KDE Plasma 5.25 Beta Released With Many Improvements, Wayland Support Maturing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KDE Plasma 5.25 Beta Released With Many Improvements, Wayland Support Maturing

The KDE development community today announced the release of the Plasma 5.25 beta...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDE-Plasma-5.25-Beta

[vegabook]

Kinda sucks that the Steam Deck (which uses plasma) reverts to X in desktop mode, with all the resulting multi-monitor problems that creates (forgets orientations / placement etc if not powered down properly or if any monitor switched off). Hopefully the better Wayland support will find its way onto the Deck at some stage soon. Because it's a great little super-cost-effective lightweight dev machine when hooked up to a monitor.

[schmidtbag]

Kinda sucks that the Steam Deck (which uses plasma) reverts to X in desktop mode, with all the resulting multi-monitor problems that creates (forgets orientations / placement etc if not powered down properly or if any monitor switched off). Hopefully the better Wayland support will find its way onto the Deck at some stage soon. Because it's a great little super-cost-effective lightweight dev machine when hooked up to a monitor.

I think it makes more sense to use X11 for the Deck. Xwayland adds overhead on a system with limited specs, and X11 can keep up just fine at 1080p or lower. Add to the fact that Wayland just isn't quite stable enough for a product like this.

I've been using Wayland+KDE for a while now and though I have an overall good experience, there is still a lot to be done before I would recommend Wayland to someone who isn't a Linux veteran (I would recommend KDE to most people though).

[caligula]

Hopefully the better Wayland support will find its way onto the Deck at some stage soon. Because it's a great little super-cost-effective lightweight dev machine when hooked up to a monitor.

Yes, any day now

KDE Plasma 5.25 Beta Released With Many Improvements, Wayland Support Maturing
KDE Plasma 5.24 Released With Wayland Support In Increasingly Great Shape
Plasma 5.23 Picking Up Latest Breeze Evolution Style, SDDM Lands Native Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.22 Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Usability Enhancements
KDE Plasma 5.21 Released With Better Wayland Support, Desktop Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.20 Released With Better Wayland Support, Many New Features
KDE Plasma 5.19 Released After Lots Of Polishing, Better Wayland Support
KDE PLasma 5.18 LTS brings , ..., ..., various X11 and Wayland fixes for KWin
KDE Plasma 5.17 Released With Wayland Improvements, Better HiDPI
KDE's EGLStreams back-end for the KWin Wayland compositor has been merged! The KDE Plasma 5.16 release
KDE Plasma 5.15 Released With Wayland Improvements, Fixes To "Annoying Problems"
Plasma 5.14.0 features ..., continued Wayland improvements, and plenty of bug fixes.
KDE Plasma 5.13 Is Making Great Improvements On Its Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Other Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.11 Rolls Into Beta With New System Settings, Better Wayland Support
Plasma 5.10 features ..., Wayland support improvements
KDE Plasma 5.9 Hits The Web With Global Menus, Better Wayland Support
...

[Ungweliante]

Yes, any day now

KDE Plasma 5.25 Beta Released With Many Improvements, Wayland Support Maturing
KDE Plasma 5.24 Released With Wayland Support In Increasingly Great Shape
Plasma 5.23 Picking Up Latest Breeze Evolution Style, SDDM Lands Native Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.22 Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Usability Enhancements
KDE Plasma 5.21 Released With Better Wayland Support, Desktop Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.20 Released With Better Wayland Support, Many New Features
KDE Plasma 5.19 Released After Lots Of Polishing, Better Wayland Support
KDE PLasma 5.18 LTS brings , ..., ..., various X11 and Wayland fixes for KWin
KDE Plasma 5.17 Released With Wayland Improvements, Better HiDPI
KDE's EGLStreams back-end for the KWin Wayland compositor has been merged! The KDE Plasma 5.16 release
KDE Plasma 5.15 Released With Wayland Improvements, Fixes To "Annoying Problems"
Plasma 5.14.0 features ..., continued Wayland improvements, and plenty of bug fixes.
KDE Plasma 5.13 Is Making Great Improvements On Its Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Other Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.11 Rolls Into Beta With New System Settings, Better Wayland Support
Plasma 5.10 features ..., Wayland support improvements
KDE Plasma 5.9 Hits The Web With Global Menus, Better Wayland Support
...

It is fair to say also that the situation has heavily improved across all those releases.

5.25 may be the release where I make the jump in my AMD system.

