KDE Plasma 6.9: What we know so far
It hasn't reached beta yet, but we already know changes are coming for the weather applet and for managing apps across monitors.
When KDE Plasma 6.8 got here in October 2026, work was already underway on the next major release, Plasma 6.9. While there isn't much known about it yet, we do know a few features to expect when it gets here in February of next year.
What's new
- Redesigned weather applet: The weather report applet that lives in the KDE Plasma task manager is being overhauled. It will show hourly forecasts in addition to the seven-day forecast. There are also now precipitation and temperature-change line charts which are interactive; hovering over the line gives you specific information about that point in the graph.
- The applet also has a new provider, Open-Meteo, which will fill missing gaps in the list of available cities.
- Redesigned on-screen keyboard: KDE's built-in onscreen keyboard is being rebuilt from scratch, with a custom keyboard system that supports arrow keys, modifier keys, flick-keys for Japanese, and more. You can also have multiple switchable layouts, including Dvorak and others that aren't tied to locale.
What's getting better
- Multi-monitor support: When you have an app in a specific place on a secondary monitor, when unplug and then replug back in that monitor, Plasma remembers where you put that app on the secondary monitor and puts it back there.
- When you right-click an app in KDE's task manager, the context menu now gives you an option to send it to a specific monitor.
- Picture-in-picture by default: Picture-in-picture mode, which pops out a video from an app like Firefox and lets you watch it while using other apps, will now be enabled by default on all windows that support it.
Zooming out
When will it get here? The current target date for the full release of Plasma 6.9 is February 16, 2027.
- Want to try it early? The first beta is expected one month earlier, on January 19, 2027.
Why this update matters: KDE Plasma is one of the most widely-used desktop environments in Linux and other open source operating systems. Its next release will impact a lot of downstream distributions and the people who use them.
Jordan Gloor
My take: I'm looking forward to the hourly weather forecasts.
Diving in
The fineprint: You can find the full technical changelog for Plasma 6.9 to find all the technical details and bug tracker links.
Get it now: You can't get Plasma 6.9 on any regular Linux distributions; the beta hasn't even started yet. However, you can try the current iteration of it by installing a git developer-classed testing distributions, like KDE Linux or openSUSE Krypton.
