We’ll skip on to the installation instructions in just a second, but first: a quick recap of some of the new features that are in Plasma 5.8.4 versus the 5.7 and 5.5 releases used in Yakkety and Xenial respectively:
- New Login & Lock Screen
- Right-to-Left Language Support
- Improved applets, including music player controls
- Easier keyboard shortcut creation/editing
- New monospace font
- Optional breeze-grub theme
- Theme improvements
This video previews some of the above features:
Install KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS on Ubuntu
First things first: although this is an LTS release it is distributed through an opt-in PPA. You should not expect the same level of support and/or testing as given to the version of KDE Plasma that your distribution offers in its archives.
Or to put it more succinctly: expect bugs and imperfections.
That caveat out of they way you’ll need to add the following PPA to your Software Sources to install/upgrade to KDE Plasma 5.8.4 and KDE Frameworks 5.28.
This PPA provides the Plasma LTS for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.10 LTS.
To add the PPA open a new terminal and run the command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
If you don’t currently have the ‘kubuntu-desktop‘ meta-package installed on your system you will need to install it first:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop
If this is the first time you’re installing the Kubuntu desktop you should be prepared for a longer wait than if you’re upgrading a desktop in-place. It has to pull in and install a large number of apps and dependencies.
Once installed, or if you already have the Kubuntu desktop package installed, run a dist-upgrade:
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
Once everything has successfully installed you can go ahead and reboot your system. When it’s back up remember to select the KDE desktop session from whichever login-manager is default.
Downgrade KDE Plasma
To downgrade to the version of KDE your distribution offers from its archives install the PPA Purge tool:
sudo apt install ppa-purge
Next, run it against the Kubuntu backports PPA listed above:
sudo ppa-purge ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
Let us know your experience with the Plasma 5.8.x series in the comments below.