepathy stack
- KJots (Migrate to marknote)
- KNotes (Migrate to marknote)
Third party packages lacking a Plasma 6 / Qt6
- bismuth
- latte-dock
- kraft
- kmymoney
- kaidan
Migrate to Marknote
https://kontact.kde.org/blog/2024/2024-09-01-july-august-2024/#retiring-kjots-and-knotes
https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/release-team/2024-July/013456.html
Please add more information about the migration process 
Debugging
PlasmaShell
When you have issues with plasmashell like a crash, check its status and (re)start if needed:
systemctl --user status plasma-plasmashell.service (or with -l option to see full-line)
systemctl --user restart plasma-plasmashell.service
You can get Plasma 6 logs like follows:
journalctl --user -u plasma-plasmashell.service (optionally with the -f option to follow logs as they appear)
Annexes
Fixed Upgrade Quirks
Q: Apps with a built-in terminal such as Dolphin and Kate complain that Konsole is not found despite konsole being installed.
The application and konsole must be based on the same Qt version. Unstable currently features konsole 24.08 which is Qt 6-based. To get a terminal in dolphin or kate etc., you hence need those applications in version 24.05 or higher. Some of these packages might not have been uploaded to unstable yet and are only available in experimental.
Q: Apps in Plasma 6 cannot open web-links with the default web-browser.
Please make sure that xdg-utils has been updated to version 1.2.1.
Q: Dolphin does not support SMB protocol
Please, see Debian-bug #1088117.
Q: Keyboard backlight brightness can't be changed
This is a known bug (Debian-bug #1089680, KDE bug #486067). As a workaround, log out and log back
Q: After upgrade, network services no longer reachable by other hosts
plasma-firewall is a new Recommends of plasma-desktop, and, up until plasma-firewall 6.3.4-2, would pull in firewalld with a default ruleset if you were not already using either firewalld or ufw. Particularly, this blocked mDNS, which is required for KDE Connect and automatic printer detection. Either open the mDNS service in system settings’ firewall configuration, or remove plasma-firewall and firewalld.
Q: kdeconnect does not connect to mobiles anymore
See question Q: After upgrade, network services no longer reachable by other hosts above