KDE Plasma gets fingerprint reader support, plus preliminary support for NVIDIA GBM

Quoting: ShmerlLooks like you had a typo.

Fixed, thank you Shmerl

Quoting: HolzkohlenSome browsers meaning almost pretty much all of them, or at least all chromium-based ones (which is a lot).
If you use fractional scaling chromium-based browsers become super blurry. You can set some options via terminal to use ozone to get around that, but then you get other issues. But hey, at least HiDPI support is slightly better on wayland

Firefox and Eletron-based programs too. The fact devs still didn't prepare the software to detect if a Wayland session is in use for dynamically change this is one of the factors that I think why Wayland session needs to become the default session in the main popular distros (using GNOME/KDE).

Quoting: BielFPsFor those people thinking about using the wayland session on kde, you can use the command qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.showDebugConsole 
to check which programs are running using wayland and which are using x11 (xwayland)

At least on wlroots compositor, but probably also on others, you can also use `xeyes`: it shouldn't follow your mouse over non-X windows.

Wouldn't the work on fingerprint support also be crucial to Plasma Mobile, as well as for laptops and (presumably) Valve's SteamDeck?

I feel like Plasma has made massive gains in the last 2 years. Not perfect, of coourse, but sure evolving faster than most other DE's seem to be. I also find it funny that all the big Linux players poo-poo KDE Plasma and default to some (usually highly-customized) version of Gnome + extensions, even though Plasma usually wins most all "most popular DE" polls, and - according to Phoronix - uses less RAM. Truly one of life's big mysteries.

Quoting: MayeulCAt least on wlroots compositor, but probably also on others, you can also use `xeyes`: it shouldn't follow your mouse over non-X windows.

I'm personally not a fan of this "method" (there's a word for that in my native language that I don't know how to express in english ) but it works on both ways for kde.

The main point here is to make sure people are aware if the application is actually running through Wayland, since a lot of people have some xwayland bugs but they think the application is using wayland ootb.

Finally discovered a website that "puts the fun into Linux". This site allows reader participation much more than other websites.
On this one item, it was surprising to see a comment recommending Pop OS, which is based on Gnome, rather than KDE. However, it was shown by other comments here that most Debian based Linux systems can be converted to KDE.
Another surprise for me was the non mention of the KDE specialist, KDE NEON, rather than Kubuntu. The user of fingerprint readers, or high DPI screens being common the new KDE settings? The flakiness of all these improvements & changes, to whatever is hoped, or claimed? These comments are normal & expected. It should also be mentioned in any worthwhile press release, in my professional opinion.

These improvements are welcome. KDE, Wayland, high DPI, fingerprint reader, Debian preferred, conversion to KDE for non-KDE systems, Nvidia hostility to Linux, etc.

The overall problem within Linux is the lack of these changes being done at the Linux kernel. Eventually these downstream experiences might be moved upstream, into the Linux kernel.

These downstream innovations are temporary & very limited. They were unpredictable & flaky. Similar to the releases of the latest Linux kernel, updated every week or so, with big fixes & improvements.

Both Microsoft & Linux currently rely on massive downstream development. Linux is a small newcomer to the gaming world, but it shows promise, theoretically, with rational & logical design, with its Linux kernel & system structures. This website shows the way to injecting greater usability into Linux, which is only used on a few percent of desktops, at this moment. Hopefully, with excellent website, this will change.

Quoting: GregZengFinally discovered a website that "puts the fun into Linux". This site allows reader participation much more than other websites.
On this one item, it was surprising to see a comment recommending Pop OS, which is based on Gnome, rather than KDE. However, it was shown by other comments here that most Debian based Linux systems can be converted to KDE.
Another surprise for me was the non mention of the KDE specialist, KDE NEON, rather than Kubuntu. The user of fingerprint readers, or high DPI screens being common the new KDE settings? The flakiness of all these improvements & changes, to whatever is hoped, or claimed? These comments are normal & expected. It should also be mentioned in any worthwhile press release, in my professional opinion.

These improvements are welcome. KDE, Wayland, high DPI, fingerprint reader, Debian preferred, conversion to KDE for non-KDE systems, Nvidia hostility to Linux, etc.

The overall problem within Linux is the lack of these changes being done at the Linux kernel. Eventually these downstream experiences might be moved upstream, into the Linux kernel.

These downstream innovations are temporary & very limited. They were unpredictable & flaky. Similar to the releases of the latest Linux kernel, updated every week or so, with big fixes & improvements.

Both Microsoft & Linux currently rely on massive downstream development. Linux is a small newcomer to the gaming world, but it shows promise, theoretically, with rational & logical design, with its Linux kernel & system structures. This website shows the way to injecting greater usability into Linux, which is only used on a few percent of desktops, at this moment. Hopefully, with excellent website, this will change.

There is a fine line between what should be in the kernel and what should not. Nothing to do with DEs etc should be in the kernel. Your 'kernel' for the DEs is really Wayland and X.org. Sure there are some things that are kernel side, like the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager, not Digital Rights Management). This helps with the hardware acceleration.

