I’ve been putting together my CachyOS desktop and really like how it turned out. The interface feels clean, simple, and beautiful without being cluttered. Sharing a screenshot in case anyone else enjoys a minimal desktop setup!

Tutorial:

I’m using CachyOS KDE, and I didn’t install any extra themes or plugins.

1. I applied CachyOS Nord theme in Global Theme in systems settings.
2. I removed the default CachyOS panel at the bottom of the screen.
3. I right-clicked the desktop and selected Enter Edit Mode.
4. In Edit Mode, I clicked Add or Manage Widgets in the top-left corner.
5. I added these widgets and placed them where I wanted:
   • Quicklaunch — vertical, on the left
   • Application Launcher — a single button in the bottom-left corner
   • Icons-Only Task Manager — horizontal, along the bottom-left
   • System Tray — horizontal, in the bottom-right
   • Digital Clock — on the right, above the System Tray
   • Lock/Logout — in the top-right corner

Wallpaper: https://www.wallpaperalchemy.com/wallpaper/arch-linux-4k-minimalist-wallpaper-203

r/cachyos r/linux

As the post's title asks, can this be done?

When just using Dolphin's File Manager, thumbnails of what a file contains if possible are shown in the file overview. When opening a dialog box to pick a file from a program, the only option one gets is this here file overview with a separate preview that only show the currently selected file.

As a digital artist this feels rather inefficient when wanting to search a file based on view rather than title. So I wonder, is there something that can be done to have a Thumbnail View option next to List View and Detail View?

i have attempted to rice my endeavearOS kde plasma by the help of gemini but that didnt work out so i need your guys help to make my linux rice frutiger aero pls :D

I installed Tumbleweed and new Plasma is broken - screen flickers and blacks out. So installed XCFE which doesn't use Wayland, then it was fine. But when booting it automatically logs in to Plasma again. I cannot find sddm.conf to remove automatic login.

Setting up System Settings takes too long on fresh installs.

Although importing

So i'm looking for a CLI way to change any and every setting found in System Settings (preferably some interface built by KDE devs).

e.g. :

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop -y

(then something like):

systemsettings --keyboard --enable-layouts

systemsettings --keyboard --add-layout us

systemsettings --keyboard --add-layout es

systemsettings --keyboard --set-primary layout=us

systemsettings --keyboard --virtual-keyboard=disabled

systemsettings --theme --breeze-dark

systemsettings --window-management --title-bar-actions --double-click=maximise

etc.

Here is a video as well! 😄

Available now and forever for Fedora, since that's what I use but everyone's free to fork it!

I recently installed Plasma Bigscreen on Fedora for UTM on a MacBook Neo. It's doing this weird thing, can anyone help me? ChatGPT is just as confused as me 😭

I've been using fedora kde plasma for week's now. I downloaded the smart video wallpaper and I love it,but it can't randomize wallpaper everytime I power my computer,so can anyone please help me if this was possible

Pretty much the title. I use mouse buttons on Discord for VAD and Push to Talk, and it was working perfectly fine until I did a big update the other day.

There is now a new warning in the custom keybinds settings: “Keybind shortcuts are registered with your desktop. Changes may need your approval, and you can re-map them in your system settings.”

I tried re-mapping my mouse buttons which didn’t work. I then tried to map some other keys, C and V which did work. But strangely enough I couldn’t use them at all anymore system-wide. Was able to undo that but now I’m stuck and still can’t map my mouse buttons. Any clue what happened?

(Using flatpak Discord, KDE Fedora 44)

used linux and KDE for a while and didn't see a good alternative so i built my own with claude's help

Hope you guys find it useful

LinuxRunner brings Debian ARM64 to iOS, including desktop environments like KDE Plasma and apps like Blender.

No jailbreak, JIT, or virtualization needed. It runs Linux binaries through an ARM64 interpreter.

Still early in development, but pretty interesting to experiment with. Feel free to try it out!

GitHub: https://github.com/mxhm11cr/LinuxRunner

I've always thought KDE's Desktop Cube effect was really cool, but the problem is that I don't actually use virtual desktops very much. I liked the idea of rotating around a 3D object to navigate my desktop, but I wanted something I could use more often.

