Since there is a plan to default Plasma to use Wayland, I thought I'd offer some feedback based on my testing over the past couple of weeks.
I tested on two different systems, one with an NVidia video card (GTX 750 Ti, using the proprietary driver) and the other being a newer system with an AMD card (5600 XT, only stock Fedora drivers).
On the NVidia system, the result was clear very early on: It was unusable.
* The mouse cursor sometimes (usually?) had an almost-imperceptible lag/flicker as it moved, kinda like when one of those fluorescent lights is starting to die, and you can stare at it for as long as you want but you can't *see* the flicker, but you know it's happening, and now you have a migraine * Bits of Plasma would refuse to paint. For example KRunner (Alt+F2) would appear, sometimes I could type a letter or two, at which point it would appear to completely "freeze". Behind-the-scenes, it was still processing input, and I could arrow around and hit enter (having no idea what it was doing since I couldn't see anything) and it would launch whatever happened to be selected that I couldn't see. And next time I pressed Alt+F2, my previous text was pre-filled, so I knew it was working. There were other little Plasma things that worked similarly * Firefox and Thunderbird (X11-mode) worked, until suddenly they stopped working and turned into a big black box. Usually that was it until I rebooted, but sometimes if I resized something, I could get it to snap out of it and come back to life. Firefox with Wayland-mode was worse, as it would flash violently (even when not doing anything) - I assume trying to give someone a seizure.
On to the AMD system. Things were "mostly" working, but I've still switched back to X11 because I need to get real work done.
* I can't use CopyQ - oh well. I switched back to Klipper, which I hadn't used in like a decade. It's not terrible, and if this was my only issue, I'd survive * Something isn't right with the clipboard. Usually I'd copy something and then I could immediately paste it. But sometimes I'd paste and my clipboard was empty. So I'd Alt+Tab back to wherever I was, copy again, and then it would work. I did some searching, and there have been lots of complaints about clipboard issues like this going back 3+ years, with various different behaviors, suggested fixes, etc... but nothing concrete. Maybe it's a conflict with something klipper is doing (but honestly, if I can't use a clipboard manager at all, I can't use Wayland). Usually I'd copy from Firefox (X11) to a konsole terminal so that's where most of the "failures" happened, but once or twice it was from one konsole window to another (note: I use copy-to-clipboard-on-selection) * Some sort of kernel panic on startup, that didn't seem to affect functionality: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1911727 (I haven't seen this again since switching back to X11) * Firefox: X11-mode is fine. Wayland-mode caused terrible flicker making it unusable * JetBrains products (i.e. Java/Swing-based, IntelliJ IDEA specifically): Everything mostly worked, except occasionally it would open a dialog (like a file selector) and the whole UI would appear to freeze (it's a modal dialog after all, but the dialog hadn't "appeared" yet so there was nothing I could interact with). I'd minimize the whole IDE and bring it back, and usually after that or some other similar black-magic incantation, when it restored, the dialog would be present and I could carry on. I don't have a specific way of reproducing this, and every time I'd go back and try to re-open the same exact dialog in the same way, it would be fine * The thing that finally got me to switch back was when, in the middle of compiling something, kwin_wayland crashed, killing the whole session. If I had to guess, it had something to do with the fact that it was painting/scrolling the konsole window VERY fast during compilation and it got angry. I tried using the oops reporter thing, but it complained about something not working, so I gave up. I've put the system under load for plenty of other things (and I can dual-boot to Windows and stress-test the system for an hour and it's fine with temps hovering around ambient)
In summary: On my AMD-based system, Wayland is _almost_ there. But this combination of intermittent problems makes me hesitant to use it as my daily-driver. Life is good under X11 for me: things are fast and stable and boring, which is just perfect. I'm happy to do more testing (i.e. run for a couple days under Wayland) to do more testing at some point, but not for day-to-day work.
I hope this is helpful.
-Adam Batkin
KDE on Wayland is extremely buggy for me also and a lot of my programs don't work or have major issues. I don't think it's ready to be default and needs a lot of work. Long live X11.
On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:19 PM Adam Batkin adam@batkin.net wrote:
Since there is a plan to default Plasma to use Wayland, I thought I'd offer some feedback based on my testing over the past couple of weeks.
I tested on two different systems, one with an NVidia video card (GTX 750 Ti, using the proprietary driver) and the other being a newer system with an AMD card (5600 XT, only stock Fedora drivers).
On the NVidia system, the result was clear very early on: It was unusable.
- The mouse cursor sometimes (usually?) had an almost-imperceptible
lag/flicker as it moved, kinda like when one of those fluorescent lights is starting to die, and you can stare at it for as long as you want but you can't *see* the flicker, but you know it's happening, and now you have a migraine
- Bits of Plasma would refuse to paint. For example KRunner (Alt+F2)
would appear, sometimes I could type a letter or two, at which point it would appear to completely "freeze". Behind-the-scenes, it was still processing input, and I could arrow around and hit enter (having no idea what it was doing since I couldn't see anything) and it would launch whatever happened to be selected that I couldn't see. And next time I pressed Alt+F2, my previous text was pre-filled, so I knew it was working. There were other little Plasma things that worked similarly
- Firefox and Thunderbird (X11-mode) worked, until suddenly they stopped
working and turned into a big black box. Usually that was it until I rebooted, but sometimes if I resized something, I could get it to snap out of it and come back to life. Firefox with Wayland-mode was worse, as it would flash violently (even when not doing anything) - I assume trying to give someone a seizure.
