install-kde-dev-tools

Install KDE Plasma 6 / Qt 6 Development Tools

Provision a workstation for KDE Plasma 6 plasmoid and Qt 6 application development. Detects the distro and installs the canonical packages.

Detect distro and package manager first

. /etc/os-release && echo "$ID $VERSION_ID"
which apt dnf zypper pacman 2>/dev/null

Branch on $ID:

• ubuntu / debian / kubuntu / neon → apt
• fedora / nobara → dnf
• opensuse-tumbleweed / opensuse-leap → zypper
• arch / manjaro / endeavouros → pacman (+ AUR helper if present)

Confirm Plasma 6: plasmashell --version should report 6.x. If 5.x, tell the user this toolchain targets Plasma 6 and ask whether they want to proceed anyway.

Tool inventory

What to install, grouped by purpose. Skip anything the user explicitly excludes.

Core build toolchain (always)

• Qt 6 base + qmake6 / cmake — required to build anything
• Extra CMake Modules (ECM) — KDE Frameworks 6 build glue
• KDE Frameworks 6 dev headers — KConfig, KCoreAddons, KI18n, KIO, KWindowSystem, etc.
• Plasma framework dev headers — for plasmoid C++ data engines (rare, but needed for non-pure-QML plasmoids)
• kpackagetool6 — install/uninstall plasmoids and other KPackages
• gcc / g++ / make / git

IDEs & editors

• Qt Creator — Qt's official IDE, best QML editor and live preview
• KDevelop — KDE's IDE, great for KF6/Plasma C++ projects
• Kate — lightweight QML editing with LSP support (usually preinstalled on Plasma)

plasma-sdk (essential for plasmoid work)

The plasma-sdk package bundles:

• plasmoidviewer6 — live-preview a plasmoid in isolation
• Cuttlefish — icon browser; pick freedesktop icon names for metadata.json
• plasmathemeexplorer — inspect SVG theme elements and Plasma theme structure
• plasmaengineexplorer — browse Plasma data engines (legacy, still useful)
• lookandfeelexplorer — preview/edit Look-and-Feel packages

QML / Qt tooling

• qmllint / qmlformat — lint and format QML (ships with Qt 6 declarative tools)
• qml6 runtime — run standalone .qml files
• Kirigami runtime + Gallery — kirigami-gallery is a live demo of every Kirigami component, indispensable as a visual reference

Optional but useful

• gammaray — Qt application introspector (inspect QML object trees of a running app)
• qttools6-dev-tools / Qt Linguist — translation workflow
• appstream + appstreamcli — validate .metainfo.xml for KDE Store submissions

Install commands per distro

Ubuntu / Debian / Kubuntu / KDE Neon

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential cmake extra-cmake-modules git \
  qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev qt6-tools-dev qt6-tools-dev-tools \
  qml6-module-qtquick qml6-module-qtquick-controls \
  libkf6config-dev libkf6coreaddons-dev libkf6i18n-dev \
  libkf6kio-dev libkf6windowsystem-dev libkf6plasma-dev \
  kpackagetool6 \
  plasma-sdk \
  kirigami-gallery \
  qtcreator kdevelop \
  gammaray

Note: on older Ubuntu releases the package names may still be libkf5* / qt5-*. If apt-cache search libkf6plasma-dev returns nothing, the user is on a release that doesn't ship KF6 yet — recommend KDE Neon or Kubuntu 24.04+ and stop.

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y \
  @development-tools cmake extra-cmake-modules git \
  qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel qt6-qttools-devel \
  kf6-kconfig-devel kf6-kcoreaddons-devel kf6-ki18n-devel \
  kf6-kio-devel kf6-kwindowsystem-devel kf6-plasma-devel \
  plasma-sdk kirigami-gallery \
  qt-creator kdevelop \
  gammaray

openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo zypper install -y -t pattern devel_C_C++ devel_qt6
sudo zypper install -y \
  cmake extra-cmake-modules git \
  plasma6-sdk kirigami-gallery \
  qt-creator kdevelop6 \
  gammaray

KF6/Plasma 6 dev packages on Tumbleweed are typically pulled in transitively by plasma6-sdk; confirm with zypper search -i kf6-.

Arch / Manjaro / EndeavourOS

sudo pacman -S --needed \
  base-devel cmake extra-cmake-modules git \
  qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-tools \
  kconfig kcoreaddons ki18n kio kwindowsystem plasma-framework \
  plasma-sdk kirigami-gallery \
  qtcreator kdevelop \
  gammaray

plasma-sdk on Arch already includes plasmoidviewer, Cuttlefish, plasmathemeexplorer, and lookandfeelexplorer.

Verification

After install, verify the toolchain:

qmake6 --version
cmake --version
kpackagetool6 --version
plasmoidviewer6 --help | head -3
which cuttlefish plasmathemeexplorer kirigami-gallery
qtcreator --version 2>/dev/null || echo "Qt Creator: launch via menu"
kdevelop --version 2>/dev/null

If any of the executables are missing, the corresponding package didn't install — tell the user which one and offer to investigate.

Output convention

When asked to set up the toolchain:

1. Detect distro and Plasma version. If not Plasma 6 on a supported distro, stop and ask.
2. Show the user the exact apt/dnf/zypper/pacman command you'll run, grouped so they can comment out anything unwanted.
3. Run the install (it will prompt for sudo).
4. Run the verification block and report any missing tools.
5. Recommend next steps: launch kirigami-gallery to browse components, cuttlefish to pick icons, and the kde-plasmoid-dev skill in this same plugin to scaffold a first widget.