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In the previous story I showed how to install the KDE desktop on a Raspberry Pi with the Raspberry OS Bookworm. Why ?? Well because the KDE desktop is beautiful while the Raspberry OS desktop is childish.As this story leans heavily on that previous story I urge you to read that first. Here is the link: http://lucstechblog.blogspot.com/2025/10/raspberry-os-bookworm-with-kde-desktop.html
And just when I was writing that story Raspberry introduced Trixie. The new OS based on Debian 13.
So I upgraded my setup (always recommended) and started experimenting to check if I could install the KDE desktop, called Plasma, on Trixie.
The official Raspberry site writes:
Something you will notice, however, is that we’ve made some changes of our own in the Trixie release. The most obvious is that we have updated the theme for the desktop — we have a completely new set of icons, a new font, new desktop backgrounds, and some other small tweaks to refresh the appearance of the system. This should be apparent as soon as you launch it.
Well actually the new theme looks indeed a bit better. But installing new software, and changing settings and a lot of other things still look dreadful. I wonder why they did not take the chance to upgrade tp KDE Plasma together with the new OS.
How to try this safely
A reader send me a mail telling that he was reluctant to do this as he was afraid to break things in his software. I told him not to worry.
You can try this safely before definitely stepping over.
Just use a fresh SD card. Install the Raspberry OS on that and follow the described steps. That will not harm your original setup and you can experiment as much as you like
But do yourself a favour and give it a try. You will not be disappointed.
Backup your data
First thing to do is to backup your valuable data. Good practice is to do that at least every week. I use an external harddisk for that and copy my complete home directory to that.
Installing KDE Plasma
Well actually most of the steps are equal to installing KDE Plasma on the previous OS: Bookworm.
So I refer to that story which you can find here:
https://lucstechblog.blogspot.com/2025/10/raspberry-os-bookworm-with-kde-desktop.html
The differences in the steps.
Step 7 in the story says:
And there we are.
The screen opens with your user name and you need to login with your password.
Well with Trixie that is not the way it works.
After rebooting the Raspberry GUI appears again.
Another difference is that when updrading Bookworm there is a dropdown menu on the top left side of the screen.
With Trixie this menu is at the left bottom side of the screen.
Just continue.
That is what you need to do. Just continue all the steps and when you reached the last step you will have achieved what you want: the KDE Plasma desktop on the Raspberry Pi !!!
The picture shows the Raspberry Config screen on the KDE Plasma desktop.
Keeping both: Raspberry Theme AND KDE Plasma
Actually it is possible to keep the Raspberry theme and KDE at the same time.
If you want this just omit the steps 10-11-12 from the previous story.
When the login screen appears you can then use the menu on the left-bottom side of the opening screen.
Be aware that it does not really look as a menu. There is just a text saying KDE Plasma on X11 (or Wayland). But that text is clickable and when you do the rest of the options are shown. Just click on the one you want and log in.
The only point with keeping all GUI's is that it will take up space on your root directory. And on a small SD card, like 32Gb, that might limit the amount of additional software you can install.
But when you have installed KDE Plasma and tried it you will see there is no reason to go back.
That's all for now
have fun
Luc Volders