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KDE: Wayland, Falkon Connect, digiKam Splashscreen, and Updates on Oxygen and Air
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Neowin ☛ KDE is getting support for the xx-fractional-scale-v2 Wayland protocol
A new "This Week in Plasma" update from the KDE team is here, highlighting changes coming to Plasma, including support for the xx-fractional-scale-v2 Wayland protocol.
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Falkon Connect: The Future
Falkon Connect: The Roadmap Ahead (WebXDC, XSLT, and Daily Puzzles) In my previous post, I broke down the architecture of building Falkon Connect from scratch—turning the KDE Falkon browser into a decentralized XMPP client.
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digiKam ☛ digiKam Splashscreen contributions
For the next digiKam releases, the digiKam team needs photographs for digiKam and Showfoto splash-screens.
Proposing photo samples as splash-screens is a simple way for users to contribute to digiKam project. The pictures must be correctly exposed/composed, and the subject must be chosen from a real photographer’s inspiration. Note that we will add a horizontal frame to the bottom of the image as in the current splashes.
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Filip Fila ☛ Halfway there to 6.7: Updates on Oxygen and Air
The last post regarding work on fixing Oxygen was a month and a half ago. With all that's happened in between, it feels like so much more time has actually passed. With this post, I'd like to do a sort of mid-term update summing up all of the improvements done so far.
More From Neowin:
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KDE is bringing back the Oxygen and Air themes, here's what they look like - Neowin
KDE 4.0 was released in 2008 with the "Oxygen" theme that arguably defined the "classic" KDE look. It featured glassy transparencies, glossy buttons, and rich, detailed icons. Another theme, "Air," was released about a year later in 2009, bringing a lighter alternative that users felt was the perfect light theme while Oxygen served as the dark counterpart.
But the release of KDE Plasma 6 (in early 2024) marked the beginning of the end for these looks. Air was removed from libplasma, the core library, before the official launch. Its older sibling, Oxygen, managed to survive slightly longer but was eventually dropped as a default, pre-installed Plasma style in Plasma 6.2 (released in October 2024).
As David Edmundson (a prominent KDE developer) pointed out, the reason Oxygen and Air were removed was that shipping a theme as a first-party component came with a lot of technical debt and a "huge maintenance burden."
It's FOSS:
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Glass UI Is Making a Comeback on Linux Thanks to KDE Contributors
KDE Plasma's two classic themes, Oxygen and Air, are making a comeback. A group of KDE contributors is actively restoring both ahead of the Plasma 6.7 release, which is scheduled for June 16, 2026.
Both themes trace their roots back to the KDE 4 era. Oxygen shipped as the default theme from KDE 4.0, defined by its dark tones and glassy aesthetic. It held that spot until KDE 4.3, when Air took over as the default, bringing a lighter look built around transparency and white as its base color.
While Oxygen stuck around into the Plasma 5 and 6 eras, it did so in an increasingly broken condition, and Air eventually got dropped from Plasma entirely.
Linux Magazine:
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KDE Gets Some Resuscitation » Linux Magazine
Back in 2024, the KDE team jettisoned both the Oxygen and Air themes from the desktop. Oxygen was what most people considered the true classic look for the KDE desktop and had been so for years.
The only official explanation for that removal was from developer David Edmundson, who claimed that shipping a first-party theme introduced a lot of technical debt and had become a maintenance burden.
According to this post by developer Filip Fila, "I would like to preface the improvements by saying I’m extremely glad to have seen such an overwhelmingly positive outpouring of messages regarding Oxygen recently." Fila continues, "It seems many want this theme to still thrive, and not just that – it also seems there’s generally a sizable crowd that’s hungry for non-flat looks."
For many Linux users who cut their teeth on non-flat looks and themes, this is a welcome re-addition. This is especially true since KDE Plasma has become one of the most beautiful desktops on the market. Getting both Oxygen and Air back will move that needle even further.