KDE Plasma Login Manager Won’t Support Systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems

malaizhichun

malaizhichun

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.

KDE developers have framed it as deeply integrated into the Plasma stack itself, with the goal of modernizing the login process by aligning it more closely with how Plasma sessions are actually started and managed, reducing historical complexity and duplicated logic that accumulated around SDDM.

However, it does come with a few limitations, ones that users of systemd-free Linux distributions or BSD systems likely won’t appreciate. Here’s what it’s all about.

PLM is strictly systemd-native, relying on systemd-logind and systemd user services for session lifecycle management, permissions, and seat handling. These are hard dependencies, not optional features, and they form the foundation of the new login manager.

Because of this, systemd-free Linux distributions cannot use Plasma Login Manager, and the same applies to all BSD operating systems, which lack systemd entirely and have no compatible substitute for the APIs PLM depends on. As one of the KDE developers commented on Reddit:
“At the end of the day, we don’t ideally want to cut support for the BSDs and other niche distros, but we also don’t want to hold back on making the best experience possible for the majority user base.”
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To avoid any confusion, it’s important to emphasize that the lack of PLM support on systemd-free Linux distributions or BSD systems does not mean you can’t use the KDE Plasma desktop environment there. Plasma itself remains fully usable on those platforms.

In other words, for those users, the situation remains unchanged. On their systems, Plasma will continue to rely on SDDM or other platform-specific startup mechanisms, with no indication from KDE that PLM will be made portable beyond systemd environments.
 
Having a bit of deja vu.

A

Thread 'KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment'

I want to clarify something first. I'm not saying that KDE Plasma should be the default desktop environment on FreeBSD nor that it is or it will be the default desktop environment.

But, as part of the laptop initiative, the FreeBSD Foundation selected KDE Plasma as the desktop environment available in the updated installer for the next FreeBSD releases.

Since it is the only option available for installation in the installer, people will assume it is the default, even if it is not officially the default. And I risky to say that people not familiar with FreeBSD can and will suppose it is...
 
I've never liked KDE.

And the more time passed, the more I grew suspicious of that big, cumbersome thing.

My "prediction" is that KDE, with IBM's "benevolent" help, will become just another Windows.
You'll see...:(
 
Well, KDE will work on *BSDs on the future (i.e. up to early 2027) as long as said *BSDs (and other OSes) also support wayland (which as far as I'm aware appear to be almost all).
As for systemd, stuff will keep on working as long as there are shims to provide required functionality (i.e. logind, seatd and whatever else is required).
 
This is only the Plasma Login Manager which was forked from SDDM.

Plasma/KDE improved support for OpenBSD in the last release:

This Week in Plasma: new year, new accessibility features!

Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma! Plasma developers are starting to trickle back from their vacations, and are polishing up and merging work that was nearing completion late last year. Among them are some impactful accessibility features, plus lots more holiday goodies!
blogs.kde.org blogs.kde.org
 
T-Aoki said:
FYI: KDE project seems to be confused why such a mis-understanding happened.
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It says: "FreeBSD users will still be able to boot into Plasma with any other login manager that works on FreeBSD, including SDDM, which is upstream from Plasma anyway."

I use plasma. I love it because I can use it alongside Krohnkite (an extension that gives you the functionalities of a true tile window manager) so I enjoy the advantages-for-the-lazy of a DE and the quick operation of a tile window manager.

I see that I'm using SDDM. It was installed by the FreeBSD Plasma package. I didn't install it. It was there.

So, there's no news, I'm afraid. KDE made an application that FreeBSD doesn't use unusable for FreeBSD.

Edit: In truth, I don't think I'm lazy. I just have other priorities.
 
T-Aoki said:
FYI: KDE project seems to be confused why such a mis-understanding happened.
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I'm confused about their confusion. As astyle said elsewhere "Now this is rather unfortunate, esp. given that FreeBSD cooperated with KDE for nearly 25 years."

