6 ms·

KDE Plasma 6.8 Set to Drop X11 Support Completely

33 points by doener 11mo ago

globnomulous 11mo ago
Good bye, accessibility.
- antiloper 11mo ago
  Why?
- breve 11mo ago
  KDE's been putting a lot of work into accessibility on Wayland. What accessibility features will you be missing in KDE Plasma 6.8?
- tmtvl 11mo ago
  They're working on it: <https://www.kdab.com/enhancing-accessibility-and-creative-tools-in-kde-plasma-wayland/ https://www.kdab.com/enhancing-accessibility-and-creative-to...> Also 6.8 is at least 2 years out, so there's still time to work the remaining issues out. As far as I know only speech input remains a major problem, so hopefully they'll figure that out.
  - Ferret7446 11mo ago
    It'd be nice if they could finish it before "forcing" it on everyone. > Also 6.8 is at least 2 years out It's been decades since Wayland was "ready". But surely two more years...
    - tmtvl 11mo ago
      I'm sure the good people at KDE wouldn't mind delaying 6.8 if more work is needed for something as important as accessibility. And let's be real: if you don't need voice input then KDE on Wayland is ready.
    - Balinares 11mo ago
      No one is "forcing" anything on you, and I'm finding this argument increasingly disingenuous. If you prefer the current versions then you're entirely free to keep them. But you do not get to demand that future versions are only ever implemented your way. If that's what you want, fork the project or pay someone to do it for you. Acting entitled about the work of volunteers who are sharing it with you for free is not a good look.
    - StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
      > It's been decades since Wayland was "ready". Decades? Really? Wayland very first release was 17 years ago in 2008 and QT didn't support it until 2015. xdg-desktop-portal first stable release was in 2018 and PipeWire in 2023. I thought we had peaked with systemd when it came to FUD here but Wayland might give it a run for its money.
    - vrighter 11mo ago
      Wayland isn't decadeS (plural) old. So it can't have been ready that long. And it still isn't. It's a design-by-committee type of thing.
    - jonathaneunice 11mo ago
      Wayland is the IPv6 of the windowed display world. The bright, complete, unfettered future always just a few more versions and a few more years over the horizon.
mikkupikku 11mo ago
Toodles. It's been nice using kwin as my window manager, but if plasma support for X11 is going then I expect kwin won't be long behind. Whatever, I'm still not using Wayland.
- breve 11mo ago
  > I'm still not using Wayland. Why?
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 11mo ago
    Not GP but... Last time I started a wayland plasma session it kept resetting my screen brightness to 100% every time they woke from sleep. The time before that I crashed the entire desktop, dropping me back to the terminal, when I tried to drag a hyperlink between windows. Those might have been fixed and I might try wayland again next time I update and reboot. I don't care about its supposed advantages.
    - elcritch 11mo ago
      Similar for me. Wayland ran super fast which was great. But konqueror refused to open. Then crashed when I opened discord. No thanks.
      - coldtea 11mo ago
        Fortunately XWindows never ever caused problems or crashes for anybody ever /s
        exe34 11mo ago
        It used to, yes, but once they stopped fixing it, it stopped crashing! I've not had a x11 crash in 12 years.
        GaryBluto 11mo ago
        If I had to choose between something that does what I want it to and crashes occasionally and something that doesn't do what I want it to and crashes frequently, what do you think I'd choose? Wayland reminds me very much of the Disk Utility application that shipped with Mac OS X El Capitan. The developers rewrote it because the original person who wrote it wasn't at Apple anymore and it ended up being pretty much useless due to massive amount of missing features.
CapricornNoble 11mo ago
sigh I like KDE but I'm still running X11 on Void Linux, partly because I just don't feel like trying to switch over to Wayland and reconfigure my two systems.
perihelions 11mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058531 ("KDE Plasma 6.8 Will Go Wayland-Exclusive in Dropping X11 Session Support (phoronix.com)"—237 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085593 ("KDE going all-in on a Wayland future (kde.org)"—46 comments)
vrighter 11mo ago
"While we can’t promise all problems will be completely gone" They could promise to drop support for it once the wayland one reaches feature parity. If any "significant issues" remain, then it's simply not ready for release. I hate this modern trend of releasing stuff before it is done. And in the commercial space we are now moving on to releasing stuff before they even get started on development. Selling promises. "Buy our shit now and we promise that next year it will be able to do X!"
- Thev00d00 11mo ago
  Remember this not a billion dollar company we are talking about here, this is volunteer OSS project. If no one wants to maintain the X11 support then that's up to them.
  - headsman771 11mo ago
    Its more the case that certain people decide X11 will no longer be supported and block anyone from trying to support it in "their" project.
unethical_ban 11mo ago
I don't hack my window manager, I use the GUI out of the box. I have never had a major issue with Wayland.
- SAI_Peregrinus 11mo ago
  Same. It's had far fewer issues for me than X, even on Nvidia with my current laptop. Multiple monitors with different resolutions & thus different fractional scaling ratios just works, from the Plasma settings GUI. No need to edit any configs manually. That never worked out-of-the-box for me with X.
gpm 11mo ago
I think this is the right decision by KDE. Narrowing the scope of work is basically always a good thing for a project. KDE should either switch to wayland, or stay on X11, and not try to do both. And they've clearly decided awhile ago that they consider wayland a requirement. I say that despite the fact that I think wayland was a poorly conceived, designed, implemented, and marketed project that has set back the adoption of the linux desktop by years.
potato-peeler 11mo ago
I am curious - there are many x11 only apps, will they stop working OOTB?
- SAI_Peregrinus 11mo ago
  No, XWayland isn't going away. Just X.org for running them.
  - potato-peeler 11mo ago
    > Just X.org for running them What does that mean?
    - Based-A 11mo ago
      X11 applications will still "work" on Plasma Wayland session by utilizing XWayland, a tool that (afaik) runs a compact X11 session for each application. What is being removed is running an X11-native Plasma session, only Wayland Plasma sessions will be available starting with Plasma 6.8.
vkaku 11mo ago
I like 6.6 and I would mind dropping X11 support this quickly, this ideally should be in KDE 7.0/8.0 because, as I understand it, many apps and drivers are not ready for Wayland/XWayland. Give it one more release then drop it?
khaelenmore 11mo ago
Are there any reasonable on screen keyboards for wayland already? Something on par with onboard i.e. all keys available. Without that wayland is no go for at least half of my active linux devices.

