AEROTHEMEPLASMA FOR KDE 6

WARNING: This version is very early WIP and is not fully finished. Proceed with caution.

Microsoft® Windows™ is a registered trademark of Microsoft® Corporation. This name is used for referential use only, and does not aim to usurp copyrights from Microsoft. Microsoft Ⓒ 2025 All rights reserved. All resources belong to Microsoft Corporation.

Introduction

This is a project which aims to recreate the look and feel of Windows 7 as much as possible on KDE Plasma, whilst adapting the design to fit in with modern features provided by KDE Plasma and Linux. It is still in heavy development and testing. ATP has been tested on:

1. Arch Linux x64 and other Arch derivatives
2. Plasma 6.3.4, KDE Frameworks 6.12.0, Qt 6.9.0
3. 96 DPI scaling, multi monitor
4. X11, Wayland*

*AeroThemePlasma currently lacks full Wayland support, which may result in Wayland-specific issues.

This release is meant for early adopters, debuggers and developers alike. This port lacks certain components which still need to be ported over to KDE Plasma 6. I am not responsible for broken systems, please proceed with caution.

The Plasma 5 version of ATP is available as a tag in this repository, however it is unmaintained and no longer supported.

If you find my work valuable consider donating:

Installation

See INSTALL.md for a detailed installation guide.

Credits

Huge thanks to everyone who helped out along the way by contributing, testing, providing suggestions and generally making ATP possible:

Forked code

• Intika's Digital Clock Lite plasmoid
• Adhe, oKcerG and SnoutBug for making SevenStart possible
• Zren's Win7 Show Desktop plasmoid
• Mirko Gennari, DrGordBord and bionegative for making SevenBlack possible
• DrGordBord's Windows 7 Kvantum theme
• taj-ny's kwin-effects-forceblur

Contributors

• Souris-2d07 for making the following:
  • Cursor theme
  • Plymouth theme (old)
  • SDDM theme
  • KWin decoration theme
  • Most KWin C++ effects
  • Other minor KWin features and scripts
• That Linux Dude Dominic Hayes for making the following:
  • Lock screen UI
  • Icon theme
• catpswin56 for help with SevenTasks, Sound Mixer plasmoid, Gadgets menu, Polkit UAC skin, as well as many more contributions
• QuinceTart10 and Gamer95875 for making the sound themes
• (In collaboration with) kfh83, TorutheRedFox and ALTaleX for figuring out accurate Aero glass blur and colorization effects
• AngelBruni for contributing several SVG textures, most notably the clock in DigitalClockLite Seven
• ricewind012 for .bashrc Microsoft Windows header
• furkrn for creating and maintaining the Plymouth theme

Special Thanks

• MondySpartan for inspiring the notification design

Cool projects you should really check out

• Geckium by AngelBruni
• Aero UserChrome by Souris (Geckium in combination with Aero UserChrome works well with AeroThemePlasma)
• VistaThemePlasma by catpswin56
• LonghornThemePlasma by catpswin56
• VB1ThemePlasma by catpswin56
• Harmony by catpswin56
• Gadgets by catpswin56
• WinXplorer by catpswin56
• SMOD Themes by catpswin56, a collection of themes that can be used with the SMOD window decoration theme
• Ice2K.sys by 0penrc

Vista variant

Initially I wanted to make a Vista variant of AeroThemePlasma but catpswin56 beat me to it, use VistaThemePlasma if you want a Vista theme.

Screenshots

Desktop

Start Menu

Clock

System Tray

Sound Mixer

Notifications

Desktop Icons

Lockscreen

Aero Peek

Alt-Tab Switcher

Colorization

Regular colorization: Basic colorization: Maximized opaque colorization:

Decorations

Decoration themes:

Gadgets

Network details

Librewolf

User Account Control (Polkit)

Taskbar