+++ Wednesday  4 February 2026 +++

KDE login manager systemd only
==============================

A message in the FreeBSD forum [1] mentions another sad move
from kDE. Recently I wrote about how KDE is going all-in on a
Wayland future [2].

This time it is about a step towards a systemd-only system.

KDE's new Plasma Login Manager is tightly bound to systemd,
making it unusable on systemd-free Linux distributions and
BSD systems.

KDE’s upcoming Plasma Login Manager will make its first
official appearance in Plasma 6.6 (scheduled for release on
February 17), explicitly designed as a successor to the
long-standing SDDM, which has been used by KDE Plasma for
years.

It does not mean you can’t use the KDE Plasma desktop
environment without systemd, but you have the use a different
login manager.

The writing is on the wall. More and more open source software
is moving to systemd-dependency, excommunicating BSD's and
other systemd-free operating systems.


[1]: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/kde-plasma-login-manager-wont-support-systemd-free-linux-or-bsd-systems.101393/
[2]: gopher://box.matto.nl/0/kde-going-allin-on-a-wayland-future.txt

Last edited: $Date: 2026/02/04 09:33:04 $