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Summary

• KDE Plasma 6.6.0 lets you restrict virtual desktops to the primary monitor.
• Feature requested in 2005; finally added after two decades, enabled by Wayland-era improvements.
• Also coming: DrKonqi better crash reports and Remote Desktop showing errors inline.

If I had to point to a specific part of Linux that convinced me to use it over Windows after so many years, it’d be a toss-up between the Fedora distro and KDE Plasma. The former is nice and stable, while the latter offers an enjoyable, customizable Linux experience, so the fact that you can just download a Fedora KDE Plasma spin was a perfect match for me.

So, imagine my surprise when I learned that KDE Plasma is about to get a feature that was first requested all the way back in 2005, long before I had even touched Linux. And while I do believe in “better late than never,” this is definitely putting a ton of weight on the word “late.”

KDE Plasma 6.6.0 will introduce limiting virtual desktops to the primary monitor

As spotted by Neowin, a new post has been published on KDE Blogs about what the KDE team has been doing behind the scenes. It feels like yesterday that the team managed to get 6.5 out the door, and yet they’re already putting the hammer to the anvil, adding features to the upcoming 6.6.0 update.

The blog post details what people have been working on for the patches up to and including 6.6.0, such as DrKonqi noticing non-KDE apps crashing and helping you file bug reports for them. Also, the Remote Desktop tool in System Settings will begin showing errors inline, so you don’t have to pore over log files to figure out what’s wrong.

However, the star of the show is the ability to restrict virtual desktops to just the primary monitor. This feature’s story began all the way back on June 12th, 2005, when someone filed a bug with KDE titled “Per-screen virtual desktops.” The log reads:

In Xinerama mode, it seems that you get one virtual desktop for one screen combination, so if you switch desktop, both screens switch. I now run without Xinerama mode, in which case I get two rather independent Desktops, they have a Kicker each and everything. I think the ideal is somewhere in the middle:

What would be really nice if there were a common set of virtual desktops for both screens, but that you could choose quite easily which screen would display the windows of which virtual desktop.

That way, you could have any combination of desktops side by side, you could even switch which screen would show which desktop... :-) I think this would be really really useful.

The thread has two decades worth of discussion over when this feature can get added, including one part where someone claims “there is no chance that this can be implemented on the basis of X11” and that “maybe someone implements it once we are on Wayland.” That was back in 2013, by the way.

Well, it seems now is the right time to add it, as KDE developer Kristen McWilliam has completed this 20-year-old requested feature and made it ready to launch in KDE Plasma 6.6.0. Nice work, Kristen: I’m sure it’ll be an excellent addition to KDE!