SparkyLinux Finally Gets a KDE Plasma Edition, Xfce Flavor Updated to Xfce 4.16

The developers behind the Debian-based SparkyLinux distribution released today SparkyLinux 2021.03 as March 2021’s update of their semi-rolling line and the first to introduce a KDE Plasma edition.

Based on the Debian Testing repositories as of March 5th, 2021, where the development of the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series takes place, the SparkyLinux 2021.03 release ships with Linux kernel 5.10 LTS, the Calamares 3.2.37 installer, and various updated components (see below).

But what caught my attention is the fact that SparkyLinux now features a KDE Plasma edition! Until now, SparkyLinux shipped with the Xfce, LXQt, MATE, Openbox (MinimalGUI), and MinimalCLI (text-mode) editions.

Of course, a KDE Plasma flavor is most welcome, and I bet fans of SparkyLinux and the Debian GNU/Linux operating system will be thrilled to give it a try. You can download it right now from the official website, and, until your download is complete, I can tell you that it looks nice and has a minimal design à la SparkyLinux.

Software-wise, the KDE Plasma edition ships with the KDE Plasma 5.20.5 desktop environment, which is accompanied by the KDE Frameworks 5.78 and KDE Applications 20.12.2 open-source software suites, built against Qt 5.15.2.

SparkyLinux 2021.03 also brings good news for fans of the more lightweight Xfce desktop environment, as the Xfce flavor has been upgraded to the latest Xfce 4.16 release and packs extra keyboard shortcuts.

Moreover, the LXQt edition now ships with the latest LXQt 0.16.0 desktop environment, which also features extra keboard shortcuts, as well as new apps, including Clementine as default audio player instead of Exaile, KDE’s Kopete IM and Konversation as default instant messaging client and IRC client respectively instead of Pidgin and HexChat, as well as Webcamoid as default webcam client instead of GNOME’s Cheese.

All editions ship with Mozilla Firefox 86.0 as default web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 78.8.0 as default email client, LibreOffice 7.0.4.2 as default office suite, and VLC 3.0.12 as default media player.

You can download SparkyLinux 2021.03 Xfce, LXQt, MATE, KDE Plasma, MinimalGUI (Openbox), and MinimalCLI editions right now from the official website. Since this is a rolling release distro, existing users don’t need to download the new ISOs to update their installations, but just run the following commands in a terminal emulator.