33 points by doener 11mo ago

globnomulous 11mo ago

Good bye, accessibility.

antiloper 11mo ago
Why?
breve 11mo ago
KDE's been putting a lot of work into accessibility on Wayland. What accessibility features will you be missing in KDE Plasma 6.8?
tmtvl 11mo ago
They're working on it: <https://www.kdab.com/enhancing-accessibility-and-creative-tools-in-kde-plasma-wayland/ https://www.kdab.com/enhancing-accessibility-and-creative-to...> Also 6.8 is at least 2 years out, so there's still time to work the remaining issues out. As far as I know only speech input remains a major problem, so hopefully they'll figure that out.
- Ferret7446 11mo ago
  It'd be nice if they could finish it before "forcing" it on everyone. > Also 6.8 is at least 2 years out It's been decades since Wayland was "ready". But surely two more years...
  - tmtvl 11mo ago
    I'm sure the good people at KDE wouldn't mind delaying 6.8 if more work is needed for something as important as accessibility. And let's be real: if you don't need voice input then KDE on Wayland is ready.
  - Balinares 11mo ago
    No one is "forcing" anything on you, and I'm finding this argument increasingly disingenuous. If you prefer the current versions then you're entirely free to keep them. But you do not get to demand that future versions are only ever implemented your way. If that's what you want, fork the project or pay someone to do it for you. Acting entitled about the work of volunteers who are sharing it with you for free is not a good look.
  - StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
    > It's been decades since Wayland was "ready". Decades? Really? Wayland very first release was 17 years ago in 2008 and QT didn't support it until 2015. xdg-desktop-portal first stable release was in 2018 and PipeWire in 2023. I thought we had peaked with systemd when it came to FUD here but Wayland might give it a run for its money.
  - vrighter 11mo ago
    Wayland isn't decadeS (plural) old. So it can't have been ready that long. And it still isn't. It's a design-by-committee type of thing.
  - jonathaneunice 11mo ago
    Wayland is the IPv6 of the windowed display world. The bright, complete, unfettered future always just a few more versions and a few more years over the horizon.

