The development team behind the Arch Linux-inspired, KDE-oriented, and independently developed KaOS Linux distribution announced today the general availability of KaOS 2023.09 as a new, up-to-date installation image with some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source software.
KaOS 2023.09 is here almost three months after the previous ISO release, KaOS 2023.07, which only added a few minor updates compared to the KaOS 2023.06 release. The new ISO snapshot is powered by the Linux 6.4 kernel series and includes the latest KDE Gear 23.08 software suite, alongside the KDE Plasma 5.27.8 and KDE Frameworks 5.110 updates.
“Work in KaOS is really shifting toward Plasma 6.”
Of course, KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS is still used as the default desktop environment in KaOS 2023.09. However, the team also updated the KDE Plasma 6 Preview ISO and they plan to concentrate more of their efforts on developing and updating the Plasma 6 ISO, which will become the default for KaOS Linux by the end of the year.
The KDE Project plans to release the highly anticipated KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment sometime in February 2024, but it looks like KaOS Linux could be the first distro to ship Plasma 6 as the default desktop for its stable ISO release and not as a preview image.
Under the hood, the KaOS 2023.09 release includes OpenSSL 3.1.3, Boost 1.82.0, ICU 73.2, ALSA 1.2.10, systemd 253.10, Python 3.10.13, Util-Linux 2.39.2, IWD 2.8, OpenEXR 3.2.0, libarchive 3.7.2, and Qt 5.15.10.
If you want to give this distro a try, KaOS Linux 2023.09 is available for download from the official website or by using the direct download links below with both the KDE Plasma 5 and Plasma 6 desktops.
Since KaOS follows a rolling-release model, existing KaOS Linux users need only to update their installations by running the sudo pacman -Syu command in the Terminal app.
