KDE Plasma 6.3 Desktop Environment Officially Released, This Is What’s New

posted by Marius Nestor on Feb 11, 2025,
updated Feb 14, 2025

Highlights of KDE Plasma 6.3 include the ability to clone a panel, better fractional scaling for everyone, support for remembering the active virtual desktop per activity, a revamped Graphics Tablet page in System Settings, an option to prefer screen color accuracy in KWin, and support for viewing battery cycle count in Info Center.

The KWin window and composite manager received improvements in choosing a default scale factor for devices with small screens and support for the automatic scale factor chooser to select a scale factor that’s rounded to the nearest 5%, rather than the nearest 25%. Also, it’s now possible to temporarily disable KWin window rules instead of deleting them.

Read on

Linuxiac:

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Desktop Environment Released, This Is What's New

  The wait is over! Four months after the major Plasma 6.2 release, followed by five minor updates, the last one being Plasma 6.2.5, the KDE desktop environment, beloved by many, has just rolled out the much-anticipated Plasma 6.3. Without further ado, let’s see what has changed.

  Above all, this release steps up its game for artists and digital creators. The System Settings’ Drawing Tablet configuration page has been overhauled and split into multiple tabs, each offering more detailed and intuitive options...

Adding More:

• Plasma 6.3 - KDE Community

  One year on, with the teething problems a major new release inevitably brings firmly behind us, Plasma’s developers have worked on fine-tuning, squashing bugs and adding features to Plasma 6 — turning it into the best desktop environment for everyone!

  Read on to discover all the exciting new changes landing in this release…

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Released with Panel Clone, Pixel Perfect KWin Zoom | UbuntuHandbook

  KDE Plasma announced new major 6.3 release today. See what’s new in the release of this popular Linux Desktop Environment.

  First, the new Plasma 6.3 introduced “Clone Panel” option in panel configuration dialog, allowing to quickly make a copy of current panel with same settings and applets, and place in one of other 3 screen edges.

• KDE Plasma 6.3 is out now with big fractional scaling improvements, drawing tablet upgrades and more | GamingOnLinux

  KDE Plasma 6.3 has been released and it's another beautiful sounding release! Filled with new features and fixes for my favourite Linux desktop environment. Plasma is also used on the Steam Deck for the Desktop Mode.

  For those of you scaling up your desktop there's some good news with this release. The developers overhauled how fractional scaling works, making a "stronger effort to snap things to the screen’s pixel grid, greatly reducing blurriness and visual gaps everywhere and producing sharper and crisper images". Sounds awesome and they said it works at high zoom levels too.

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Released, This is What's New - OMG! Ubuntu

  A new version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment is out and, as you’d expect, the update is packed with new features, UI tweaks, and performance boosts.

How-To Geek:

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Arrives With New Settings and Digital Art Focus

  The developers of the KDE Plasma desktop environment continue to paint an image of Linux as a home for artists with the release of Plasma 6.3.0. The update also has a lot more settings that anyone can try out.

  The latest update for Plasma, the desktop environment for Linux and and FreeBSD operating systems, has several improvements to workflows for artists. Plasma reworked its settings menu for drawing tablets, building on Plasma 6.2 by letting you map your tablet's surface to the entire display. There's also now a test area for your stylus, and improving customization capabilities for your stylus and its buttons. I sold my drawing tablet when I accepted that graphic design was in fact not my passion, but otherwise I'd be testing out those mapping features.

Neowin:

• KDE Plasma 6.3.0 released with better color accuracy, improved graphics, and more

  KDE Plasma, one of the most popular desktop environments for Linux, has received a new update with improved screen color accuracy and more.

LWN:

• Plasma 6.3 released

  Version 6.3 of the Plasma desktop has been released.

  One year on, with the teething problems a major new release inevitably brings firmly behind us, Plasma's developers have worked on fine-tuning, squashing bugs and adding features to Plasma 6 — turning it into the best desktop environment for everyone.

  Changes include improved support for drawing tablets, better fractional-scaling support, and more.

Newer:

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Desktop Environment Landed in Arch’s Repos

  Arch Linux (BTW) is truly a very special distribution, and its dedicated developers have once again proven why it enjoys such huge popularity and continuity, making Arch once again the champion of delivering the latest and greatest to its users.

  Just 24 hours after the official release of the Plasma 6.3 desktop environment, it’s already available in Arch’s stable repositories, ready for upgrade or installation.

Linux Magazine:

• Plasma 6.3 Now Available » Linux Magazine

  If you're a fan of KDE’s Plasma desktop and use it on a laptop, there's a new feature in version 6.3 that should have you excited for the update. The new feature gives you the ability to view the battery cycle count on your laptop from within the Info Center. Speaking of batteries, Plasma 6.3 also shows a low battery notification for any pair of wireless headphones or earbuds that expose the information.

  Another cool new feature is the ability to clone panels. This feature has been requested for quite some time and now users will be able to create the perfect panel and then clone it.

  There have also been several improvements for Plasma 6.3, including better fractional scaling (and the ability to choose a default scale factor for smaller displays), a totally revamped Graphics Tablet page within the System Settings app, the ability to temporarily disable KWin window rules, the ability to set a custom keyboard shortcut for moving windows between KWin Custom Tiling tile zones, and a better weather widget (that now automatically fetches information after a network reconnection). In addition, Plasma Discover now opens flatpak:/ URLs to show when an app is packaged directly by a developer or verified by a third party.

It's FOSS News:

• KDE Plasma 6.3 Release Aims to Be the Ultimate Desktop for Digital Artists

  People like KDE Plasma for its impressive customization potential that encourages them to play around with the interface, letting them add gorgeous themes, wallpapers, and widgets to liven up their Linux desktop.

  Every few months or so, we get a new Plasma release that usually comes loaded with many upgrades and fixes, and this time it's no different with the recently announced 6.3 release.

WebProNews:

• KDE Releases 'Pixel Perfect' KDE Plasma 6.3

  KDE continues advancing the Linux desktop with the release of version 6.3 of its Plasma desktop environment (DE), widely considered to be one of the best DEs on any platform.

  Plasma 6.3 brings a myriad of changes and improvements, with the vast majority focused on fixing bugs and improving the overall experience. As a result, while there’s not many major new features, this release is a significant quality-of-life release that most users should install as soon as possible.