Fedora is running a community Test Day from September 14 to 20, inviting volunteers to stress-test KDE Plasma 6.7 and report where things break. The event pairs KDE developers like Merritt and Nicolas Fella with Fedora QA veterans such as Adam Williamson, a co-branded quality push ahead of Fedora 45's final release. Plasma 6.7, shipped June 16, is notable as the last Plasma to support X11 before 6.8 goes Wayland-only, and it brings long-requested features like per-screen virtual desktops and a comeback from the Oxygen theme. If you want to participate, install Fedora 45, run the test cases, and submit results through the portal before the week ends.
Fedora Wants You to Break Its Plasma 6.7
This week's Test Day pairs KDE developers with Fedora QA veterans, racing to shake out bugs before Fedora 45 ships.
Fedora's QA team has published one of those oddball invitations that only open-source communities manage to pull off. Between September 14 and 20, volunteers are asked to download a test image, install it, run through a stack of test cases, and report exactly where things fall apart. The target this time is KDE Plasma 6.7.
Organizer Jaroslav Groman signed the announcement. The more interesting names, though, are the ones listed as being on hand all week. You'll find KDE developers Merritt, Nicolas Fella, and Xaver Hugl sharing space with Fedora QA staples like Adam Williamson. Pairing KDE's own devs directly with Fedora's QA crew isn't a daily occurrence. It's effectively a co-branded quality push ahead of Fedora 45's final release.
The last X11 Plasma you'll be able to install
Plasma 6.7 landed Tuesday, June 16, 2026. KDE calls it a regular feature release in the 6 series, and it reads like one. There's a wrinkle, though. 6.7 is the final Plasma to support X11. KDE announced in November 2025 that 6.8 would go Wayland-only. That means from its next big iteration on, the choice is "Wayland or nothing," at least by the way The Register framed it.
KDE's tagline for the release is "A productivity powerhouse that's a joy to use." That's marketing, sure, but the feature list usually backs the claim up better than most.
The one that's drawn the most attention is per-screen virtual desktops. After roughly 21 years of requests, each physical display can now carry its own independent set of desktops. Yes, macOS has had this for years, and several outlets immediately framed it as KDE finally matching the Mac. Fair enough. But for a community that's been asking for this for more than two decades, it feels more like a payoff than a copy.
There are smaller refinements too, and honestly they're the ones you'll touch more. Hold a key to get diacritic alternatives. Test mic volume directly before going live so you can tell whether the problem is the mic or a misbehaving app. The system tray printer icon now badges active print jobs, and you can sync the mouse and stylus pointers if your hardware cares.
KDE also dedicated 6.7 to Eric Laffoon, a longtime supporter who passed away in May 2026. It's a quiet nod, but one worth catching, the kind of detail that shows up on changelogs more often than you'd think.
Nostalgia and the future, in the same release
Two themes stand out here, and they point in opposite directions. On one side, Oxygen is back. The default dark theme of KDE 4 has been brought up to par with Breeze, just ahead of KDE's 30th anniversary in October 2026. The light "Air" variant returns as well, along with classic KDE 4 wallpapers.
On the other, there's Union, a new CSS-based theming system designed to style Plasma, QtQuick, and QtWidgets apps with a single set of style files. In 6.7 it arrives as a tech preview of the QtQuick style, and it's off by default. You have to install the union package and select it under System Settings. That's a fair amount of setup for something experimental, but it's arguably the most ambitious change in the whole release.
One aside: if the Wayland-only direction worries you, you're not alone. A new fork called SonicDE is already working to preserve the X11-specific aspects of KDE, with its own customized KWin/X11 window manager. There are older holdout projects too, like Trinity and MiDesktop. But both remain niche, and KDE's resources are clearly going elsewhere.
KDE's commercial backing is also worth a mention. Plasma 6.6 is the current LTS, supported until around August 2029, backed by partners including Kubuntu Focus and Techpaladin Software. The org also recently pulled in €1.3M tied to Europe's interest in an independent OS. So the X11 exit isn't just a technical decision, it's a budgeted one.
If you want to actually take part, install Fedora 45 (any Spin or Edition) fully updated onto a VM or bare-metal box. The test page lays out the cases. Submit your results through the plus button on the results portal, and exploratory testing is welcome if you spot something worth chasing. Found a bug? Head to bugs.kde.org against plasmashell first, then Red Hat Bugzilla as backup. Grab a journalctl -b log while you're at it, it'll save someone hours.
The day runs September 14 through 20. Head here to find the full instructions. The live results portal is available here with chat in the Matrix room #test-day.
