{"id":218552,"date":"2026-02-28T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/kaos-just-ditched-kde-plasma-and-the-replacement-is-unlike-anything-else-on-linux\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T23:00:10","slug":"kaos-just-ditched-kde-plasma-and-the-replacement-is-unlike-anything-else-on-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/kaos-just-ditched-kde-plasma-and-the-replacement-is-unlike-anything-else-on-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"KaOS just ditched KDE Plasma, and the replacement is unlike anything else on Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

KaOS just ditched KDE Plasma, and the replacement is unlike anything else on Linux<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/kaos-just-ditched-kde-plasma-and-the-replacement-is-unlike-anything-else-on-linux\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-28 17:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.xda-developers.com<\/a><\/p>\n

After 12 years of working together, KaOS rocked the open-source world by announcing that it was getting rid of KDE Plasma<\/span>, citing issues with being tied to Systemd. Since then, people have pointed out that KDE Plasma doesn’t need Systemd, and that only the login manager requires it, which can be worked around easily. The discourse was so big that t he KDE team itself stepped in to clear up which parts of Plasma depend on Systemd<\/span>. <\/p>\n

Despite this, the KaOS team has stuck with its new home. The OS now uses Niri with Noctalia, and the newest version comes with it all set up already. Now, I’m a huge KDE Plasma fan, so when I heard that an OS was dropping it for something else, I was curious as to see what the alternative was like. And it’s something I’ve not seen with Linux before.<\/p>\n

\n The new KaOS is ridiculously minimalistic
\n <\/h2>\n

\n No flashy UI here
\n <\/h3>\n

As soon as you boot up KaOS via the live USB, you’re greeted with the new UI. As someone coming over from KDE Plasma, using Noctalia is an experience. There are no flashy graphics, no big icons, and no special effects; it’s very simple, basic, and aesthetically pleasing.<\/p>\n

The minimalism really kicked in when I booted up Octopi, which, from what I could see, was KaOS’s new alternative to KDE Discover. I was greeted with a very slim and basic package manager, which I could search through and download from. If it didn’t feature the app I wanted, I could click the little alien head icon to switch to the AUR. It was really nice to have the AUR ready to go on setup, and honestly, the UI gives me vibes of using older Windows OSes, which I love.<\/p>\n

…
\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KaOS just ditched KDE Plasma, and the replacement is unlike anything else on Linux https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/kaos-just-ditched-kde-plasma-and-the-replacement-is-unlike-anything-else-on-linux\/…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static0.xdaimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/kaos-logo-featured-purple.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-218552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218554,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218552\/revisions\/218554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}