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#1 2016-08-20 17:07:02

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Trying plasma on wayland

I thought I would try to launch plasma on wayland on a laptop that I have running arch (Lenovo S540).

Here are my experiences:

First I ran the test suggested at  https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/ … not-start/ and found that I needed to ensure that both xorg-server-xwayland (1.18.4-1) and qt5-wayland (5.7.0-2) were installed otherwise the initial tests failed.  Then from a normal plasma session, and entering commands in a konsole window ran:

export $(dbus-launch)
kwin_wayland --xwayland

which created a black window as expected, and then ran in a second konsole:

kwrite --platform wayland

This worked and I could use kwrite in the black window. On exiting kwrite I could go back to the first konsole window and ctrl-c to terminate the wayland window.

Then I ran the suggested test to run wayland to the graphics without X running.  So logging out from plasma, then going to a new VT with ctrl-alt-F2 and logging in as normal user, switching to root to run systemctl stop sddm, and resetting ctrl-alt-F2 to get back to the same VT, I could then run as user:

export $(dbus-launch)
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland
kwin_wayland --xwayland --exit-with-session=kwrite

which did indeed put the mouse in the centre of the screen and open kwrite without X running and using wayland.  Kwrite works but the touchpad seems to have no tapping enabled so it was necessary to use the clickpad corners to click down on the left or right click to use kwrite and to exit kwrite. Doing the latter then terminates the wayland session and returns to the VT.  At this point running startplasmacompositor does indeed open a plasma session and the hardware clicks are needed to initiate starting apps from the icons on the screen as the touchpad tapping is not working as happened with the previous test above.  The fonts are rendered differently to those when running plasma in X when logging into the plasma desktop via sddm, but this shows that the basics are working for wayland.

Does anyone have any additional experiences running the plasma desktop in wayland, without X running, and if so can you point to a method to get the touchpad tapping (and scrolling) working?

Last edited by mcloaked (2016-08-20 17:09:42)


Mike C

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#2 2016-08-21 09:35:02

pepedopolous
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

Why not try installing and using plasma-wayland-session?
Then you can select it from SDDM.

P

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#3 2016-08-21 10:39:41

yungtrizzle
Member
Registered: 2011-04-24
Posts: 139

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

I'm typing this in chrome in plasma wayland, so far it seems very stable except for the touchpad tapping and a few shortcuts that don't work. Based on what I've read from the KDE bloggers and devs, libinput configuration still being worked on, what's available is the default config (which is tap disabled).

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#4 2016-08-21 14:57:59

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

pepedopolous wrote:

Why not try installing and using plasma-wayland-session?
Then you can select it from SDDM.

P

Yes good idea - presume you can then select from normal plasma session or plasma wayland? I will try next time I boot that laptop...


Mike C

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#5 2016-08-21 15:00:46

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

yungtrizzle wrote:

I'm typing this in chrome in plasma wayland, so far it seems very stable except for the touchpad tapping and a few shortcuts that don't work. Based on what I've read from the KDE bloggers and devs, libinput configuration still being worked on, what's available is the default config (which is tap disabled).

I was reading and googling more and it seems that the plan is for  plasma in wayland to have similar user experience and performance to running in x11 when plasma 5.8 is released in a couple of months, and also that Fedora 25 is going to have wayland as the default instead of X when it is released not long afterwards around November.


Mike C

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#6 2016-08-21 16:55:51

pepedopolous
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

It's really close to the point where I can use plasma-wayland full time.

The only big problem for me is that the fonts for certain KDE applications ignore the size settings. GTK apps, VLC and for some reason, Yakuake are fine.

The plasma pop-up animations are not there e.g. for Kickoff and the Calendar. Also when you open Yakuake, you have to click on the window to start typing.

The main advantage to me is smoothness. I find that emulators (dolphin-emu and retroarch) benefit from this...

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#7 2016-08-21 17:34:38

Rasi
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2007-08-14
Posts: 1,914
Website

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

pepedopolous wrote:

It's really close to the point where I can use plasma-wayland full time.

The only big problem for me is that the fonts for certain KDE applications ignore the size settings. GTK apps, VLC and for some reason, Yakuake are fine.

The plasma pop-up animations are not there e.g. for Kickoff and the Calendar. Also when you open Yakuake, you have to click on the window to start typing.