There are some scheduler changes you can do to make the kernel support more desktop-like management of tasks and such, though I rarely play at that deep of a level, as my Debian desktop (I prefer Gnome) is very zippy.

It's interesting to watch someone like Linus of LTT try to switch to Linux, and some complaints of window dragging being slow, something I've only really seen on KDE without hardware acceleration, or potentially the right setting. Which brings me to my opinion on the current 'failure' of the Linux Desktop...

This is that Gnome needs a bit more customization, and KDE needs less. There should be some sort of happy middle. KDE Plasma needs a serious clean up of it's settings dialogs. Or as has been suggested in the past, have a Basic / Advanced toggle to hide a ton of the rarer custom choices.

Gnome has seemed from the ground up like they've had some form of consistent 'dream' of where they want to go with the design of it. KDE in many cases feels like the contributors would randomly say "I want to be able to do this" and coded it in without others discussing if it really should have that option. Then over the years (decades) they've shifted and moved and cleaned stuff up, but there is still tons of cruft to go through.

Problem is always, there will be some minority that'll just whine loudest when a feature is changed or removed, so it's almost like dancing on eggshells and trying to find a clean piece of floor to stop for a moment.

Quoting: GregZengThe overall problem within Linux is the lack of these changes being done at the Linux kernel. Eventually these downstream experiences might be moved upstream, into the Linux kernel.

These downstream innovations are temporary & very limited. They were unpredictable & flaky. Similar to the releases of the latest Linux kernel, updated every week or so, with big fixes & improvements.

Both Microsoft & Linux currently rely on massive downstream development. Linux is a small newcomer to the gaming world, but it shows promise, theoretically, with rational & logical design, with its Linux kernel & system structures. This website shows the way to injecting greater usability into Linux, which is only used on a few percent of desktops, at this moment. Hopefully, with excellent website, this will change.

Looks like you confuse "downstream" (which is generally used by vendor forks of the Linux kernel and other projects, as opposed to upstream) with userspace.

Not everything belongs in the kernel. You don't want to risk its stability. ABI guarantees mean you can't prototype or drop support for something you introduced.

And yes, Linux isn't very interesting without a userspace. That's why some refer to GNU/Linux.

Quoting: MohandevirJust installed Kubuntu 20.04 this weekend... I was using Pop_OS! for the last year and half, or so.

I've been pleasantly surprised with KDE... Gnome required me to uncheck "Allow flipping", in the Nvidia control panel, to prevent screen flickering while streaming from my Nvidia GPU rig to my Nvidia Shield. I also had to disable the HDMI audio output to prevent audio degradation (it usually happened after 15 to 20 mins of playtime). All of those issues also affected KDE, before I decided to settle with Pop_OS! (tested it back then).

This time, I didn't had to do any of those tweaks on KDE. No flickering, no audio degradation after a 1 hour run, friday evening and a 2 hour run, yesterday.

Nice progression by the KDE team! Crossing my fingers that it keeps on going this way!

Valve's implication in Kwin support at work here?

Edit: It brings me back full circle... It all started with Kubuntu 7.10, for me.

You went from one distro to another, with different different software 20.04 uses ancient software maybe it worked better back then.

Quoting: scirocco

Quoting: MohandevirJust installed Kubuntu 20.04 this weekend... I was using Pop_OS! for the last year and half, or so.

I've been pleasantly surprised with KDE... Gnome required me to uncheck "Allow flipping", in the Nvidia control panel, to prevent screen flickering while streaming from my Nvidia GPU rig to my Nvidia Shield. I also had to disable the HDMI audio output to prevent audio degradation (it usually happened after 15 to 20 mins of playtime). All of those issues also affected KDE, before I decided to settle with Pop_OS! (tested it back then).

This time, I didn't had to do any of those tweaks on KDE. No flickering, no audio degradation after a 1 hour run, friday evening and a 2 hour run, yesterday.

Nice progression by the KDE team! Crossing my fingers that it keeps on going this way!

Valve's implication in Kwin support at work here?

Edit: It brings me back full circle... It all started with Kubuntu 7.10, for me.

You went from one distro to another, with different different software 20.04 uses ancient software maybe it worked better back then.

Back then was when I settled with Pop_OS! 20.04. Kubuntu 20.04 had similar issues. Kubuntu 20.04.3 does not. That's the nice evolution I'm talking about and both are Ubuntu based.

Quoting: BielFPsFirefox and Eletron-based programs too. The fact devs still didn't prepare the software to detect if a Wayland session is in use for dynamically change this is one of the factors that I think why Wayland session needs to become the default session in the main popular distros (using GNOME/KDE).

Well Firefox was fine for me out of the box with Manjaro. I did install EndevourOS now and it really is blurry. For Firefox (and Thunderbird as well) there is an easy fix though: just put MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 in a file caleld .pam_environment in your home directory and restart firefox.
I agree though, the applications should really set that automatically. Can't be hard to implement either.