this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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KDE Plasma Login Manager Won’t Support Systemd-Free Linux or BSD Systems (linuxiac.com)
submitted 3 days ago by cm0002@libretechni.ca to c/linux@programming.dev
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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.

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[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 47 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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.

I guess it's not all doom and gloom, at least.

[–] rozodru@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

I don't even use a login manager on my nixos plasma 6 build. I just don't see a point/need for them when I can just login and start plasma via the tty just fine. And in many cases if you have multiple DE's and WM's installed like I do it's actually better/easier to NOT have a login manager/display manager.

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 18 points 3 days ago

Yeah it's just the login manager that requires systemd, not the rest of the DE