KDE is finally getting a native virtual machine manager called “Karton”

77 bundie 24 5/18/2025, 10:33:16 PM neowin.net ↗

Comments (24)

bdbenton5255 · 1h ago
I use Arch and love KDE Plasma. It even has a blue light filter. Am never going back to Windows. KDE runs faster, looks nicer, does not have forced adware and telemetry. Great daily driver.
cwbriscoe · 28m ago
I have been playing with Cachy and Plasma in a VM and I am probably going to install that on my next PC build that I am planning. I am currently dual booting Ubuntu and Windows. I haven't logged into windows in over 6 months so I probably won't even setup dual boot with my next machine.
marcodiego · 1h ago
I tried KDE 1.0 two decades ago. Although it looked like a copy of windows ideas in some points, it already seemed better even at the time.
LeFantome · 49m ago
It was better up until about version 3. Then KDE got worse and Windows got better.

I think KDE is back in top again.

Narishma · 32m ago
KDE 4 was the bad one, not 3.
hxorr · 37m ago
I hope they can come up with a solution integrated into KDE where you can have apps running on a VM but appearing as a native Kwin window... Would probably need a helper daemon running on guest OS.

I know a similar thing has been done before but would be great to have upstream support from a major DE

fishgoesblub · 3h ago
Nice, having a new alternative to virt-manager is great, especially a Qt one. Unfortunate it's using Kirigami and Qt Quick, I always felt the appearance and functionality is much worse compared to Qt Widgets.
MegaDeKay · 3h ago
Indeed, an alternative to virt-manager would be more than welcome. "What, you want to search the XML for a text string? Why would you want to do that? Undo? That's crazy talk!"

I had hoped KDE was over the K-named thing, but I guess not. At least Karton is better than Kvirt-manager.

heavyset_go · 2h ago
Plasma's shell is in Kirigami and Qt Quick, it couldn't be more consistent and integrated into the DE than that.
hxorr · 41m ago
Yeah, that must be why plasma has always felt so janky to me... Even just simple stuff like simple menu launcher or task manager I can always get into an unexpected state or weird inconsistent behaviour...

I like KDE apps though, usually end up using those together with something like lxqt or xfce

bobmcnamara · 2h ago
Unfortunate it's using Kirigami and Qt Quick, I always felt the appearance and functionality is much worse compared to Qt Widgets.
shmerl · 3h ago
I think Qt Quick is a pretty generic level, you can make a lot of different interfaces with it. Kirigami is more specific.
bandrami · 1h ago
What ever happened to aqemu? That was my favorite frontend but it seems to have been languishing for a decade.
Jotalea · 1h ago
Karton, sounds like "cartón" but with the traditional K added to the start of the names in KDE programs.
grg0 · 1h ago
There's also Bottles: https://usebottles.com/
c0balt · 44m ago
It is also the German shorthand name for carton/cardboard.
shmerl · 3h ago
Nice!

I've been using virt-manager for a long time, but more KDE native solution is welcome.

Still waiting for virt-manager to add support for Vulkan rendering through libvirt.

Side note, not sure if it's specific to Kirigami, but a bunch of interfaces which use it have this excessive margin spacing feel to them.

Something like that happens with print-manager's configuration which is using Kirigami supposedly too.

hagbard_c · 3h ago
Karton, Dutch for 'cardboard'. Chosen because it is a tool to handle (virtual) boxes, maybe?
atomicnumber3 · 3h ago
No need to contact the Dutch for this one - I assume it's just "carton" with the C replaced with K
hagbard_c · 3h ago
Ah, but the Dutch can get there without indirection which means they're faster than those label-swapping Anglo- and Francophones.
gerdesj · 1h ago
French is not Germanic. It's a Romance language, so closer to Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc

English, German and Dutch are Germanic.

pkaye · 2h ago
I would have gone with a creative name like kvm.
sureglymop · 2h ago
Could be German as well.
gerdesj · 2h ago
English, Dutch and German are all ... Germanic.

English is the weird one, except for the others.