On to the AMD system. Things were "mostly" working, but I've still switched back to X11 because I need to get real work done.
- I can't use CopyQ - oh well. I switched back to Klipper, which I
hadn't used in like a decade. It's not terrible, and if this was my only issue, I'd survive
- Something isn't right with the clipboard. Usually I'd copy something
and then I could immediately paste it. But sometimes I'd paste and my clipboard was empty. So I'd Alt+Tab back to wherever I was, copy again, and then it would work. I did some searching, and there have been lots of complaints about clipboard issues like this going back 3+ years, with various different behaviors, suggested fixes, etc... but nothing concrete. Maybe it's a conflict with something klipper is doing (but honestly, if I can't use a clipboard manager at all, I can't use Wayland). Usually I'd copy from Firefox (X11) to a konsole terminal so that's where most of the "failures" happened, but once or twice it was from one konsole window to another (note: I use copy-to-clipboard-on-selection)
- Some sort of kernel panic on startup, that didn't seem to affect
functionality: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1911727 (I haven't seen this again since switching back to X11)
- Firefox: X11-mode is fine. Wayland-mode caused terrible flicker making
it unusable
- JetBrains products (i.e. Java/Swing-based, IntelliJ IDEA
specifically): Everything mostly worked, except occasionally it would open a dialog (like a file selector) and the whole UI would appear to freeze (it's a modal dialog after all, but the dialog hadn't "appeared" yet so there was nothing I could interact with). I'd minimize the whole IDE and bring it back, and usually after that or some other similar black-magic incantation, when it restored, the dialog would be present and I could carry on. I don't have a specific way of reproducing this, and every time I'd go back and try to re-open the same exact dialog in the same way, it would be fine
- The thing that finally got me to switch back was when, in the middle
of compiling something, kwin_wayland crashed, killing the whole session. If I had to guess, it had something to do with the fact that it was painting/scrolling the konsole window VERY fast during compilation and it got angry. I tried using the oops reporter thing, but it complained about something not working, so I gave up. I've put the system under load for plenty of other things (and I can dual-boot to Windows and stress-test the system for an hour and it's fine with temps hovering around ambient)
In summary: On my AMD-based system, Wayland is _almost_ there. But this combination of intermittent problems makes me hesitant to use it as my daily-driver. Life is good under X11 for me: things are fast and stable and boring, which is just perfect. I'm happy to do more testing (i.e. run for a couple days under Wayland) to do more testing at some point, but not for day-to-day work.
I hope this is helpful.
-Adam Batkin
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On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:19 PM Adam Batkin adam@batkin.net wrote:
Since there is a plan to default Plasma to use Wayland, I thought I'd offer some feedback based on my testing over the past couple of weeks.
I tested on two different systems, one with an NVidia video card (GTX 750 Ti, using the proprietary driver) and the other being a newer system with an AMD card (5600 XT, only stock Fedora drivers).
On the NVidia system, the result was clear very early on: It was unusable.
- The mouse cursor sometimes (usually?) had an almost-imperceptible
lag/flicker as it moved, kinda like when one of those fluorescent lights is starting to die, and you can stare at it for as long as you want but you can't *see* the flicker, but you know it's happening, and now you have a migraine
- Bits of Plasma would refuse to paint. For example KRunner (Alt+F2)
would appear, sometimes I could type a letter or two, at which point it would appear to completely "freeze". Behind-the-scenes, it was still processing input, and I could arrow around and hit enter (having no idea what it was doing since I couldn't see anything) and it would launch whatever happened to be selected that I couldn't see. And next time I pressed Alt+F2, my previous text was pre-filled, so I knew it was working. There were other little Plasma things that worked similarly
- Firefox and Thunderbird (X11-mode) worked, until suddenly they stopped
working and turned into a big black box. Usually that was it until I rebooted, but sometimes if I resized something, I could get it to snap out of it and come back to life. Firefox with Wayland-mode was worse, as it would flash violently (even when not doing anything) - I assume trying to give someone a seizure.
On to the AMD system. Things were "mostly" working, but I've still switched back to X11 because I need to get real work done.
- I can't use CopyQ - oh well. I switched back to Klipper, which I
hadn't used in like a decade. It's not terrible, and if this was my only issue, I'd survive
- Something isn't right with the clipboard. Usually I'd copy something
and then I could immediately paste it. But sometimes I'd paste and my clipboard was empty. So I'd Alt+Tab back to wherever I was, copy again, and then it would work. I did some searching, and there have been lots of complaints about clipboard issues like this going back 3+ years, with various different behaviors, suggested fixes, etc... but nothing concrete. Maybe it's a conflict with something klipper is doing (but honestly, if I can't use a clipboard manager at all, I can't use Wayland). Usually I'd copy from Firefox (X11) to a konsole terminal so that's where most of the "failures" happened, but once or twice it was from one konsole window to another (note: I use copy-to-clipboard-on-selection)
- Some sort of kernel panic on startup, that didn't seem to affect
functionality: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1911727 (I haven't seen this again since switching back to X11)
- Firefox: X11-mode is fine. Wayland-mode caused terrible flicker making
it unusable
- JetBrains products (i.e. Java/Swing-based, IntelliJ IDEA
specifically): Everything mostly worked, except occasionally it would open a dialog (like a file selector) and the whole UI would appear to freeze (it's a modal dialog after all, but the dialog hadn't "appeared" yet so there was nothing I could interact with). I'd minimize the whole IDE and bring it back, and usually after that or some other similar black-magic incantation, when it restored, the dialog would be present and I could carry on. I don't have a specific way of reproducing this, and every time I'd go back and try to re-open the same exact dialog in the same way, it would be fine
- The thing that finally got me to switch back was when, in the middle
of compiling something, kwin_wayland crashed, killing the whole session. If I had to guess, it had something to do with the fact that it was painting/scrolling the konsole window VERY fast during compilation and it got angry. I tried using the oops reporter thing, but it complained about something not working, so I gave up. I've put the system under load for plenty of other things (and I can dual-boot to Windows and stress-test the system for an hour and it's fine with temps hovering around ambient)
In summary: On my AMD-based system, Wayland is _almost_ there. But this combination of intermittent problems makes me hesitant to use it as my daily-driver. Life is good under X11 for me: things are fast and stable and boring, which is just perfect. I'm happy to do more testing (i.e. run for a couple days under Wayland) to do more testing at some point, but not for day-to-day work.
I believe chunks of this have already been fixed with Plasma 5.21, and the beta release of Plasma 5.21 will be landing in Rawhide this week as soon as the tarballs are generated.
That said, have you filed bugs at bugs.kde.org about this? That way the upstream KDE developers can evaluate the specifics to see what's been resolved so far and what needs work.
-- 真実はいつも一つ!/ Always, there's only one truth!
On 1/19/2021 10:12 AM, Neal Gompa wrote:
On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:19 PM Adam Batkin adam@batkin.net wrote:
...
In summary: On my AMD-based system, Wayland is _almost_ there. But this combination of intermittent problems makes me hesitant to use it as my daily-driver. Life is good under X11 for me: things are fast and stable and boring, which is just perfect. I'm happy to do more testing (i.e. run for a couple days under Wayland) to do more testing at some point, but not for day-to-day work.
I believe chunks of this have already been fixed with Plasma 5.21, and the beta release of Plasma 5.21 will be landing in Rawhide this week as soon as the tarballs are generated.
I look forward to re-testing. If the cost of being able to eventually move everything to Wayland is replacing my other PC's nvidia card with an AMD one, that's well worth it. Wayland or not, I've been pleasantly surprised by how well everything Just Works(TM) out-of-the-box with the AMD card (and my Free Software soul feels a little better).
That said, have you filed bugs at bugs.kde.org about this? That way the upstream KDE developers can evaluate the specifics to see what's been resolved so far and what needs work.
Other than the kernel panic, no. It feels like everything else on my list is kinda...vague? But also blatantly obvious, like if I'm the first person to notice/file about these things, we're in trouble (or maybe that's how everyone else feels, and nothing has been filed). I can't bring myself to file a bug "the clipboard seems like it sort-of doesn't quite work sometimes but works the rest of the time and I have no other information about patterns or reproducibility".
Here's my thought: Once 5.21 hits, I'll use that for a few days. For any remaining issues at that point, I'll update my list (above) and "we" can decide which ones I should file bugs (versus things that people may know of existing bugs that I should CC myself against or add additional details).
-Adam Batkin
On Tuesday, 19 January 2021 19:33:37 CET Adam Batkin wrote:
Here's my thought: Once 5.21 hits, I'll use that for a few days. For any remaining issues at that point, I'll update my list (above) and "we" can decide which ones I should file bugs (versus things that people may know of existing bugs that I should CC myself against or add additional details).
I keep a copr with the latest 5.20.90 ( 5.21.0 Beta): https:// copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/marcdeop/plasma/
Essentially it's building the packages from Rawhide on F33 :-)
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 15:19:30 -0500, you wrote:
Since there is a plan to default Plasma to use Wayland, I thought I'd offer some feedback based on my testing over the past couple of weeks.
So I installed another copy of F33 on a spare partition, got the Nvidia legacy binary drivers installed (390 series), then upgraded to Rawhide.
Current Rawhide I get a corrupted screen with the binary drivers, and with nouveau the screen freezed before Plasma finishes setting up the desktop.
Also installed Gnome, and it works fine with both the binary driver and nouveau with Wayland.
Hopefully big improvements with the soon to arrive next version in Rawhide because at the moment it doesn't look promising.