The main advantage to me is smoothness. I find that emulators (dolphin-emu and retroarch) benefit from this...

So you are saying retroarch has native wayland backends?


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#8 2016-08-21 17:41:39

pepedopolous
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

Rasi wrote:

So you are saying retroarch has native wayland backends?

Absolutely. Vulkan too, though the shaders are still being re-written for that,

P

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#9 2016-08-21 19:56:17

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

mcloaked wrote:
pepedopolous wrote:

Why not try installing and using plasma-wayland-session?
Then you can select it from SDDM.

P

Yes good idea - presume you can then select from normal plasma session or plasma wayland? I will try next time I boot that laptop...

Yes it works - though touchpad tapping still doesn't work whichever way plasma wayland launches, so more work is needed for that and hopefully this will be one feature that will come in with plasma 5.8 in October. There are still graphical issues with for example no virtual desktop rectangles in the taskbar, and some fonts are different to my normal settings (such as for konsole). Also when I logged out the graphics screen hung and it didn't return to the sddm greeter screen so I had to ssh in and reboot the machine as ctrl-alt-Fx didn't work either.

So it is not too far from being usable for me, but isn't quite there yet, but I am looking forward to the 5.8 release.


Mike C

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#10 2016-08-22 04:56:55

yungtrizzle
Member
Registered: 2011-04-24
Posts: 139

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

mcloaked wrote:
yungtrizzle wrote:

I'm typing this in chrome in plasma wayland, so far it seems very stable except for the touchpad tapping and a few shortcuts that don't work. Based on what I've read from the KDE bloggers and devs, libinput configuration still being worked on, what's available is the default config (which is tap disabled).

I was reading and googling more and it seems that the plan is for  plasma in wayland to have similar user experience and performance to running in x11 when plasma 5.8 is released in a couple of months, and also that Fedora 25 is going to have wayland as the default instead of X when it is released not long afterwards around November.

From what I've seen of the libinput config code, it's really not very complicated so I definitely believe plasma 5.8 will have that ready. As for graphics,fonts and icons, that's polishing for the most part, so it's quite possible Fedora 25 in November should have quite a stable and x11 equivalent experience.

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#11 2016-08-22 11:37:07

pepedopolous
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

Just tried the latest kde neon developer edition in a VM. I think Plasma 5.8 is gonna be just fine with wayland.

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#12 2016-08-22 12:28:40

Tromzy
Member
Registered: 2015-02-15
Posts: 166

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

On 5.7 it feels really unfinished. A lot of Kwin effects are buggy (try minimizing / restoring windows), some don't work at all (try "Slide Back"), tooltips in Systemsettings are misplaced, there is no icon for Systemsettings in the task bar, the application launcher opening effect works only once per session, and multi-monitor session is broken...

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#13 2016-08-25 13:16:06

Tromzy
Member
Registered: 2015-02-15
Posts: 166

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

Does anyone else get a core dump error now when trying Plasma on Wayland ?

$ kwin_wayland --xwayland
Erreur de segmentation (core dumped)

$ startplasmacompositor
startplasmacompositor: Starting up...
dbus-update-activation-environment: warning: error sending to systemd: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1
/usr/bin/startplasmacompositor : ligne 226 :  4311 Erreur de segmentation  (core dumped)/usr/bin/kwin_wayland --xwayland --libinput --exit-with-session=/usr/lib/startplasma
startplasmacompositor: Shutting down...
startplasmacompositor: Done.

I remove the Intel graphics driver to use modesettings, is that where the error comes from ?

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#14 2016-08-25 15:26:35

pepedopolous
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

Tromzy wrote:

I remove the Intel graphics driver to use modesettings, is that where the error comes from ?

Don't think it's this as I always have used modesetting, not intel.

What about using plasma-wayland-session and choosing that from your DM?

P

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#15 2016-08-25 15:44:12

Tromzy
Member
Registered: 2015-02-15
Posts: 166

Re: Trying plasma on wayland

No, it's the first thing I tried, does not work. After I enter my password, the screen goes black for a few seconds then back to SDDM.

Edit : OK I figured it out : it's because I was not using the Breeze Window Decoration...

Last edited by Tromzy (2016-08-25 15:56:22)

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