6 ms·

I'm loving Plasma 6 so far. Wayland support is much better! I had been using a keyboard shortcut to switch to the previously-used desktop. When KDE removed it

I'm loving Plasma 6 so far. Wayland support is much better! I had been using a keyboard shortcut to switch to the previously-used desktop. When KDE removed it [1], I filed a bug [2]. Hours later, a KDE dev created a new KWin script [3] to replace this functionality, fixing my workflow. THANKS! KDE is awesome! [1]: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3871 https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3871 [2]: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481985 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481985 [3]: https://invent.kde.org/vladz/switch-to-previous-desktop https://invent.kde.org/vladz/switch-to-previous-desktop

MBCook 3y ago
Can you explain what’s so much better about Wayland support?
- sho_hn 3y ago
  There's a large amount of robustness improvements, particularly around multi-monitor and docking scenarios with dynamic and fractional DPI. We've also introduced technology to allow client apps to stay running should the compositor crash and restart. We've replaced some originally homebrew Wayland protocol extensions with newer extensions maintained by the wider Wayland community. For example, our own panels now use the layer-shell protocol. This improves interoperability, e.g. enabling third-party panels. We've added initial support for HDR and color management, in particular for games with HDR rendering (we've been learning a lot about the gaming community and their needs from the Steam Deck). More complete porting of many little quality-of-life workspace and toolkit features and refinements when running in Wayland. Performance work. Screen sharing got a revamp, now supporting RDP and the latest portal dialogs when invoked by apps and so on. Various other compositor-y bits, e.g. support for the Presentation Time frame scheduling extension, which helps video players and game engines. Some of these got done in Plasma and KDE software itself, some in Qt 6, where we've been a major contributor to the QtWayland module. Some required contributions to the Wayland protocol stack itself, e.g. the modern focus handover protocol.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Thank you(plural) for all your efforts. Donated as well. I feel like this iteration of KDE will finally convince me to move to linux permanently.
    - sho_hn 3y ago
      Thanks for the donation, it really helps :-)
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    Super excited to play around with this on my Steam Deck! Wayland support was actually one of the main reasons I left KDE on my primary machine, eventually in favor of Sway. Really glad to see so much progress has been made on that front :)
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Wow. That’s quite a lot. Thanks.
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    HDR support is huge and is the last thing preventing me from ditching Windows on my gaming PC.
  - __loam 3y ago
    I'm not sure if it has anything to do with KDE itself or if it's Kubuntu's fault but one small annoyance I've dealt with is how my wacom drawing tablet is mapped to the screen space. I've had to manually map it so that the tablet touch space isn't spread across three monitors and I've also had this setting get reset. I'm really excited to see more support for multiple monitors coming down the pipe. Do you know anything about the tablet issue or is this something I just need to do some more research on?
    - pjerem 3y ago
      Actually you can configure all of this with xsetwacom. I don’t remember the exact commands and it’s mildly tricky but after that you get a configuration file that shouldn’t move (or that you can backup).
- indymike 3y ago
  Faster, better support for multiple screens with different geometry, safer, and ultimately maintained. Also, at this point, it works really well, and honestly is not a drag on the user. I moved to Wayland last December and have really enjoyed it. I'm using the KDE Neon distribution, and it's really really really nice.
- graphe 3y ago
  It's safer as every program is isolated but it crashes more often because programs are isolated and expect not to be isolated. I often switch back to x11 whenever I try it I think nice it's fast and has bells and whistles but there basics aren't there. It took x11 a LONG time to be usable so I expect the same with Wayland.
troyvit 3y ago
> I'm loving Plasma 6 so far. Wayland support is much better! I'm jealous. I lasted about half an hour on Wayland, but several apps I use still don't work. xtrlock (anti-cat measures) and freetube both wouldn't work, but worse was that games like Dying Light crash almost immediately. On KDE 6 / X11 it's a little better but the game still craters after an hour. Still figuring out why. Maybe it's because the laptop is an AMD ecosystem.
- tamimio 3y ago
  > freetube I have it and works fine on plasma6/wayland.
  - troyvit 3y ago
    This must just be me then. I'll give it another shot!
- bogwog 3y ago
  > freetube I don't know about the other apps/games, but I use freetube all the time on my KDE5/Nvidia/Wayland system and have never had an issue with it. Which distro/gpu/driver version are you on?
  - troyvit 3y ago
    You're right! I tried it again and all was well.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  I'd imagine XWayland Xorg emulation is far from perfect so I wouldn't be surprised if games that depend on that would crash. That being said, I recently switched to Wayland again after a hiatus and it seems support keeps improving. I'm not using proprietary NVIDIA drivers currently so that might be it.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    The thing that you have to remember about Xwayland is that it is Xorg. It just has a Wayland DDX[0] on the back end rather than a device-specific DDX or one that talks e.g., directly to the modesetting driver. [0] Device-Dependent X, i.e., the bits of X that talk directly to the display. Contrasted with Device-Independent X (DIX), i.e., the bits that do state tracking and protocol communication with clients.
rstuart4133 3y ago
I'm using KDE on Debian / Wayland because I was forced to [0]. I moved to it from from Gnome, which I was forced to use for similar reasons. I can't believe it, but I badly miss the "Super" (Windows logo) button on KDE not behaving the same was as Gnome. On KDE Ctrl-F9 does the same thing, but after using Gnome that function became "the" way I flipped between hidden Windows. The "Super" button is right place for it, Ctrl-F9 is far too fiddly. The task bar I was brought up in in my Windows / Mac days is just hopeless for task switching in comparison. The rest of KDE (particularly it's configurability) is better than Gnome, of course. Except for bugs. KDE has so many UI glitches and bugs compared to Gnome. It drives me nuts. I might give Plasma 6 a go, but if the bug situation hasn't improved I will be moving onto something else. These bugs have nothing to do with Wayland per se. [0] I have a Thinkpad X1 extreme gen 2. A beautiful laptop on paper also in person because it's 4K OLED screen, but I'd never have another one. Charging from the USB-C connector is a lottery - but can be made to work with enough reinsertions. The 4K screen is scratched by the keyboard because the keys touch when closed. On the gen 2 they pushed the external video path through the Nvidia card. You can get an external monitor to work if you hold your head just the right way. With Debian 11 the right was to run Wayland, and only Gnome supported it well. With Debian 12, the right way is to boot using Gnomes display manager (gdm3) with Wayland, wait until the monitor sync's, then login using your KDE Wayland desktop. If for example you use Gnome as your desktop all you get is blank screens. Other combinations all fail in their own unique ways.
- woodrowbarlow 3y ago
  i'm in a similar boat -- i miss being able to tap the super key. i don't mind that the defaults are different, but i'm sad that (since it's considered a modifier key) KDE doesn't allow it to be bound on tap. this prevents me from replicating Gnome's behavior.
  - emilsedgh 3y ago
    You can do that. I'm not on KDE right now but basically there's 2 steps: 1. You can go to System Settings -> Keyboard and there, enable Super key to act as another button. 2. Set the shortcut to that another button.

