KDE Plasma 5.9 is now available in KDE Neon User Edition.

The latest stable release of the popular desktop environment, Plasma 5.9 was released at the beginning of February. It brings a number of new features to user’s desktops, as well as general improvements, bug fixes and updates.

Support for global menus, improved ‘drag and drop’ functionality, rich previews in notification toasts, and a new network configuration panel all feature.

Install Plasma 5.9 in KDE Neon

Users of the Ubuntu-based KDE Neon distribution itching to try out all of the great new features in KDE Plasma 5.9 can now do so as all the requisite updated components have landed in the KDE Neon archives.

This spans the broad set of 5.9 updates, with updates to the plasma desktop, workspaces, system settings, breeze artwork, and so on.

To upgrade to Plasma 5.9 on KDE Neon User Edition you can run the built-in update manager and install pending updates.

Or, to perform the upgrade from the command line, run the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Update ISO Coming Soon

An updated disc image (.iso) for KDE Neon 5.9 is currently being built. This should be available in the next 24/48 hours. If you plan to install KDE Neon for the first time I’d recommend waiting for this image just to save a bit of bandwidth later on.

You can keep an eye on the build status at the link below.

Visit the KDE Neon Download Page

It’s important to note that the Plasma 5.9 update is only available in KDE Neon User Edition. It is not available as an update in the User LTS Edition. The latter version sticks with the stable Plasma 5.8 LTS desktop and a stable base.

Plasma 5.9 on Ubuntu

Ubuntu and Kubuntu users will need to wait for Plasma 5.9 to be packaged, tested and added to the Kubuntu Backports PPA.

Daily builds of Kubuntu 17.04, the final stable version of which is due for release in April 2017, will also be built with Plasma 5.9.

Switch to Neon?

If you’re a fan of KDE and you like the dependability and support of Ubuntu, I recommend installing KDE Neon alongside your existing distro. As it’s Ubuntu-based you’ll still have access to all the commands and packages you know (yup, that includes PPAs) but with the latest KDE goodness in a timely fashion.

If you’re running KDE Neon be sure to pop back after updating to let us know what you think about the new changes!