I continue to be truly amazed by all the work going into KDE Plasma. Not only is it my desktop environment of choice on Linux, it's Valve's too as it powered the desktop mode on Steam Deck. It's about to get some juicy upgrades too.
Writing in a blog post developer Nate Graham gives an overview of some big improvements coming along to a future version of the Plasma desktop.
The first is you'll finally see fractional scaling on Wayland which was merged in and it should result in scaling having "better performance, less visual blurriness, and lower power usage". Sounds like all of it might not be ready until Plasma 6.0 though due after Plasma 5.27 that releases in February 2023 but it might get backported so we're not waiting so long.
Another issue is the mess that is using multiple screens. They've finally fixed the root cause of the problems with a whole new system of identifying screens that should result in better stability and reliability. Some pretty notorious bugs like desktops randomly losing wallpapers, widgets and various other settings. It won't be perfect but it's not "broken by design" like the old system seemingly was.
There's various other bug fixes, UI updates and more.
One more exciting one I wanted to point out is their new Steam Deck OS (SteamOS) update system. Discover, the software store, now has a backend system to handle SteamOS updates so in future you'll be able to update a Steam Deck from within desktop mode. That sounds mighty useful.
Aside from Xorg randomly crashing (driver crash) under xorg, it's been working perfectly under wayland for a while.
How odd, either that or it's a nvidia thing (I use ATI)
In any case, it's great to see KDE improving! I avoided them for many years while I used XFCE after Gnome 3 hit because KDE 4 was well.. it was KDE4. And Gnome 3.. well we all know what that is.
Early KDE5 wasn't much better.
But now the current KDE is leaps and bounds ahead of what it once was and I use it daily!
Last edited by jrepin on 19 December 2022 at 1:14 pm UTC
Quoting: starfarerKDE on Wayland is absolutely unusable for me since my external monitor has really low FPS, below 20. This is also a known bug and it's not looking like it will be fixed soon, which is a shame. :(
One commenter has mentioned that disabling the discreet GPU in your bios may resolve the issue, any luck with that? It's worth a try :)
(I know it's a workaround rather than fixing the issue, but for immediate affect it may be useful)
Additionally, have you tried with this merge request? https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3254
It may (or may not) help :)
Quoting: BlackBloodRumI'm curious who had the multi-monitor issues?Not me, since I don't use multiple monitors. But a lot of the issues aren't from having a static multi-monitor setup like yours, but from frequently chopping and changing the monitor layout - for example, using a laptop that you sometimes plug into different monitors.
Quoting: BlackBloodRumQuoting: starfarerKDE on Wayland is absolutely unusable for me since my external monitor has really low FPS, below 20. This is also a known bug and it's not looking like it will be fixed soon, which is a shame. :(
One commenter has mentioned that disabling the discreet GPU in your bios may resolve the issue, any luck with that? It's worth a try :)
(I know it's a workaround rather than fixing the issue, but for immediate affect it may be useful)
Additionally, have you tried with this merge request? https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3254
It may (or may not) help :)
Well disabling the GPU is not an option since I am actively using it, that's why I am still on X11 (although it has many other issues).
I've only now seen the merge request but it looks like it failed.
As a rule a thumb every 3 KDE updates I must delete the settings to be able to login back after a reboot without a black background and no launcher.
System monitor has lost access to GPU sensors and is way less neat and compact than KSysGuard. It often feels like nothing is tested and tools are replaced without the equivalent features.
So in fine I use KDE because I can't stand Gnome but that's it…
Quoting: starfarerWell disabling the GPU is not an option since I am actively using it, that's why I am still on X11 (although it has many other issues).Oh!
I've only now seen the merge request but it looks like it failed.
Well hopefully the issue gets resolved, it at least looks like some people are trying to make progress on it
Quoting: BogomipsIf I turn off a monitor (to watch a movie for example) and the PC goes to sleep all the windows and icons from the extended screen are back to the main screen when waking up. (If you lock the icons there is no difference.)Your monitor may have an option to switch "power button action" - usually between standby and off, if it's set to "OFF" the computer is able to detect this action.
If set to standby, your computer should be oblivious to this action.
Thus, you may be able to set it to "Standby", avoiding this issue - Though it highly depends on the monitor and many don't offer the option to switch it off.
As for the sleeping when monitor off, that may be a power setting - check your power settings.
(This is a very simplified explanation)
One of these days I might check it out again . . . hard to say, I like Mint a lot and it doesn't really do KDE. Maybe if another "no, really, desktop oriented and just frigging works" distro comes along that does use KDE I'll give it a shot.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 19 December 2022 at 7:55 pm UTC
Quoting: BlackBloodRumQuoting: starfarerWell disabling the GPU is not an option since I am actively using it, that's why I am still on X11 (although it has many other issues).Oh!
I've only now seen the merge request but it looks like it failed.
Well hopefully the issue gets resolved, it at least looks like some people are trying to make progress on it
Quoting: BogomipsIf I turn off a monitor (to watch a movie for example) and the PC goes to sleep all the windows and icons from the extended screen are back to the main screen when waking up. (If you lock the icons there is no difference.)Your monitor may have an option to switch "power button action" - usually between standby and off, if it's set to "OFF" the computer is able to detect this action.
If set to standby, your computer should be oblivious to this action.
Thus, you may be able to set it to "Standby", avoiding this issue - Though it highly depends on the monitor and many don't offer the option to switch it off.
As for the sleeping when monitor off, that may be a power setting - check your power settings.
(This is a very simplified explanation)
interesting! I need to investigate thx.
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