mikkupikku 11mo ago

Toodles. It's been nice using kwin as my window manager, but if plasma support for X11 is going then I expect kwin won't be long behind. Whatever, I'm still not using Wayland.

breve 11mo ago
> I'm still not using Wayland. Why?
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 11mo ago
  Not GP but... Last time I started a wayland plasma session it kept resetting my screen brightness to 100% every time they woke from sleep. The time before that I crashed the entire desktop, dropping me back to the terminal, when I tried to drag a hyperlink between windows. Those might have been fixed and I might try wayland again next time I update and reboot. I don't care about its supposed advantages.
  - elcritch 11mo ago
    Similar for me. Wayland ran super fast which was great. But konqueror refused to open. Then crashed when I opened discord. No thanks.
    - coldtea 11mo ago
      Fortunately XWindows never ever caused problems or crashes for anybody ever /s
      - exe34 11mo ago
        It used to, yes, but once they stopped fixing it, it stopped crashing! I've not had a x11 crash in 12 years.
      - GaryBluto 11mo ago
        If I had to choose between something that does what I want it to and crashes occasionally and something that doesn't do what I want it to and crashes frequently, what do you think I'd choose? Wayland reminds me very much of the Disk Utility application that shipped with Mac OS X El Capitan. The developers rewrote it because the original person who wrote it wasn't at Apple anymore and it ended up being pretty much useless due to massive amount of missing features.

CapricornNoble 11mo ago

sigh I like KDE but I'm still running X11 on Void Linux, partly because I just don't feel like trying to switch over to Wayland and reconfigure my two systems.

perihelions 11mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058531 ("KDE Plasma 6.8 Will Go Wayland-Exclusive in Dropping X11 Session Support (phoronix.com)"—237 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085593 ("KDE going all-in on a Wayland future (kde.org)"—46 comments)

vrighter 11mo ago

"While we can’t promise all problems will be completely gone" They could promise to drop support for it once the wayland one reaches feature parity. If any "significant issues" remain, then it's simply not ready for release. I hate this modern trend of releasing stuff before it is done. And in the commercial space we are now moving on to releasing stuff before they even get started on development. Selling promises. "Buy our shit now and we promise that next year it will be able to do X!"

Thev00d00 11mo ago
Remember this not a billion dollar company we are talking about here, this is volunteer OSS project. If no one wants to maintain the X11 support then that's up to them.
- headsman771 11mo ago
  Its more the case that certain people decide X11 will no longer be supported and block anyone from trying to support it in "their" project.

unethical_ban 11mo ago

I don't hack my window manager, I use the GUI out of the box. I have never had a major issue with Wayland.

SAI_Peregrinus 11mo ago
Same. It's had far fewer issues for me than X, even on Nvidia with my current laptop. Multiple monitors with different resolutions & thus different fractional scaling ratios just works, from the Plasma settings GUI. No need to edit any configs manually. That never worked out-of-the-box for me with X.

gpm 11mo ago

I think this is the right decision by KDE. Narrowing the scope of work is basically always a good thing for a project. KDE should either switch to wayland, or stay on X11, and not try to do both. And they've clearly decided awhile ago that they consider wayland a requirement. I say that despite the fact that I think wayland was a poorly conceived, designed, implemented, and marketed project that has set back the adoption of the linux desktop by years.

potato-peeler 11mo ago

I am curious - there are many x11 only apps, will they stop working OOTB?

SAI_Peregrinus 11mo ago
No, XWayland isn't going away. Just X.org for running them.
- potato-peeler 11mo ago
  > Just X.org for running them What does that mean?
  - Based-A 11mo ago
    X11 applications will still "work" on Plasma Wayland session by utilizing XWayland, a tool that (afaik) runs a compact X11 session for each application. What is being removed is running an X11-native Plasma session, only Wayland Plasma sessions will be available starting with Plasma 6.8.

vkaku 11mo ago

I like 6.6 and I would mind dropping X11 support this quickly, this ideally should be in KDE 7.0/8.0 because, as I understand it, many apps and drivers are not ready for Wayland/XWayland. Give it one more release then drop it?

khaelenmore 11mo ago

Are there any reasonable on screen keyboards for wayland already? Something on par with onboard i.e. all keys available. Without that wayland is no go for at least half of my active linux devices.