More KDE Plasma Wayland Fixes Land, Continued Improvements For Plasma 6

[mrg666]

If Wayland still needs so many fixes and after 20 years many users still prefer X11, can we call it a failure by design?

How did MS Windows and Apple manage to modernise there display server without the user noticing anything? Why doesn't GNU/Linux just use Android's display server? It seems to be working fine everywhere.

It is not just Wayland or KDE. All components of the OS are continuously fixed and patched. X11 R7.7 is at 11 and 7.7 for the same reason. X11 didn't fail either, was superseded.

[skeevy420]

It's not a failure per se, it works just fine for stuff like smart fridges and mirrors. The issue is that nobody actually cares for either of those things, and attempting to shoehorn extensions for workstation usage in a purposefully spartan protocol has created a monstrous way for a land of fragmentation and power grabbing by those who control them.

That's what I've always though was funny -- that it's Wayland working as intended that's the problem. It was designed around single purpose machines -- infotainment, mirrors, fridges, TVs, etc -- and making it work with multi-purpose machines is where the difficulty seems to come from. It makes sense. Single purpose machines have a clear chain of command on what is prominent, what needs to be displayed, etc.

Take a SmartTV, at worst it'll need 4 tiles/windows at once -- TV picture, channel guide, a system menu, and a recents menu. Every time you switch from one app to the next they get minimized to the background and the next task becomes the foreground because to do the switch you either go through the recents menu or you close what you're doing and open a new app. Because of that workflow it's obvious what the system needs to do to set the prominent window, how to provide security, etc.

On the other hand, a KDE or GNOME desktop will have an unknown number of windows consisting of a web browser, gaming clients, folder browsers, picture viewers, terminals, screen recorders, and more that we can switch between quickly and freely with a mouse, an alt-tab, and more. There is no basic workflow that everyone is shoehorned into following to provide the kind of environment that Wayland would prefer. The more freedoms and options you have, the harder it is to provide security.

Security is a catch-all for hackers and cross-app privacy.

Every time I read this weekly headline I think to myself that Wayland Fixes Land would be a good Mario Bros. parody game starring Konqi and Katie.

[skeevy420]

I have been using Plasma and Wayland two years now without "any" problems. And, you know what, I don't care why you posted that thing. Don't explain.

I've been using it since February full time and SMPlayer needs some fixes and Firefox needs about:config tweaks. There used to be copy/paste issues, window flickering, and more.

Wayland turned KDE into a Newt.

It got better.

[SSJBurger]

If Wayland still needs so many fixes and after 20 years many users still prefer X11, can we call it a failure by design?

How did MS Windows and Apple manage to modernise there display server without the user noticing anything? Why doesn't GNU/Linux just use Android's display server? It seems to be working fine everywhere.

I see you don't use Windows, Before I say this don't get me wrong Windows is stable for the most part but when it comes to VRR and HDR they still have hickups on some hardware. Also multi-monitors sometimes need you to manually edit the registry to disable MPO to prevent screen tearing,random green artifacting lines, video stutter/ flickering on your other monitors for AMD and Nvidia.. not positive on the new Intel GPUs.

But to say Windows modernise their display servers without the users noticing it, well its 2023 and Windows users are still noticing it lol.

[scratchi]

I actually had this appear, usually after gaming when I accidentally press caps lock. Didn't realise it was not by design. I do agree it needed fixing

Hahaha, I was gonna say, that sounds like a feature. Have some button that allows you to scroll the other way (unless one already exists? I don't use ALT+Tab that much...)

[ngraham]

It's always a bit funny to see how people interpret normal code maintenance as evidence of critical bugginess. If I was writing a blog post of the fixes applied to software by Apple, Google, or Microsoft every week, it would be 100 times longer than this blog post. How do I know? I used to be an iOS build & integration engineer at Apple and got to see for myself just how many code fixes are required *daily* to keep everything working while stuff is being changed to support new features and UI changes. There's a reason these companies employ thousands of engineers.

The fact that we're making regular fixes to buggy code is a good thing, not a bad thing. The alternative isn't "software so good that it requires no bug fixes" but rather "software that bit-rots over time and stops working due to lack of maintenance".

[JEBjames]

Michael

Grammar/wording:

"while out today he's out with his usual blog post". Double out...remove one of them.

[mrg666]

I've been using it since February full time and SMPlayer needs some fixes and Firefox needs about:config tweaks. There used to be copy/paste issues, window flickering, and more.

Wayland turned KDE into a Newt.

It got better.

Just last week, Ubuntu pushed an update to linux-firmware package that prevented my computer from booting. It took a while to find the problem that amdgpu firmware was not working with my RX 7900 XT. I just booted to recovery mode , switched to X11 and reverted the package. Actually, I also put a hold on that package now. But I didn't come here ranting about Plasma and Wayland and AMD and the weather. Everything is working again and I am back on Plasma and Wayland.

[M@GOid]

In my personal usage, the only bug that annoys me in KDE+Wayland is a memory leak in the plasmashell process, related to Klipper. If it is configured to store more than 10 or 20 entries, it makes plasmashell to balloon until all your RAM is filled, freezing the system. There is a bug report about this, but unfortunately it didn't receive a fix, AFAIK.

Other than that, things are very smooth to me. Sometimes I don't even remember I'm using Wayland, as it should be.

[andyprough]

Wayland turned KDE into a Newt.

It got better.

Someone please check my python:

weight = float(input('How much does Wayland weigh?'))

if weight == duck:

print('Wayland is a witch, burn it.')

else:

print('Not sure if witch - throw Wayland in water to see if floats or drowns.')

print('Learn to swim, Wayland.')