KDE Plasma is by far one of the most popular and recommended desktop environments in the Linux world, and it seems as though the development team has no plans to slow down. In the latest KDE Plasma 6.8 release, which is building to a September beta 1, there are numerous improvements to both performance and user interface that should be included in the eventual October stable launch of Plasma 6.8. The upcoming changes were detailed in the weekly This Week in KDE blog post.

The first change that most people will notice when they first update is that the lock screen now features selectable authentication types and better button alignment. Automatic brightness now also intelligently learns brightness preferences when users manually adjust their brightness. Performance improvements come by way of significantly reduced RAM usage by the Discover background notifier process, improved Plasma login speed, better speed and efficiency of the KWin screenshot functionality, improved screen recording smoothness when recording high-refresh displays.

Most of the performance improvements at this point are largely small, under-the-hood tweaks that polish the experience, as is the case with the UI improvements, although bigger changes are still in-store for the official 6.8 release, like the official depreciation and removal of old X11 code. Other small but noteworthy improvements include: Desktop panels auto-hide in 50 milliseconds, down from 500 ms in order to improve responsiveness. System Settings are searchable in English even when the system language is set to another language.

Cursor feedback effects dodge screen edges to keep feedback visible at all times. Several improvements to the legibility and usability of the volume, digital clock, calendar, and weather widgets and tooltips.