Plasma/Wayland Known Significant Issues

This page tracks the Wayland showstoppers throughout the stack.

KWin/compositing/window management

• No cross-app window activation/focus protocol. As a result, windows don't get brought forward when activated by another app: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424795
• No vertical/horizontal maximize of Wayland native clients. KWin uses NetWM modes internally to do this. Works with Xwayland clients. Would also work for Wayland clients, just the state cannot be exported to Wayland (c.f. Quick tiling).
• Task Switchers become black and unusable after switching: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=415798
• XWayland windows are upscaled and look blurry and ugly in HiDPI mode: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389191
• Cursor lags under high CPU load: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421131
• "Pin/keep open" functionality for Plasma applets does not work: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400317
• Spectacle takes low-resolution screenshots on HiDPI screens: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409762

Remote control support incomplete

• Our screencasting API handles remote video streaming, but there is no API for remote input, so things like TeamViewer have no way to work (and would need to be ported to use those APIs once they exist).

NVIDIA

Partly fixed: Requires manual activation.

The NVIDIA blob uses a custom EGL extension which Plasma 5.16 added support for. It requires setting the KWIN_DRM_USE_EGL_STREAMS=1 environment variable to activate. Other aspects of the "Wayland experience" with NVIDIA such as XWayland compatibility are outside of our influence.

Input

• No configurable mouse gestures; X has the ability to accept fake input events to allow programs such as Easystroke. With the new security model of Wayland, such a program would need to be part of the compositor.
• No XModmap; we lack a functionality like XModmap to remap keys.

Plasma

• Session restoring does not include Wayland native windows. Our sessions management recover engine is based on the X Session Management Protocol and there is apparently currently no generic concept to do it on Wayland. But on Qt it's plugin-able and GNOME has according to their wiki an own implementation for some time.
• No window move on empty area in breeze; This broke with switch to XdgShellV6. Needs new API added to Qt (native interface), KWayland and Breeze.
• No activities.
• Keyboard Layout indicator system tray item doesn't work: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=390079

Drag and Drop issues

• Dragging-and-dropping a file to https://imgur.com in Firefox brings down the whole session: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421130
• Drag and drop on Wayland: Wrong drop destination on drag'n drop https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422414
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=390321
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400014
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383794
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=405267
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389261
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=398440
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418683
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420949
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=414834
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=419017