BSD support improves, FreeBSD eyes a desktop option, and the init wars refuse to die

The latest KDE desktop environment is out. Among other things, it comes with a pledge that it won't require systemd, and this version has improved OpenBSD support. FreeBSD 15.1's installer offers KDE too.

While The Reg FOSS desk was off for the half-term break, it's all been happening in the world of KDE. KDE Plasma 6.6.0 brings various functional improvements over last October's 6.5.0 release. The 6.6.0 changelog contains well over 2,500 lines, so although this isn't a major new version, it's clearly a significant one. We will return to what's new later in this article.

BSD support

Three of the bug fixes in the changelog relate to OpenBSD support, which is good to see. Maintainer Rafael Sadowski, whose labors on KDE support in OpenBSD we mentioned back in early 2024, is clearly still hard ...