When KaOS Linux dropped KDE Plasma, I worried - now I'm loving the new default desktop

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• KaOS Linux no longer defaults to KDE Plasma.
• In Plasma's place is the scrollable tiling Niri.
• KaOS is free to install and use.

Over the years, I've watched Linux distributions make all sorts of changes -- some that made sense and some that didn't. So when I read that KaOS was dropping the KDE Plasma desktop in favor of Niri (which I'd never heard of), I thought, "Hoo boy, this marks the beginning of the end."

I was wrong. Niri is actually pretty cool.

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What is KaOS?

KaOS, according to the developer's website, is a "rolling and transparent distribution for the modern desktop, built from scratch with a very specific ...