F44 Change Proposal: PlasmaLoginManager [SelfContained]

Project Discussion Change Proposals
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PlasmaLoginManager

Wiki

Announced

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary :open_book:

All Fedora KDE variants will use Plasma Login Manager (PLM) instead of SDDM for the default login manager.

Owner :open_book:

Detailed Description :open_book:

A new integrated login manager will be released alongside the upcoming KDE Plasma 6.6 release. As part of shipping this, the Fedora KDE variants will be switched to use it instead of SDDM. This will change the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition, Fedora KDE Plasma Mobile Spin, and Fedora Kinoite.

Feedback :open_book:

Benefit to Fedora :open_book:

This allows Fedora to continue providing the highest quality, leading edge integrated KDE Plasma experience for its flagship edition and supports the development of its emerging variants by leveraging the recommended stack for a smooth experience from startup to shutdown.

Scope :open_book:

Upgrade/compatibility impact :open_book:

There will be no change for existing users, though they will be able to opt into PLM by doing the following:

$ sudo dnf install plasma-login-manager kcm-plasmalogin

$ sudo systemctl enable --force plasmalogin.service

After this, users may freely remove SDDM:

$ sudo dnf remove sddm

Early Testing (Optional) :open_book:

N/A

How To Test :open_book:

Users on Fedora Rawhide may test this now by simply installing PLM and enabling it:

$ sudo dnf install plasma-login-manager kcm-plasmalogin

$ sudo systemctl enable --force plasmalogin.service

After that is complete, just reboot to see Plasma Login Manager instead of SDDM to log into the desktop.

User Experience :open_book:

The experience should be very similar to what is available today, as PLM was forked from SDDM and the SDDM Breeze theme.

The major change is that Plasma Login Manager does not support arbitrary QML themes like SDDM does. It’s fixed to the Breeze theme. If you wish to use custom login themes, then you will want to use SDDM instead.

Switching back to SDDM for that is simple:

$ sudo dnf install sddm sddm-kcm sddm-wayland-plasma

$ systemctl enable --force sddm.service

Dependencies :open_book:

N/A.

Contingency Plan :open_book:

  • Contingency mechanism: Revert back to shipping SDDM
  • Contingency deadline: Beta Freeze
  • Blocks release? Yes

Documentation :open_book:

Upstream announcement about Plasma Login Manager: # A Roadmap for a modern Plasma Login Manager – David Edmundson's Web Log

Release Notes :open_book:

Fedora KDE variants (such as the KDE Plasma Desktop Edition, KDE Plasma Mobile Spin, and associated Kinoite variants) now ship with Plasma Login Manager as the default login manager experience.

Last edited by @alking 2025-12-02T16:08:30Z

Last edited by @alking 2025-12-02T16:08:30Z

3 Likes
2

How do you feel about the proposal as written?

  • Strongly in favor
  • In favor, with reservations
  • Neutral
  • Opposed, but could be convinced
  • Strongly opposed
0 voters

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3

100% Yes!

4

Does that mean that Fedora KDE variants will not have the global Fedora theme on login?

5

states

Whilst this is at a state where developers can opt-in, I would not want distros to be packaging things at this point.

states

Important
Plasma Login is in a prototype state and is not considered ready for real-world usage.

and

Caution
It is not recommended to install this on your system — you should use a virtual machine instead. Installing this on real hardware will leave behind files not trivially uninstallable and could leave your system in a non-functional state.

Is the above outdated?

6

It doesn’t seem likely given the current state that Plasma Login Manager will be stable and production ready for Fedora 44. Is this not being too aggressive? Is the login manager really something that Fedora should be the test bed for?

7

We already use Breeze, we just modify it to set our own wallpaper. Work is ongoing to make this work for Fedora KDE.

The information in the README is out of date with current estimate of usefulness. The production release is going to be part of Plasma 6.6. At this point, it’s been considered in a good enough state that efforts have begun to integrate it in KDE Linux as well.

If it does indeed turn out to be problematic by the time freeze rolls around, it’s trivial to back out and switch back to SDDM.

1 Like
8

Two questions:

  • It seems upstream has no releases yet and not even tags
    Do upstream have concrete schedule or release plan?
  • A long missing feature in SDDM was handling of PAM password expiry:
    • Several issues in the last 10 years: #472, #776, #1601, #1665
      (some with experimental code)
    • I couldn’t find this topic even mentioned in PLM
      Is this even planned at some stage ?
9

It is going to get an “initial release” sometime soon, I believe. But then it will release alongside KDE Plasma after that. Plasma 6.6.0 will be released on Feb 17 of next year, according to the schedule, and Plasma Login Manager will be included in that.

I don’t think it’ll be handled in the initial release, but I’ll talk to them about getting it on the roadmap.

1 Like
10

Forgot to mention (as an anecdote) that GDM lack PAM password expiry as well.

(which is a bit strange, as I would expect corporate environments that use RHEL to request that)

11

How is upgrade/compatibility impact for Fedora Kinoite? I assume it would be switched and enabled automatically when F44 releases but I just want to make sure

12

Yes. It’ll just switch and there’s no reversion option for Kinoite.

1 Like
13

Kinoite will indeed switch to that as default. You can manually override and replace it with SDDM locally on systems if needed.

1 Like