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

73 bundie 21 5/18/2025, 10:33:16 PM neowin.net ↗

Comments (21)

bdbenton5255 · 52m 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.
marcodiego · 29m 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 · 11m 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.

bandrami · 54m ago
What ever happened to aqemu? That was my favorite frontend but it seems to have been languishing for a decade.
fishgoesblub · 2h 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.
heavyset_go · 1h ago
Plasma's shell is in Kirigami and Qt Quick, it couldn't be more consistent and integrated into the DE than that.
hxorr · 3m 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 · 1h ago
Unfortunate it's using Kirigami and Qt Quick, I always felt the appearance and functionality is much worse compared to Qt Widgets.
MegaDeKay · 2h 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.

shmerl · 2h ago
I think Qt Quick is a pretty generic level, you can make a lot of different interfaces with it. Kirigami is more specific.
Jotalea · 1h ago
Karton, sounds like "cartón" but with the traditional K added to the start of the names in KDE programs.
c0balt · 6m ago
It is also the German shorthand name for carton/cardboard.
grg0 · 34m ago
There's also Bottles: https://usebottles.com/
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 · 2h ago
No need to contact the Dutch for this one - I assume it's just "carton" with the C replaced with K
hagbard_c · 2h 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 · 1h ago
I would have gone with a creative name like kvm.
sureglymop · 2h ago
Could be German as well.
gerdesj · 1h ago
English, Dutch and German are all ... Germanic.

English is the weird one, except for the others.