MBCook 3y ago

Can you explain what’s so much better about Wayland support?

sho_hn 3y ago
There's a large amount of robustness improvements, particularly around multi-monitor and docking scenarios with dynamic and fractional DPI. We've also introduced technology to allow client apps to stay running should the compositor crash and restart. We've replaced some originally homebrew Wayland protocol extensions with newer extensions maintained by the wider Wayland community. For example, our own panels now use the layer-shell protocol. This improves interoperability, e.g. enabling third-party panels. We've added initial support for HDR and color management, in particular for games with HDR rendering (we've been learning a lot about the gaming community and their needs from the Steam Deck). More complete porting of many little quality-of-life workspace and toolkit features and refinements when running in Wayland. Performance work. Screen sharing got a revamp, now supporting RDP and the latest portal dialogs when invoked by apps and so on. Various other compositor-y bits, e.g. support for the Presentation Time frame scheduling extension, which helps video players and game engines. Some of these got done in Plasma and KDE software itself, some in Qt 6, where we've been a major contributor to the QtWayland module. Some required contributions to the Wayland protocol stack itself, e.g. the modern focus handover protocol.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Thank you(plural) for all your efforts. Donated as well. I feel like this iteration of KDE will finally convince me to move to linux permanently.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    Thanks for the donation, it really helps :-)
- Zambyte 3y ago
  Super excited to play around with this on my Steam Deck! Wayland support was actually one of the main reasons I left KDE on my primary machine, eventually in favor of Sway. Really glad to see so much progress has been made on that front :)
- MBCook 3y ago
  Wow. That’s quite a lot. Thanks.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  HDR support is huge and is the last thing preventing me from ditching Windows on my gaming PC.
- __loam 3y ago
  I'm not sure if it has anything to do with KDE itself or if it's Kubuntu's fault but one small annoyance I've dealt with is how my wacom drawing tablet is mapped to the screen space. I've had to manually map it so that the tablet touch space isn't spread across three monitors and I've also had this setting get reset. I'm really excited to see more support for multiple monitors coming down the pipe. Do you know anything about the tablet issue or is this something I just need to do some more research on?
  - pjerem 3y ago
    Actually you can configure all of this with xsetwacom. I don’t remember the exact commands and it’s mildly tricky but after that you get a configuration file that shouldn’t move (or that you can backup).
indymike 3y ago
Faster, better support for multiple screens with different geometry, safer, and ultimately maintained. Also, at this point, it works really well, and honestly is not a drag on the user. I moved to Wayland last December and have really enjoyed it. I'm using the KDE Neon distribution, and it's really really really nice.
graphe 3y ago
It's safer as every program is isolated but it crashes more often because programs are isolated and expect not to be isolated. I often switch back to x11 whenever I try it I think nice it's fast and has bells and whistles but there basics aren't there. It took x11 a LONG time to be usable so I expect the same with Wayland.

