KaOS Linux Drops KDE Plasma After 12 Years for Niri/Noctalia to Escape systemd

posted by Marius Nestor on Feb 15, 2026,
updated Feb 21, 2026

After using the KDE/Plasma desktop environment by default for more than 12 years since its initial release under the name of KdeOS, the KaOS Linux distribution will no longer ship with its unique Plasma desktop setup, as the devs do not want to use the systemd init system anymore in the distro.

Instead, they put a Niri/Noctalia setup into the KaOS Linux 2026.02 release, while retaining the distribution’s unique look and still offering users access to popular KDE applications that were shipped with the Plasma desktop. However, this release still ships with systemd as the default init system.

Read on

Original Post:

• KaOS

  You will not find Plasma or Kwin on this ISO, though KaOS has always been a KDE/Plasma only distribution. Instead, you will find a niri/Noctalia based system. For those wondering why this change, it has come into play because of a desire to move away from Systemd. Work is ongoing to see if a move to Dinit is viable for this distribution, that also meant, looking for an alternative to Plasma, since Plasma pretty much demands Systemd, and will be fully mandatory soon. This ISO still uses Systemd fully though. Trials to use niri with the Noctalia shell have proven to be a nice option. Using these means, KaOS can stay a Qt focused distribution. This ISO is still GTK free, still ships QT/KDE based applications. The change for this ISO however doesn’t mean it is permanent. Plasma 6 is still fully available in the repositories. Using an ISO though for wider testing and gauging general response for such a move, was deemed a needed option.

Linux Magazine:

• Chaos Comes to KDE in KaOS » Linux Magazine

  It was roughly 12 years ago that KaOS was first released. One of this Linux distribution's main goals was to focus on the KDE Plasma desktop. Over the years, this rolling-release, Arch-based distribution did an outstanding job of presenting the KDE Plasma desktop, and I assumed it would always do so. You know what happens when you assume.

  In a recent announcement, the developers made it clear that there were big changes coming to the KaOS. Said change was a migration away from KDE Plasma, in favor of Niri/Noctalia, a lightweight Linux desktop that combines the Niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor with the Noctalia GUI shell.

  But why? Why would the developers make this change after such a long relationship with KDE? In a word, the answer is systemd.

  The official announcement makes the reason for the change fairly clear:

  “Running an install on systemd 257 has been tested [for] a while now, [and] creating an ISO with it still fails." The announcement continues, “Work is ongoing to see if a move to Dinit is viable for this distribution, which also means looking for an alternative to Plasma, since Plasma pretty much demands systemd, and will be fully mandatory soon.”