KDE

KDE Plasma is a desktop environment that aims to be simple by default, powerful when needed.

Note: As of 2024, KDE Plasma 5 is end of life and X11 is deprecated. In general you should aim for KDE Plasma 6 and Wayland.

Installation

Contemporary Setup

To use KDE Plasma 6 on a computer running NixOS 24.11 or later, add this to your configuration.nix:

services = {
  desktopManager.plasma6.enable = true;

  displayManager.sddm.enable = true;

  displayManager.sddm.wayland.enable = true;
};

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs;
  [
    # KDE
    kdePackages.discover # Optional: Install if you use Flatpak or fwupd firmware update sevice
    kdePackages.kcalc # Calculator
    kdePackages.kcharselect # Tool to select and copy special characters from all installed fonts
    kdePackages.kclock # Clock app
    kdePackages.kcolorchooser # A small utility to select a color
    kdePackages.kolourpaint # Easy-to-use paint program
    kdePackages.ksystemlog # KDE SystemLog Application
    kdePackages.sddm-kcm # Configuration module for SDDM
    kdiff3 # Compares and merges 2 or 3 files or directories
    kdePackages.isoimagewriter # Optional: Program to write hybrid ISO files onto USB disks
    kdePackages.partitionmanager # Optional: Manage the disk devices, partitions and file systems on your computer
    # Non-KDE graphical packages
    hardinfo2 # System information and benchmarks for Linux systems
    vlc # Cross-platform media player and streaming server
    wayland-utils # Wayland utilities
    wl-clipboard # Command-line copy/paste utilities for Wayland
  ];

Remote Desktop Service

To use KDE Plasma 6 on a computer and share the GUI desktop with RDP (remote desktop access), add this to your configuration.nix. After applying the configuration, you can connect to the GUI desktop from another computer with an RDP client such as Remmina or Microsoft's Windows app.

Note: As of May 2025, the xrdp service still requires X11 instead of Wayland.

Note: Local login and remote login via RDP will have separate sessions. If you login locally and later login remotely, xrdp will launch a new session instead of connecting you to the locally logged in session.

services = {
  desktopManager.plasma6.enable = true;

  displayManager.sddm.enable = true;

  xrdp = {
    defaultWindowManager = "startplasma-x11";
    enable = true;
    openFirewall = true;
  };

  xserver = {
    enable = true;

    xkb = {
      layout = "us";
      variant = "";
    };
  };
};

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs;
  [
    # KDE
    kdePackages.discover # Optional: Install if you use Flatpak or fwupd firmware update sevice
    kdePackages.kcalc # Calculator
    kdePackages.kcharselect # Tool to select and copy special characters from all installed fonts
    kdePackages.kclock # Clock app
    kdePackages.kcolorchooser # A small utility to select a color
    kdePackages.kolourpaint # Easy-to-use paint program
    kdePackages.ksystemlog # KDE SystemLog Application
    kdePackages.sddm-kcm # Configuration module for SDDM
    kdiff3 # Compares and merges 2 or 3 files or directories
    kdePackages.isoimagewriter # Optional: Program to write hybrid ISO files onto USB disks
    kdePackages.partitionmanager # Optional: Manage the disk devices, partitions and file systems on your computer
    # Non-KDE graphical packages
    hardinfo2 # System information and benchmarks for Linux systems
    vlc # Cross-platform media player and streaming server
    wayland-utils # Wayland utilities
    wl-clipboard # Command-line copy/paste utilities for Wayland
    xclip # Tool to access the X clipboard from a console application
  ];

Excluding KDE Plasma Applications

The example demonstrates how to exclude some KDE Plasma apps.

  #
  # KDE Exclusions
  #
  environment.plasma6.excludePackages = with pkgs; [
    kdePackages.elisa # Simple music player aiming to provide a nice experience for its users
    kdePackages.kdepim-runtime # Akonadi agents and resources
    kdePackages.kmahjongg # KMahjongg is a tile matching game for one or two players
    kdePackages.kmines # KMines is the classic Minesweeper game
    kdePackages.konversation # User-friendly and fully-featured IRC client
    kdePackages.kpat # KPatience offers a selection of solitaire card games
    kdePackages.ksudoku # KSudoku is a logic-based symbol placement puzzle
    kdePackages.ktorrent # Powerful BitTorrent client
    mpv
  ];

Audio

Enable PipeWire Audio Support

Bluetooth

Enable Bluetooth Support

Configuration

GNOME desktop integration

Using the following example configuration, QT applications will have a look similar to the GNOME desktop, using a dark theme.

qt = {
  enable = true;
  platformTheme = "gnome";
  style = "adwaita-dark";
};

For other themes, you may need the packages libsForQt5.qt5ct and libsForQt5.qtstyleplugin-kvantum and a symlink from ~/.config/Kvantum/ to your theme package. Here is an example using Arc-Dark and Home Manager. In the Home Manager configuration:

qt = {
  enable = true;
  platformTheme = "qtct";
  style.name = "kvantum";
};

xdg.configFile = {
  "Kvantum/ArcDark".source = "${pkgs.arc-kde-theme}/share/Kvantum/ArcDark";
  "Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig".text = "[General]\ntheme=ArcDark";
};

For more details, see this forum post.

Plasma-Manager

Plasma-Manager provides automation and configuration management for KDE. If you have more than a handful of machines, give it a look. It's well regarded by folks on Reddit /r/NixOS

Github plasma-manager

Troubleshooting

KMail Renders Blank Messages

When you see the message grantlee.template: "Plugin library 'kde_grantlee_plugin' not found." and/or kmail does shows only empty message then add to your configuration.nix the following line:

environment.sessionVariables = {
  NIX_PROFILES = "${pkgs.lib.concatStringsSep " " (pkgs.lib.reverseList config.environment.profiles)}";
};

(See this issue)