troyvit 3y ago

> I'm loving Plasma 6 so far. Wayland support is much better! I'm jealous. I lasted about half an hour on Wayland, but several apps I use still don't work. xtrlock (anti-cat measures) and freetube both wouldn't work, but worse was that games like Dying Light crash almost immediately. On KDE 6 / X11 it's a little better but the game still craters after an hour. Still figuring out why. Maybe it's because the laptop is an AMD ecosystem.

tamimio 3y ago
> freetube I have it and works fine on plasma6/wayland.
- troyvit 3y ago
  This must just be me then. I'll give it another shot!
bogwog 3y ago
> freetube I don't know about the other apps/games, but I use freetube all the time on my KDE5/Nvidia/Wayland system and have never had an issue with it. Which distro/gpu/driver version are you on?
- troyvit 3y ago
  You're right! I tried it again and all was well.
gtirloni 3y ago
I'd imagine XWayland Xorg emulation is far from perfect so I wouldn't be surprised if games that depend on that would crash. That being said, I recently switched to Wayland again after a hiatus and it seems support keeps improving. I'm not using proprietary NVIDIA drivers currently so that might be it.
- bitwize 3y ago
  The thing that you have to remember about Xwayland is that it is Xorg. It just has a Wayland DDX[0] on the back end rather than a device-specific DDX or one that talks e.g., directly to the modesetting driver. [0] Device-Dependent X, i.e., the bits of X that talk directly to the display. Contrasted with Device-Independent X (DIX), i.e., the bits that do state tracking and protocol communication with clients.

rstuart4133 3y ago

I'm using KDE on Debian / Wayland because I was forced to [0]. I moved to it from from Gnome, which I was forced to use for similar reasons. I can't believe it, but I badly miss the "Super" (Windows logo) button on KDE not behaving the same was as Gnome. On KDE Ctrl-F9 does the same thing, but after using Gnome that function became "the" way I flipped between hidden Windows. The "Super" button is right place for it, Ctrl-F9 is far too fiddly. The task bar I was brought up in in my Windows / Mac days is just hopeless for task switching in comparison. The rest of KDE (particularly it's configurability) is better than Gnome, of course. Except for bugs. KDE has so many UI glitches and bugs compared to Gnome. It drives me nuts. I might give Plasma 6 a go, but if the bug situation hasn't improved I will be moving onto something else. These bugs have nothing to do with Wayland per se. [0] I have a Thinkpad X1 extreme gen 2. A beautiful laptop on paper also in person because it's 4K OLED screen, but I'd never have another one. Charging from the USB-C connector is a lottery - but can be made to work with enough reinsertions. The 4K screen is scratched by the keyboard because the keys touch when closed. On the gen 2 they pushed the external video path through the Nvidia card. You can get an external monitor to work if you hold your head just the right way. With Debian 11 the right was to run Wayland, and only Gnome supported it well. With Debian 12, the right way is to boot using Gnomes display manager (gdm3) with Wayland, wait until the monitor sync's, then login using your KDE Wayland desktop. If for example you use Gnome as your desktop all you get is blank screens. Other combinations all fail in their own unique ways.

woodrowbarlow 3y ago
i'm in a similar boat -- i miss being able to tap the super key. i don't mind that the defaults are different, but i'm sad that (since it's considered a modifier key) KDE doesn't allow it to be bound on tap. this prevents me from replicating Gnome's behavior.
- emilsedgh 3y ago
  You can do that. I'm not on KDE right now but basically there's 2 steps: 1. You can go to System Settings -> Keyboard and there, enable Super key to act as another button. 2. Set the shortcut to that another button.