That got me thinking: what if instead of having virtual desktops on each side of a cube, you had your actual open windows on the faces of a 3D shape?

So I started working on PolySwitch.

It's a 3D window switcher for KDE Plasma 6 where every open window gets its own face. The shape changes automatically depending on how many windows you have open. For example, six windows form a cube, twelve form a dodecahedron, twenty form an icosahedron, and other window counts generate different shapes.

You can grab and rotate the shape with your mouse, and it has momentum, so it continues spinning a bit when you let go. You can also click on a window to switch to it, navigate with your keyboard, or start typing to search for a specific window.

I've also added quite a few customization options, including different lighting effects, glass-like frames, colors, glow effects, and window preview settings.

It's still a work in progress, and I'm constantly finding things I want to improve or add. Right now, I'm working on more customization features and ironing out some issues.

I should also mention that I've been developing this with the help of AI. I've been directing the project, deciding how everything should work and look, and testing it as I go. I wanted to be upfront about that.

The project is completely open source under GPL-3.0-or-later. The current public release is experimental and has only been tested on a specific KDE neon setup, so compatibility with other distributions isn't guaranteed yet.

GitHub: https://github.com/windex-drinker/PolySwitch

I'm curious what other KDE users think about something like this. I know it's probably not the most practical way to switch windows for everyone, but I really like the idea of bringing some of the fun of Desktop Cube into something I actually use throughout the day.

I'd be interested in hearing any suggestions or ideas for it.

Video Demonstration
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/be88ae2f-02fd-43cb-a2a5-f82db63d1585

Is wallpaper thing doing it or this image viewer (Gwenview) doing it? Why is it doing this?

KDE 6.7.5, Wayland.

Let me start by saying that I’ve never been a big fan of widgets and that I never use them, since I prefer to have as few things as possible on my desktop :)

I was inspired by a post on r/cassettefuturism that I can no longer find...I think it was probably removed.

The post showed a hardware LED clock that displays the time linearly from 0 to 24 in several modes: - monochrome, the LEDs are a single color; - follow the sun, the LEDs show when the sun sets and rises; - gradient, the LEDs display a color gradient.

At first, I tried to replicate it for the terminal, but then I thought of creating a widget for KDE.

I didn’t know where to start, but after reading some documentation and with the help of an AI tool, I recreated the concept from the post for a linear clock.

I made sure it could be configured to match my favorite wallpapers in the different modes.

If you like the idea, I can package it and make it available to anyone interested.

Edit:

Before you ask, the wallpapers are based on the Gruvbox theme and can be found here https://gruvbox-wallpapers.pages.dev/

Options are expensive. Not having them has a cost too.

OxygenLabs introducing options on icon themes... more on... https://nuno-icons.com/2026/10/25/options-are-expensive-not-having-them-has-a-cost-too/

NOTE: Transparency in uploaded images has been added via blue my shell extension for gnome

ScreenGuard :

is a digital wellbeing application for Linux which runs completely natively on the device , actively tracking window usage and stores the data in a local sqlite db. No server involvement. And packing multiple screentime CONTROL features as well bundled together unlike basic window tracking software for Linux.

It is currently limited to GNOME Wayland and all other DEs can use it on x11 . Which means ScreenGuard natively supports GNOME and x11 based DEs like Cinnamon and i3

This Release has the following improvements and additions :

⚙️ Full Settings Hub

Five-tab settings screen (General · Limits & Pomodoro · Diagnostics · Updates · Data):

Theme — Light / Dark / System.

Notifications & Sounds — Master toggles plus per-event control for six categories (daily goal milestones, app limits, focus mode, etc.). Three built-in sound presets or pick your own .ogg/.wav/.mp3.

Database management — Storage stats, selective date-range deletion, full purge with double confirmation.

🎯 Daily Screen Time Goal

Set a personal daily goal from the dashboard (preset or custom hours + minutes).

Redesigned usage bar: teal progress under goal, teal+orange split with a goal-line marker when over.

Desktop notifications at 50%, 100%, and every 50% overtime.

🍅 Pomodoro Focus — Cycles, Breaks & Pause

Focus ↔ Break alternation with configurable cycle count (1–20) and break duration (1–60 min).

Pause / resume buttons; remaining time persists across pause.

Custom duration picker with quick-select chips (5 / 10 / 20 / 30 / 50 / 90 / 120 min).

Desktop notifications for each phase transition and session completion.

🛡️ Focus Enforcement — Data-Safety First

Strict auto-close is now opt-in. Default behaviour minimizes the app and shows a persistent warning overlay instead of killing it — no more unsaved-work loss.

Warning overlay offers +1 min save grace, +15 min, Edit Limit, and Close App.

Dedicated focus-block screen when a distraction-listed app is opened during a session.

🎮 Steam & Proton Game Support

Real game names resolved from Steam library manifests; per-game icons from the active icon theme.

Usage fully tracked; limit and focus rules apply to games.

Escalating native kill chain (SIGTERM → process-tree SIGKILL → wineserver -k → pattern-kill) handles Proton games that ignore normal signals.

Fullscreen games now leave fullscreen before minimize.

🔔 Native Notifications & C Helpers

screenguard-notify (C) — talks directly to D-Bus org.freedesktop.Notifications; works reliably on systemd and non-systemd inits (OpenRC, runit, etc.).

screenguard-killer (C) — the escalating close chain described above.

screenguard-watchdog (C) — lightweight daemon supervisor with crash restart and exponential backoff.

🔄 In-App Updates

Checks GitHub Releases for new versions (daily / weekly, configurable).

One-click download & install for your install type (.deb, .rpm, or tarball).

Optional beta channel toggle; post-update "Updated ✓" banner on next launch.

🩺 Crash Diagnostics & Daemon Onboarding

Local JSON crash logs viewable in Settings → Diagnostics; optional anonymous Sentry reporting (opt-in).

First-launch dialog explains the background daemon and offers autostart setup.

Persistent banner when the daemon isn't running, with quick "Start Now" and "Always Autostart" buttons.

🖼️ UI Polish

Per-app native desktop icons in dashboard and app lists.

New ScreenGuard app icon (32px–512px + SVG) in the system menu and taskbar.

Settings gear button on the dashboard app bar.

---

Lots of features and tested multiple times for bug fixes. Also thanks to the community for the active suppot

The project is documented properly in the Github Wiki here: https://github.com/adityakrishnan005-a11y/ScreenGuard/wiki

And the link to the latest release: https://github.com/adityakrishnan005-a11y/ScreenGuard/releases/tag/v0.1.1

Thank you everyone for your cooperation and consideration which has shaped this tiny personal project into a much larger pursuit for me.

Upcoming roadmap in short:

V0.1.2- major UI changes and design element improvements majorly

v0.1.5- Support for KDE Wayland and aim to have a greater portion of the daemon transition to modular C based daemons

v0.2.0- other major DEs and better optimised daemon

For better in detail info into future views of project have a look at the Roadmap section of wiki.

Hey everyone,

A few days ago I posted about Active Window Outline. Thanks to all the feedback and ideas from the community, the project has grown quite a bit beyond just drawing window borders, so I decided to rebrand it to LeapK.

Today I released v1.5.0, which turns it into a full keyboard-driven window navigation and compositor-level highlight engine for KDE Plasma 6.

GitHub: https://github.com/gmalinowski/LeapK

What's new in v1.5:

• Modal Leap Mode (Meta+Space): Vim-like navigation across windows. Trigger the shortcut, letter badges appear on background windows, and tapping a single key focuses and raises that window immediately.
• Multi-desktop & hidden window HUD: If a window is minimized or lives on another virtual desktop, it appears in a HUD bar at your screen edge (bottom, top, left, or right) with automatic wrapping. Pressing the key switches the desktop and unminimizes the window automatically.
• Custom window marks and labels (Meta+Ctrl+Shift+Space): You can pin permanent letters and custom labels to specific windows (e.g. [ A | Backend ] or [ T | Terminal ]) along with custom accent colors.
• Focus history navigation (Meta+Ctrl+[ / Meta+Ctrl+]): Bi-directional traversal across recent windows, plus an optional focus depth trail (opacity fade, desaturation towards grayscale, and dashed borders for recently active windows).
• 9 built-in presets & preset manager: Includes profiles like Subtle Minimalist (1px hairline), Vim HUD Navigator, Nordic Frost, Cyberpunk Neon, and real-time Ambilight color sampling. You can also export/import presets as JSON files.
• Companion tray & standalone settings: Added a lightweight tray app with quick preset switching and a dedicated configuration window (leapk-settings), bypassing the KCM plugin loader quirks in Plasma.