[ezst036]

Yes, any day now

KDE Plasma 5.25 Beta Released With Many Improvements, Wayland Support Maturing
KDE Plasma 5.24 Released With Wayland Support In Increasingly Great Shape
Plasma 5.23 Picking Up Latest Breeze Evolution Style, SDDM Lands Native Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.22 Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Usability Enhancements
KDE Plasma 5.21 Released With Better Wayland Support, Desktop Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.20 Released With Better Wayland Support, Many New Features
KDE Plasma 5.19 Released After Lots Of Polishing, Better Wayland Support
KDE PLasma 5.18 LTS brings , ..., ..., various X11 and Wayland fixes for KWin
KDE Plasma 5.17 Released With Wayland Improvements, Better HiDPI
KDE's EGLStreams back-end for the KWin Wayland compositor has been merged! The KDE Plasma 5.16 release
KDE Plasma 5.15 Released With Wayland Improvements, Fixes To "Annoying Problems"
Plasma 5.14.0 features ..., continued Wayland improvements, and plenty of bug fixes.
KDE Plasma 5.13 Is Making Great Improvements On Its Wayland Support
KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS Released With Much Better Wayland Support, Other Improvements
KDE Plasma 5.11 Rolls Into Beta With New System Settings, Better Wayland Support
Plasma 5.10 features ..., Wayland support improvements
KDE Plasma 5.9 Hits The Web With Global Menus, Better Wayland Support

This.

KDE devs deserve credit for getting it done; however it is a little like groundhog day around here every time there's a new KDE release. Can we predict that KDE 5.26 will include better Wayland support?

[vegabook]

I think it makes more sense to use X11 for the Deck. Xwayland adds overhead on a system with limited specs, and X11 can keep up just fine at 1080p or lower. Add to the fact that Wayland just isn't quite stable enough for a product like this.

I've been using Wayland+KDE for a while now and though I have an overall good experience, there is still a lot to be done before I would recommend Wayland to someone who isn't a Linux veteran (I would recommend KDE to most people though).

Yeah personal experience the Deck is quite performant with its 4c8t and with 16 gig RAM and a very decent GPU it's 100% capable of taking on a bit of graphics API layering. After all that's similar to what Proton is doing (DirectX -> Vulkan). Also even my Raspberry Pi is doing fine now with Wayland so Deck will 100% be fine 'cos it's at least triple the speed on CPU and probably 10x on GPU.

[mdedetrich]

Kinda sucks that the Steam Deck (which uses plasma) reverts to X in desktop mode, with all the resulting multi-monitor problems that creates (forgets orientations / placement etc if not powered down properly or if any monitor switched off). Hopefully the better Wayland support will find its way onto the Deck at some stage soon. Because it's a great little super-cost-effective lightweight dev machine when hooked up to a monitor.

Wayland in its current state is not recommendable because of the issues it has, sorry to burst your bubble but it still has a long way to go. KDE 5.25 may help but that would need to be evaluated.

[skeevy420]

I think it makes more sense to use X11 for the Deck. Xwayland adds overhead on a system with limited specs, and X11 can keep up just fine at 1080p or lower. Add to the fact that Wayland just isn't quite stable enough for a product like this.

I've been using Wayland+KDE for a while now and though I have an overall good experience, there is still a lot to be done before I would recommend Wayland to someone who isn't a Linux veteran (I would recommend KDE to most people though).

Well said. I've been using Plasma's Wayland session for the past few releases and while most all my annoyances are fixed or mitigated I'd still put a new or intermediate user on any environment's X session for the time being. GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment, Mate, Cinnamon...doesn't really matter which. About my only exception would be for single use kiosks running Sway and some random GUI program.

[schmidtbag]

Yeah personal experience the Deck is quite performant with its 4c8t and with 16 gig RAM and a very decent GPU it's 100% capable of taking on a bit of graphics API layering. After all that's similar to what Proton is doing (DirectX -> Vulkan). Also even my Raspberry Pi is doing fine now with Wayland so Deck will 100% be fine 'cos it's at least triple the speed on CPU and probably 10x on GPU.

Things like DXVK spread out CPU resources across multiple threads, where even though the overall CPU usage goes up, the performance goes up with it. The same does not apply to XWayland. Also, those translation layers are a matter of necessity. The added overhead of XWayland is entirely avoidable.

I don't understand your point about the Pi. Wayland, when used as intended, is less resource intensive. I doubt you're playing a lot of games on your Pi (other than maybe some emulators), so, it makes perfect sense to use Wayland. I have Wayland set up on an ARM-based laptop and it actually works better than X11. The Deck has a lot more grunt but it also has a lot more work to do. As long as XWayland is still necessary to play certain games, it's unnecessary overhead.

If the next-gen Deck has 6c/12t or higher and Wayland gets a bit more polished, I think then it would be fine to use. Alluding to caligula's post, when headlines consistently stop mentioning Wayland improvements for updates, that's when it's ready for everyday use for the average person.