How to install KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS on Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04

KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS was released late last year – October, but got updated in the Kubuntu backports PPA end of December 2016. This meant that Ubuntu 16.10 and Ubuntu 16.04 users could now upgrade their desktops to KDE Plasma 5.8.

The latest update to Plasma 5.8 series was Plasma 5.8.4. Lets have a quick look at some of the key updates in this release:

• Many bug fixes for multi screen support such as:
  • Load screenpool at the same time as we connect to screenchanged signals
  • Avoid connecting to screen changed signals twice
• Make screenshots visible when there’s only one screenshot too
• Disable Qt’s high DPI scaling on shutdown/switch user dialogs
• Add plasma-discover to mappings
• Delay init of Wayland setup till next event cycle
• Tear-down Wayland objects before app quits
• Badges and progress display in task manager now works with more 3rd party applications
• Fix Unity launcher count badge rendering when task is created
• In addtion, the behavior of scrollable systray popups was also fixed

Install KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS on Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04

• If you have an existing KDE Plasma installed, then run the following commands to upgrade to latest release

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

• If this is your first time of installing KDE Plasma on your desktop, then run the following commands to install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

• Click OK on Configuring ssdm

• Select lightdm as the display manager

lightdm(Light Display Manager) is the default for Unity desktop environment. SSDM (simple desktop display manager) is the preferred display manager for KDE Plasma desktop environment

• After installation is completed, reboot machine and select Plasma desktop environment before login

How to downgrade KDE Plasma

sudo apt install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports