KDE Plasma Users Are Still Running Into Multi-Screen Issues

[chrisb]

It seems like another bug on Intel hardware, although I can't verify that. I have a multimonitor setup using an AMD card and I don't see that problem at all.

Triple monitor works fine on Intel with XFCE and Gnome. Xrandr works too. Haven't tried KDE.

[darkbasic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhc85L2PRdI&feature=youtu.be

[mgmartin]

I jumped back onto Plasma 5.7 once I read multiple monitor support had been improved. I'm running 3 heads extended desktop with Nvidia drivers on a GeForce 660.

Previously, on login, the displays would frequently switch back to 3-monitor mirrored mode. So far, this seems fixed with Plasma 5.7.

A few issues I still see but can live with:

1. Sometimes my main panel goes back to the left monitor instead of staying on the center monitor when I login.
2. I typically run a vnc session with plasma. It seems by doing so, when I log into the main, non-vnc session, I have to switch the Compositor settings back to OpenGL. This setting always gets reset to Xrender--I assume by the vnc session.

So far, I'm enjoying this release. Thanks for the work!

[Del_]

Yeah, my laptop's desktop no longer crashes every time I turn it on, I can use the touchpad with my monitor, the HDMI connection can now display on my 4K screen @60hz (instead of 30), it folds into a tablet and the keys shut off, I can sync and update the firmware on my bike computer, use my Oculus Rift, message.

Hm, unsupported hardware or unstable distro. I run Debian stable on thinkpads, I never buy windows only gadgets (it is a stupid idea anyway, they tend to be poorly supported). I do not see any of these problems.

co-workers on Skype For Business, the list just goes on and on and on.

Yes, windows only solutions on workplace is still a pain in the **. The last years I have increasingly turned to Google hangouts for my work communcations. Skype fails more often than not with externals anyway, hangouts just work, on all devices. Try it. If you are talking about chatting, skype works, but needs skilled configuration. Skype is a microsoft lock-in, consider what Microsoft would charge you if nobody kept alternatives going.

So far, the only thing where Windows came up short of Linux was in configuring multiple static ethernet connection profiles... but I was able to get that working well enough with some Powershell scripts.

If that is all you got out of linux after thirty years, then I suggest you stay with windows. Come to think of it, a Chromebook is probably the best fit for you.

[darclide]

And of course we get the expected pointing fingers at others that we have seen from Plasma developers in the past years. Years in which simple things such as multi monitor have been unusable.

I as a end user do not care at all whether it is a driver issue, a toolkit issue, a plasma issue or a little daemons in my monitor issue: it works in Windows, it works in OS X, it works with Gnome, Unity, XFCE, ... just with plasma it does not.

Simple solution: as many others in this thread I have migrated away from Plasma, and I hope a lot of other users will, so this horrible piece of software will either get fixed or die so it can be replaced by something that works.

Shame for all the good KDE applications, but plasma is just the most unstable desktop environment with the most basic features not working out there, and despite developers saying they fixed stuff in every release and got a almost 100% test coverage: it doesn't work, since years, probably for many years to come.

[darkbasic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhc8...ature=youtu.be

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=365455

[Del_]

And of course we get the expected pointing fingers at others that we have seen from Plasma developers in the past years.

Not sure what you are aiming at, but I am not a plasma developer, although I have done very minor code contributions to KDE in the past. I am a user, but I am sick and tired of people coming on linux oriented forums with "I have used linux for decades, it sucks, windows rulez" with a signal to noise ratio very close to zero.

Years in which simple things such as multi monitor have been unusable.

Yes, this has been a major pain in the **, and it has most of the time been down to graphics drivers. That is why we love Phoronix, a place where we can focus on the progress of the graphics stack. These days we have come extremely far. I very rarely have issues with Intel and AMD based graphics and multimonitors. Nvidia is on my hate list though.

Note that Plasma is not rolled out by *any* stable distribution. Only those who want to contribute to testing should use it. It is very quickly becoming production ready though.

I as a end user do not care at all whether it is a driver issue, a toolkit issue, a plasma issue or a little daemons in my monitor issue: it works in Windows, it works in OS X, it works with Gnome, Unity, XFCE, ... just with plasma it does not.

Are you being intently ignorant? I have seen so many people struggling with presentations from windows and osx computers that I have lost count. No, all those desktops have had issues, and they still have issues. The only thing that has changed over the last couple of years is that they are just as likely as me to have issues. These days I am pretty confident that things will work when I attach a projector to my debian stable laptop with intel graphics. Few years ago though, the intel driver was a mess.

Simple solution: as many others in this thread I have migrated away from Plasma

Simple solution, you should have waited for plasma to mature before jumping on board. You have obviously absolutely no interest in spending time reporting bugs. I run debian testing with plasma on one machine (one out of nine in my household), but I am interested in helping out reporting bugs, just not on any of the machines I need working at all times. That machine is remarkable stable, two monitors works flawlessly with AMD graphics. There is another desktop with two monitors and Nvidia blob, that is another story all together.

[MadCatX]

And of course we get the expected pointing fingers at others that we have seen from Plasma developers in the past years. Years in which simple things such as multi monitor have been unusable.

Multilple screens are not exactly a simple thing especially when you have to do it on a legacy garbage such as X11. Plasma devs are not pointing fingers, they are identifying problems. Problems should always be fixed in the right place, introducing layers of hacks to work around something results in far worse trouble in the long run.

I as a end user do not care at all whether it is a driver issue, a toolkit issue, a plasma issue or a little daemons in my monitor issue: it works in Windows, it works in OS X, it works with Gnome, Unity, XFCE, ... just with plasma it does not.

Windows and OS X have the luxury of not doing windowing on the top of X11. Other DEs differ only on the level of multiscreen brokenness. I'll admit that Plasma clearly has serious multiscreen issues but at least they are acknowledged and actively worked on by the devs.

Simple solution: as many others in this thread I have migrated away from Plasma, and I hope a lot of other users will, so this horrible piece of software will either get fixed or die so it can be replaced by something that works.

This is a brilliant piece of logic. If people move away from Plasma, there will be nobody to report bugs, test patches, contribute code etc. so nothing will get fixed. I have actually moved *to* Plasma 5 from GNOME 3 on my desktop. Some issues I had with GNOME 3 were far worse than what I get with Plasma and when I report a bug I am much less likely to get the RedHat "we will do whatever we please, now deal with it or sod off" attitude on the Bugzilla.

[bug77]

KDE Plasma 5 was the reason I switched to XFCE. I jumped from kubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 and the new Plasma was unbearable in my multi-monitor setup.

It's more than bearable on mine.

Panels overlapping after login, the "task manager" widget (the bar with the open windows) unable to show the windows of the monitor it belongs,

Nope, never saw that in years.

dragging the widgets to the panel requires pixel perfect precision

What?

and many other issues

Some windows are not restored using the right activity (or at all), but that's the only issue bothering me at this time.

I like KDE for trying to be modern, beautiful and customizable but Plasma 5 is unusable for me. It's better to do one thing and do it well that trying to do everything and fail on everything, that's my impression with KDE.

Like I said, it works fine for me (and many others, otherwise the KDE bug tracker would be flooded), so whatever issues Plasma has, I think most of them are setup-specific.
I used to be annoyed by Plasma not restoring everything where I left it, but then I realized Windows does exactly that: restores apps on my secondary screen (because that's where it was before), despite the second monitor being turned off. Then suddenly Plasma didn't look so bad any more.

PS: I am running on nVidia

Me too.

[starshipeleven]

I'm pretty sure that 90% of the culprit is Xorg.