I can't see how KDE can reasonably be included as an option at install time now. Any user choosing it has to hope that KDE doesn't break integration with SDDM, which just became more likely since it's not going to be the default login manager. It also just became more likely that SDDM will go unmaintained since they've lost what's likely their biggest use case.

I also don't understand how you can say that you want "...to lean more on systemd for more tasks", but also that "...we don't ideally want to cut support for the BSDs and other niche distros..." Note the qualifier "ideally" in that sentence. This is the beginning of the end of support for non-systemd systems. Don't buy the political spin.
 
Jose said:
I'm confused about their confusion. As astyle said elsewhere "Now this is rather unfortunate, esp. given that FreeBSD cooperated with KDE for nearly 25 years."

I can't see how KDE can reasonably be included as an option at install time now. Any user choosing it has to hope that KDE doesn't break integration with SDDM, which just became more likely since it's not going to be the default login manager. It also just became more likely that SDDM will go unmaintained since they've lost what's likely their biggest use case.

I also don't understand how you can say that you want "...to lean more on systemd for more tasks", but also that "...we don't ideally want to cut support for the BSDs and other niche distros..." Note the qualifier "ideally" in that sentence. This is the beginning of the end of support for non-systemd systems. Don't buy the political spin.
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KDE starts fine from other login managers than SDDM.
 
Right below the comment that Jose is quoting, I also wrote (in comment 106 in that thread) that SDDM supports KDE on Wayland just fine these days. And, the new login manager that KDE is talking up - it should appear in Plasma 6.6. It actually got me excited, I thought it was a revival of the venerable KDM... Also, it's my understanding that this new login manager from KDE will NOT require systemd, so FreeBSD should not have a problem including that new login manager in Ports, at least.
 
I'd be more concerned about this if there weren't so many other DEs and WMs to choose from that are still pretty user friendly and if it couldn't be used at all. At this stage, FreeBSD, and really *BSD in general, is still obscure enough that you're not likely to have a bunch of randos downloading it and expecting to see a bunch of Windows stuff. For a lot of them, something simple like XFCE is probably sufficient. After all, they'd have to be technically proficient enough to install X and a WM to have problems using it, and the documentation for how to do this stuff is pretty good.
 
What a fuss for nothing. KDE Plasma ecosystem already has several incompatible applications.

Also don't conflate using "user friendly" thus bloated desktop with the skill level. There are a lot of professionals that use FreeBSD/KDE. Plasma for sure will remain relevant on FreeBSD for years to come, but I do agree with the person that dropped a "told you so" reminder on the Mastodon thread, if they ever start killing off BSDs. You can never know.

Linux affairs are corporate, essentially. Driven by Red Hat and to lesser extent Canonical, who are in tight partnership with Microsoft, Amazon. They aren't about Unix anymore, but a host for application deployments to cloud. Systemd is important piece of that story. Don't get me wrong, the LXC things work, they're not nearly useless or complicated in implementations such as Docker, Kubernetes as some make them to be, and they run a lot of important stuff on the planet. But that level and that kind of OS integration vertical is not something we want or can emulate.

So they give the direction and direction is not an general purpose Unix-type OS anymore but something different. And the rest have to follow or make their own workarounds, until that becomes impossible.

I assume at some point in the future we are going to have a BSD native desktop, as Linux will drift off completely, and FreeBSD will then remain the most used "still Unix" OS.
 
T-Aoki said:
No.
SDDM would be keep on supporting FreeBSD and any other non-systemd OS'es supporting KDE, but the new one would not.
Can you read this post by vermaden on Mastodon and linked posts?
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I read the comments. And y'know, there are quite a few Linux distros that don't have systemd, either, just like FreeBSD. I'm just not willing to do the distro-hopping any more, and would prefer to stick with FreeBSD. Would be nice if people had the time to do some homework and have some links prepared before declaring an assumption for a fact (the part about new Plasma login manager relying on specifically systemd). Especially when ChatGPT can have an incorrect understanding of the matter, as well.

Just an update, according to the official schedule, the 6.6 version of KDE Plasma is scheduled for release in second half of February, about a month away.
 
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