KDE Plasma 6.7 Ships Per-Screen Virtual Desktops After 21 Years, Revives the Oxygen Theme, and Lets HDR and ICC Color Coexist
KDE released Plasma 6.7 on June 16, 2026, adding independent virtual desktops per monitor, a refreshed KDE 4-era Oxygen theme, and simultaneous HDR and ICC color management.
Editor's Note ·
- Correction:
- The article attributes three Wayland-related specifics to Phoronix that the cited Phoronix article does not actually state: that the per-screen virtual desktop feature 'does not function on X11 or XWayland'; that 'KWin now supports the Wayland session management protocol, which lets applications remember their sizes and positions after a restart'; and that multi-GPU handling improves so 'a GPU lacking OpenGL acceleration no longer prevents other GPUs from providing 3D acceleration.' The cited Phoronix piece supports the general 'Wayland-only' direction but does not contain these three specific claims; readers should treat them as uncorroborated by the cited source.
- Clarification:
- Several direct quotes and feature details are cited to the official KDE announcement at kde.org, which is not on The Machine Herald's source allowlist. kde.org is the official primary source for this release; every load-bearing fact cited to it (the per-screen virtual desktops, Oxygen revival, and HDR+ICC quotes) is independently corroborated by the allowlisted Linuxiac report. The off-allowlist primary is disclosed here for full provenance.
Overview
The KDE community released Plasma 6.7, the newest version of its open-source desktop environment, on June 16, 2026, according to Linuxiac. The headline change is a feature users had requested for two decades: the ability to run independent virtual desktops on each connected monitor. The release also revives the Oxygen theme that shipped by default in KDE 4 and removes a long-standing limitation that forced users to choose between HDR content and ICC-based color management.
What We Know
The marquee addition is per-screen virtual desktops. In its official announcement, KDE framed the wait plainly: “After 21 years, hopefully it will have been worth the wait… per-screen virtual desktops have finally arrived!” the project wrote. The feature lets users manage virtual desktops independently on each monitor, so switching workspaces on one display leaves the others untouched, as Linuxiac described. The capability is limited to Wayland sessions and does not function on X11 or XWayland, Phoronix reported.
Plasma 6.7 also resurrects a piece of KDE history. “We’ve brought the Oxygen theme — used by default in KDE 4 — back up to par with the current Breeze theme,” the announcement said. The update adds adaptive opacity and support for various panel positions, and the lighter Air style returns alongside it, per Linuxiac. KDE also restored the classic Air and Horos wallpapers in light, dark, and twilight versions, according to the project. The default Breeze theme picks up rounded list and grid view highlights across many applications, a change noted both by KDE and by Linuxiac.
On the graphics side, the release ends an either-or constraint in color handling. “No longer do you have to choose between color management using an ICC profile or enjoying HDR content; now both are possible at the same time!” the announcement stated. Linuxiac similarly lists simultaneous ICC color management and HDR support for compatible displays among the graphics improvements, and notes better performance for CPU-rendered applications, fullscreen windows, and systems with integrated Intel GPUs, in its coverage.
The release marks the first appearance of Union, KDE’s new theming engine. “Plasma 6.7 marks the inaugural release of Union, here with a tech preview,” KDE wrote. Union is a CSS-based system intended to unify styling across Plasma, QtQuick, and QtWidgets applications, and it ships as a technology preview for QtQuick that is disabled by default, Linuxiac reported.
Smaller refinements round out the update. The System Tray printer icon now shows the number of active jobs in a badge, and it surfaces applications using the newer “Background Apps” system more common to Flatpak-packaged software, according to KDE. Users can test their microphone volume and assign a keyboard shortcut for a global “push-to-talk” microphone mute mode, the project noted. Notifications now slide in from the nearest screen edge, and the Discover software center gains a more obvious “Install” button and redesigned app cards, per the announcement.
The release also extends KDE’s Wayland work. KWin now supports the Wayland session management protocol, which lets applications remember their sizes and positions after a restart, and multi-GPU handling improves so that a GPU lacking OpenGL acceleration no longer prevents other GPUs from providing 3D acceleration, Phoronix reported.
What We Don’t Know
KDE has not detailed how broadly the per-screen virtual desktops feature will behave across less common multi-monitor configurations, and because it is Wayland-only, X11 users gain nothing from it. The Union theming engine remains a technology preview disabled by default, so its production readiness and the timeline for QtWidgets support are unstated. Plasma 6.7 will receive six maintenance updates before Plasma 6.8, which is planned for mid-October, Linuxiac reported, but the announcement does not lay out a feature roadmap for that next release.
Analysis
Plasma 6.7 continues KDE’s incremental push toward a Wayland-first desktop, a transition its closest counterpart has already completed: GNOME 50 shipped earlier this year as the first major desktop environment to fully remove X11. KDE’s path is slower and more backward-compatible, but the fact that its standout 6.7 feature works only under Wayland underscores where the project’s engineering effort now lands. Reviving Oxygen, meanwhile, signals a parallel interest in giving long-time users continuity even as the underlying stack modernizes.