KDE has released Plasma 6.8.1, the first maintenance update in the 6.8 series, arriving one week after Plasma 6.8.
Most changes involve KWin, KDE’s window manager and Wayland compositor. For NVIDIA users, the update restores a host-memory workaround for multi-GPU configurations, while AMD Cezanne graphics receive a previously used workaround related to Delta Color Compression.
KWin fixes several cursor-rendering issues, improves handling of display configurations, and corrects problems with system suspend and screen power management. Another change is that DRM color pipelines have been disabled for the Plasma 6.8 series to avoid rendering problems.
Wayland users get fixes for pointer focus, implicit pointer grabs on subsurfaces, and pointer locking. The update also corrects keyboard repeat behavior, improves fullscreen window switching, and resolves a potential KWin crash when no rendering device is available.
Remote desktop support has several fixes. KDE’s KRdp component now addresses connection and authentication failures affecting Microsoft’s Windows Remote Desktop client (mstsc). The update also corrects swapped red and blue color channels in remote cursor images, fixes premature connection failures involving empty custom passwords, and addresses TLS certificate generation.
Discover fixes an issue with preparing its update model before running automatic background updates. Spectacle, KDE’s screenshot utility, now correctly overwrites the current file when saving after using Save As and falls back to the default save location when a previously used directory no longer exists.
Plasma Workspace receives smaller fixes, including better handling of the Klipper clipboard popup and correctly saving and restoring floating-panel configurations. Powerdevil improves the brightness on-screen display, which now appears even when brightness keys are pressed at the minimum or maximum level.
Other changes include fixes for Plasma Mobile’s lock screen and home-screen context menus, improved text contrast in the Oxygen Dark theme, corrections to audio volume tooltips, and adjustments to the Union widget style.
For more information, see KDE’s official announcement and the complete Plasma 6.8.1 changelog.
KDE Plasma 6.8.1 is already available from source, with packages expected to reach rolling-release Linux distributions shortly. The next maintenance update in the 6.8 series, Plasma 6.8.2, is scheduled for October 27, 2026.
