A KDE developer who regularly blogs about all the work going into the KDE ecosystem through the likes of the Plasma desktop environment and the various applications, has given an overview of what they expect to see through 2021.
Sounds like there's plenty of exciting work coming up for KDE and Plasma this year! Nate Graham mentions in the latest post that amongst other things, they might finally have a "Production-ready Plasma Wayland session". A lot of work went into this through 2020 and before that Graham mentioned that it "felt like a mess" but a whole year of progress changed that. Through 2021 we can expect to see a "trend of serious, concentrated Wayland work to continue in 2021" and to be in a better shape for more people to use.
Quite a long time coming, as it's been said that Wayland would replace X11 for years now and having KDE in top shape with it will certainly help push it forwards even more.
Something else exciting coming up is a replacement for the 'Kickoff' application launcher (Windows users would know it as a 'Start menu'). There's a merge request open, which they expect to be available in the Plasma 5.21 release for the new design and it's looking really quite slick:
On top of all that they're looking to get fingerprint support ready throughout the entire tech stack including everywhere you would need it from the login screen and the lock screen to their KAuth authorization library.
KDE does always look impressive, with tons of options for customization and hopefully 2021 shall be a big year for it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
Last time I tried it, the only things that prevented me using it on a daily basis was 1) it was missing primary selection support, and 2) some windows (i.e. pop-ups) had window decorations when they shouldn't. If these are fixed, then I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
0 Likes
I'm not a fan of KDE, but it's really nice to see the main DEs finally giving priority to Wayland, I hope others can also start to default to Wayland too, so it can improve faster.
For the gaming side, I saw a lot of improvement once I started to use Wayland (only downside for me is having to use gnome, but Manjaro team did a good job with customization)
For the gaming side, I saw a lot of improvement once I started to use Wayland (only downside for me is having to use gnome, but Manjaro team did a good job with customization)
3 Likes, Who?
I'm waiting for adaptive sync support in Kwin on Wayland. That's a big gaming feature that's missing now.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 3:34 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 3:34 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
There's also the KWinFT project to try. Release Notes for the latest release are interesting because they explain well the differences with actual KWin.
Last edited by ziabice on 4 January 2021 at 5:11 pm UTC
Last edited by ziabice on 4 January 2021 at 5:11 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
no_information_here Jan 4, 2021
Looking forward to trying it out. In the meantime, KDE/Plasma on X still runs perfectly for me so I am not in a rush.
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I remember a short while ago looking into Wayland, wasn't Nvidia hindering Wayland adoption because of a few things they don't support in their drivers or things they did wrong ? Can't quite exactly remember what was it about (VA API or VDPAU ?)
Or is this completely irrelevant and speaking nonsense ?
Or is this completely irrelevant and speaking nonsense ?
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my biggest gripe with Wayland and Plasma is Kmail not working on the box that you read messages there's a transparent box... useless.
It's working now for me with latest Plasma, I tested it very recently.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 8:59 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
I remember a short while ago looking into Wayland, wasn't Nvidia hindering Wayland adoption because of a few things they don't support in their drivers or things they did wrong ? Can't quite exactly remember what was it about (VA API or VDPAU ?)
Or is this completely irrelevant and speaking nonsense ?
I'd say if you want to use Wayland which is the direction of the modern Linux desktop, ditching Nvidia should be the first step.
4 Likes, Who?
I remember a short while ago looking into Wayland, wasn't Nvidia hindering Wayland adoption because of a few things they don't support in their drivers or things they did wrong ? Can't quite exactly remember what was it about (VA API or VDPAU ?)
Or is this completely irrelevant and speaking nonsense ?
You're probably thinking of EGLStreams: https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to-eglstream-or-not/
However, EGLStreams support was added to Plasma already: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=EGLStreams-Merged-KWin-5.16 so it should JustWork for nVidia driver users.
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Nvidia problems are far from limited to EGLsreams. For example they can't use dma-buf.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 9:57 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 9:57 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
I'm still not sure what the point is for an end user to switch to Wayland. People are listing missing features and bugs that need to be added before they can use Wayland, and I agree with all that but fixing them is not enough. X basically does everything I need and Wayland doesn't seem to bring anything to the table from a users point of view.
I don't have an issue with tearing, performance, or usability in and X and it feels like we are all switching just because developers don't like working on the old code base. Does anyone actually know what user problems Wayland will solve?
I don't have an issue with tearing, performance, or usability in and X and it feels like we are all switching just because developers don't like working on the old code base. Does anyone actually know what user problems Wayland will solve?
4 Likes, Who?
ElectricPrism Jan 4, 2021
The new Launcher is welcome, I've hated Kickoff for more than 10 years, and good alternatives haven't existed like they do in Gnome with Arc Menu for example.
I love the scope of KDE's features, but between every major version it seems like useful things are left behind for unknown periods of time (Look @you global menu)
And the features that do exist always feel like they haven't been fleshed out (Installing addons is done in a ackward menu with no screenshots except a tiny thumbnail, no user-feedback and multiple installation sources with poorly named files making it difficult to understand which one is the newest version)
That and now the whole Qt 6.0 / Qt 5.15 Drama, I am surprised KDE is entering a "stable" time when Qt's new commercial LTS plans are essentially creating a year or more of instability. Seems bizarre.
I love the scope of KDE's features, but between every major version it seems like useful things are left behind for unknown periods of time (Look @you global menu)
And the features that do exist always feel like they haven't been fleshed out (Installing addons is done in a ackward menu with no screenshots except a tiny thumbnail, no user-feedback and multiple installation sources with poorly named files making it difficult to understand which one is the newest version)
That and now the whole Qt 6.0 / Qt 5.15 Drama, I am surprised KDE is entering a "stable" time when Qt's new commercial LTS plans are essentially creating a year or more of instability. Seems bizarre.
0 Likes
I've been using application dashboard instead of application launcher menu for a long time (you can easily switch to it by right clicking on the menu button and clicking "Show alternatives". That new launcher looks similar.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 11:43 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 January 2021 at 11:43 pm UTC
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KDE is one of the major reasons I even use Linux. You can't find near the same level of features in any other UI on any platform.
1 Likes, Who?
Nvidia problems are far from limited to EGLsreams. For example they can't use dma-buf.
True, but looks like its on the way Shmerl.
0 Likes
True, but looks like its on the way Shmerl.
I don't think they can fix the situation with dma-buf as long as they refuse to cooperate with the Linux kernel and upstream their driver. Kernel developers already rejected such kind of "symbol poisoning" in the past.
And that's just one symptom that underlines the actual issue. Nvidia can fix things - let them upstream their driver or simply start supporting Nouveau which already exists in the kernel. But they don't want to, so I don't see the situation getting better any time soon.
Last edited by Shmerl on 5 January 2021 at 5:34 am UTC
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TheRiddick Jan 6, 2021
I tried it out and had odd issues with apps like Skype having displaced click zones for the trayicons, possibly other apps also were affected. The actual click zone ended up being over half my START/APPS icon which was annoying, lol.
Also the fractional scaling option causes blurring, you need to use specific values in Font DPI..
Also the fractional scaling option causes blurring, you need to use specific values in Font DPI..
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