KaOS Linux 2026.06 Swaps Systemd for Dinit, and the Result Is Faster

I have been running KaOS on a secondary machine since the 2024 cycle, mostly because I wanted a KDE-first distribution that did not pretend to be a server. The 2026.06 release landed this month and it is the first one that made me sit up. KaOS has replaced systemd with Dinit as the init system (the first process a Linux system runs at boot, traditionally SysVinit or systemd). The change is not just a swap. It is a statement about what a desktop Linux distribution should be in 2026, and the boot time difference is the part you can measure.

What changed and why

Systemd does a lot. It manages services, it handles device events, it logs to the journal, it provides login sessions, it runs user services. On a server, that scope is the point. On a desktop, most of that scope is overhead you do not need. Dinit is a smaller init system designed for one job: start and supervise services in a defined order. It does not handle the device-event stack or the logging stack or the user-session stack. Those pieces stay where they were, but they are no longer wrapped in a single process tree.

The practical result on my test machine, a ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an NVMe drive and 32 GB of RAM:

• Systemd boot to login prompt: 4.1 seconds.
• Dinit boot to login prompt: 1.8 seconds.

That is not the slowest-to-fastest comparison. Both numbers are repeatable across three boots with the same services enabled. The Dinit path is faster because it does less work during boot, and because its service activation model is simpler than systemd’s dependency graph (systemd’s design is that services can declare dependencies on each other and start in parallel when those dependencies are met, which is flexible but heavy; Dinit runs services in a strict sequence unless you explicitly enable parallel-start).

KaOS is not the first distribution to make this swap. Artix has been systemd-free for years, using OpenRC. Devuan uses SysVinit. Void Linux uses runit. The difference is that KaOS is the first KDE-focused distribution to take this on, and the maintainers have done it carefully. The system is fully functional. There is no “you will need to fix this yourself” warning in the release notes.

KDE Plasma is gone, but the desktop is not

This is the change nobody has been talking about, and it matters. KaOS 2026.06 drops KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment. Niri, a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor, is the new default, paired with Noctalia as the status bar and launcher.

Plasma users should not panic. KaOS ships an install image with Plasma available. The Plasma option is not hidden. It is just not the default anymore, because the maintainers wanted a desktop that aligns better with the rest of the changes (lightweight, fast, modern).

I have used both for this article. Niri is the right choice for someone who lives in a terminal and wants the desktop to stay out of the way. Tiling is enforced, but the layout is scrollable, which means workspaces are not bounded the way they are in i3 or Sway. Plasma is the right choice for someone who wants a familiar desktop with a tray and a system settings panel. Both are good. Neither is a regression from the previous release.

What is actually in this release

The release notes are long. The parts that matter for someone deciding whether to install:

• Dinit 0.22.0. Faster startup. No systemd dependency for core services. udev and tmpfiles still use systemd components because there is no widely-adopted alternative yet. The maintainers have been honest about this gap.
• Niri 26.04. Modern Wayland compositor. Does not pretend to be anything it is not. Stable for daily use on the hardware I tested.
• Linux 7.0.13 kernel. Recent stable release. Good hardware support for current-generation laptops and desktops. The kernel package is signed and verified by the KaOS build chain.
• GCC 15.2.1. Newer than what most distributions ship. The performance difference is small but real for compiled workloads.

There is also a long list of package updates, but the four above are the ones a new user will notice.

Trade-offs

The release is not perfect. If you want a fully systemd-free system, KaOS 2026.06 is not there yet. udev and tmpfiles still use systemd components. The maintainers have made it clear that replacing those is a longer-term project, and that the path forward is not “drop systemd entirely” but “use the smallest systemd-compatible components that work.” If your priority is zero systemd on the disk, this is not the distro for you. Artix and Void are still the better choices for that.

Niri is also a real adjustment. If you have used KDE Plasma for years, switching to a scrollable-tiling compositor will cost you a week of muscle-memory. The default Niri keybindings are not bad, but they are not Plasma keybindings. Plan for that.

If you are on the previous KaOS release and your workflow is stable, the upgrade is worth it for the boot time alone. If you are on a non-systemd-free distribution and have been curious about what a smaller init system looks like in practice, KaOS 2026.06 is the easiest path to find out. If you are on Artix or Void already, the KaOS release is interesting but does not change your calculus. If you are on a mainstream distribution like Fedora or Ubuntu and have not thought about your init system in years, this release is not for you yet. Stay where you are.

What I would tell past me

If I could send a message back to the version of me that first installed KaOS two years ago, I would say three things.

• Boot time is not a vanity metric. A two-second boot on a desktop changes how you use the machine. You stop avoiding reboots. You start treating shutdown as a reasonable option instead of a last resort.
• A smaller init system is not a smaller distribution. KaOS 2026.06 ships the same package catalog as before. The init system is the smallest piece of a Linux system, but it touches every other piece, so the change feels bigger than it is. Give yourself a week before you judge it.
• The desktop is the desktop, and the init system is the init system. If you care about Plasma, install Plasma. If you care about Niri, use Niri. The init system change is orthogonal to the desktop choice, and conflating them is how you end up arguing with strangers on forums.

Bottom line

KaOS 2026.06 is the cleanest systemd-swap release I have tested. The boot time is the headline. The desktop change is real but optional. The maintainers have been honest about the gaps, which is worth more than a perfect changelog.

If you only do one thing from this article, download the ISO and try it on a USB stick before you install. KaOS is a polished distribution. You should see what 2026.06 looks like before you commit.