Plasma 6 seems to be fixing a lot of the issues I currently have with Plasma - bugs, inconsistency, general jank. Looking forward to its release so I can give it another go
I’m pretty sure that most people won’t be able to tell the difference between 5 and 6.
Seems like minor changes to me.
I once did enjoy KDE but always hated the font, icons and everything in the UI is lines. Makes it hard to comprehend things quickly.
In the end I realised the Gnome-based UI is far better for legibility and comprehension. I’m on Linux Mint Debian Edition with Cinnamon and it’s great.
I’m very excited for what’s to come. Good to know things are going well with the testing and bugs don’t seem too bad.
As features I’d like to see, I guess we still can’t configure different language layouts for different connected keyboards at the same time? I really would like to be able to have my usb connected one with english and the native laptop keyboard with portuguese. It’s annoying that I have to constantly switch when needed globally the layouts. At least multiple connected mouses seem to work fine.
I wouldn’t say it breaks everything. Franky it fixes / handles better issues that are common usecases today that was not the case during the time X11 was still the norm / actively maintained such as:
Multiple monitor support with varied refresh rates
Hybrid GPU setup (including being able to use your motherboard’s hdmi socket and your dedicated gpu hdmi at the same time)
Display scaling
Better isolation of applications (to the deterrence of existing linux applications)
Of course granted its a new protocol, it doesn’t support all the usecases that X11 was designed for due to variety or reasons (including controversial decisions)
Mind you, Wayland isn’t perfect either. For example, I found out that despite Wayland having better Hybrid GPU setup support out of the box, there are applications that ended up having broken multi-gpu support (where the application in question can choose which gpu it would utilize for its processing) where it works fine X11.
With the state of the hardware we are having, it is understandable why distros have been focused on pushing Wayland as the default, although honestly, it would be wise for these distros to not completely phase out x11 because currently, Wayland isn’t perfect.
I have been using wayland on kde the last two years on Debian and MX Linux with zero issues. My general usa includes coding, music production, Libre office and web browsing. So, no much gaming, if that is your concern.
Plasma 6 is currently in beta, so it really isn’t meant to be used for anything other than testing. I have it installed on arch, and honestly it’s good enough for my use with wayland, but you will definitely will run into issues. I also use Nvidia, though, so I’d probably have more issues than you will.
Overall, I only recommend it right now if you can roll back or if it isn’t that big of a deal if your install breaks.
I’ve been using Wayland daily for a few years (2020 at least?) on intel and AMD graphics and have had few complaints:
Some games didn’t work right a few years ago. (Under Proton or otherwise. Haven’t had issues for a while)
RenderDoc, a vital bit of graphics debugging software, works poorly on Wayland. (Easy fix is to force X11 for QT via QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb)
Had some issues with mixed integrated/NVidia graphics on a laptop I was using for a demo once.
Covering or otherwise hiding a Wayland window blocks a program’s graphics thread. This is sometimes problematic.
VR development had issues a while ago? (This was for work. It just… stopped working at some point. Dunno if it was a Linux, SteamVR, or Unity3D issue. My work machine mostly runs Windows 10 now as a result. Oh well.)
Screen recording didn’t work well a while ago… (continued)
Overall, it’s just worked great though!
My anti-complaints:
Mixed refresh rates on monitors “just works” now. (I have a 1080@144 for gaming, and a 4k@60 for work)
Video frames don’t have half drawn content. (ex: when resizing windows), except on XWayland stuff
Video tearing has basically disappeared.
Video timing issues seem to be improved.
Input handling for keyboard layouts has improved.
Screen recording in Wayland is way better than it ever was on X11 now. I do this a lot to share gamedev stuff I’m working on.
Xorg has no fractonal scaling so I have been uaing wayland since I have switched to linux on nvidia and yes I use it for gaming. Not silky smooth but great so far.
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