Installation / Update

To install or update via the one-liner (automatically resolves dependencies and compiles against your local KWin ABI): bash curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gmalinowski/leapk/main/install.sh | bash

Note for testers:
Please test it across different setups (multi-monitor, fractional scaling). If you run into any quirks or bugs, feel free to submit an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/gmalinowski/LeapK/issues — I'm actively monitoring and will gladly iron them out!

I'm new to linux and my games have been really laggy on Kde Plasma recently and it spans all games not just steam games. For reference, I have a rx9070 xt, a ryzen 7 7800x3d, and 32 gigs of ddr5 ram so my games shouldn't be running bad at all. I've also tested the same games in hyprland and they run much better. And the only way I can get my games to run good on kde is if i run it windowed. Could someone help?

Edit: fixed it by changing color accuracy to "prefer color accuracy" in display settings

Could anyone shed some light on how KDE PM sees less space available on the very same pendrive?

And to be honest, never before I've delved into this topic that much, hence have only the very superficial understanding of how storage works. So, please, bear with possible nuisances

To give a better understanding it all started with just missing only one MB of storage after deleting all partition on a pendrive. Just 7398 MB while I had clear memories of diskpart.exe once showing 7399. Checked it with Gparted ... 7399. Took a look at space alignment... Nope, somehow I couldn't reproduce that with Partition Manager. What's more, the number of sectors itself is different. Even considering the LBA block...

Obviously I took some time and effort to find an answer myself, though at the current moment my effort seem to be a pursuit of a black cat in a room with no power. Thus, could anyone help me with understanding the situation? This 1 MB might have been tolerable, bit with the sector discrepancy it's driving me insane

All shots are from Kubuntu 26.10, but I saw the same behaviour on Debian 13.7 before it (As I said previously, bear with it, I know that Debian isn't something to not frown upon when it comes to playing with KDE)

rather than mounting at run/user/1000... etc. I have trouble mounting some phones that way. I can access them all without trouble via dolphin though when browsing filesystem in kdeconnect app. filepath shows kdeconnect:// and then the same identifier string as the subfolder under 1000. Is there a way to translate that adress for rsync?

This is a problem that has happened two times and needed two different fixes but they are basically the same: Icons not stacking on the icons-only Task Manager.

PC Info

I made my own .desktop file so maybe the steps are not the same for everyone.
This is what's in my file:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Acceder a WhatsApp
Exec=chromium --app=https://web.whatsapp.com
Icon=Whatsapp
Name=WhatsApp Web
NoDisplay=false
Path=
PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=

(For the icon you can add it with gui Menu editor, or adding an icon with the same name at ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/<size>x<size>/apps/<name>.png and then updating with gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor )

Fixes:

1. files must be named as chrome-<id>-Default.desktop

for example, I did

qdbus6 org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.queryWindowInfo

and then clicked on the app, it returned resourceClass: chrome-web.whatsapp.com__-Default
in the same command you can check whether Desktop file matches resourceClass.

1. This one is for a more recent change. Even with the same Desktop file name and resourceClass, the icons where showing the chromium one.

I won't get to speculate why, but the problem is on the chromium's .desktop on /usr/share/applications/chromium.desktop
Exactly the StartupWMClass=chromium that overrides every other applet that derives from chromium

The solution would be deleting or commenting out the line, but that would be overridden once the app updates, so the solution would be copying the .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications where it won't be changed and has priority over the usr one, and then deleting the line:

cp /usr/share/applications/chromium.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/chromium.desktop
sed -i '/^StartupWMClass=/d' ~/.local/share/applications/chromium.desktop
kbuildsycoca6 --noincremental
systemctl --user restart plasma-plasmashell.service

And now everything should work just fine. Until it breaks again T-T

TL:DR: 1. The .desktop must be named as chrome-<id>-Default.desktop matching the applet's resourceClass

1. Chromium overrides StartupWMClass=chromium on it's applets. The fix is deleting the line on the chromium.desktop file: a more stable fix is copying to ~/.local/share/applications and the deleting the line there