Kubuntu 25.04 and Wayland and apps, your thoughts good or bad ?

[Gazzer]

Well after 5 months has it got any better, I tried it again but went back to X11 as there are just to many useful older apps that do not work or now restricted in there functionality.
Key captures Autokey as just one example as something that is so useful but cannot work on Wayland and nothing really to replace it.
So i certainly will not be switching to Wayland anytime soon and will stay with X11 as long as possible !

Would like to hear from anyone else on things that do not work ?

[yuquiyú]

Upgraded to kubuntu 25.04 several days ago. Cannot consistently start krunner on wayland, reverted back to X11. I did not wait to find out what else would not work. I also use kicad and freecad, who knows where those will fail. I am not against change, will happily switch when it works.

[claydoh]

Frankly I find Wayland unusable in it's current form in July 2025. In X11 I can hack the OS to turn on my keyboard backlight so I can see the keys to type using the "xset led on" command. In Wayland there is no such functionality so I cannot see the keys on my keyboard.

Brightnessctl. It CAN be used without root, if you add your user account to the input group for LEDs, and the video group for screens. The package brightnessctl-udev (a dependency of brightessctl) provides udev rules for this, which could be modified I am sure for even less restrictions.

sudo usermod -a -G input ${USER}

You'll need to reboot for the changes to take effect. A logout might do it, though.

brightnessctl --list to get the exact item (my chromebook has a TON, but my desktop keyboard had only a few:

$ brightnessctl --list
Available devices:
Device 'phy0-led' of class 'leds':
Current brightness: 1 (100%)
Max brightness: 1

Device 'input5::capslock' of class 'leds':
Current brightness: 0 (0%)
Max brightness: 1

Device 'input4::mute' of class 'leds':
Current brightness: 0 (0%)
Max brightness: 1

Device 'input5::scrolllock' of class 'leds': <------------
Current brightness:  (0%)  <------------------------------
Max brightness: 1

Device 'input5::numlock' of class 'leds':
Current brightness: 1 (100%)
Max brightness: 1

So this would be used to toggle the scroll lock ON

brightnessctl -d input5::scrolllock set 1

$ brightnessctl -d input5::scrolllock set 1
Updated device 'input5::scrolllock':
Device 'input5::scrolllock' of class 'leds':
            Current brightness: 1 (100%) <--------------------------
            Max brightness: 1

Another option is to set a custom systemd service or a script to do this before login, if this is desired or is useful. Not (too) hard, but not as easy as a user autostart script and the KDE GUI for it.

[bengtang]

Frankly I find Wayland unusable in it's current form in July 2025. In X11 I can hack the OS to turn on my keyboard backlight so I can see the keys to type using the "xset led on" command. In Wayland there is no such functionality so I cannot see the keys on my keyboard.

[tenplus1]

KDE Plasma runs wayland sessions a lot better than most desktops right now and my current 25.04 kubuntu install is working perfecty for both desktop apps and steam/heroic games.

[DarcSceptor]

I tried Wayland with Linux Mint and Cinnamon and even with the latest drivers for NVidia all I got was a black screen. But when I moved to Kubuntu with KDE Plasma it was like night and day. As a result I find it to be fantastic. Is it perfect? No. But with more people involved in using Plasma the end result will be a better product overall in the long run. Issues is the nature of software, especially when it is the process of evolving to the next desktop standard.

[claydoh]

Chromium not launching won't have anything to do with wayland/X11. It may be the particular package/version you have, or a stray bug -- it runs fine for me on multiple devices.
You'd need to run it from a terminal to see what is happening -- use the menu editor get the full path/command used.

I use the flatpak myself - whoever builds that seems to have a more stable setup or build than the other packaging options, plus seems to update more regularly.

[Cincinnatus]

No problem with installing and running Brave on wayland for me

/[/URL]

Sorry, I should've been more clear. I didn't have a problem installing Brave. My issue what installing the Chromium browser. I was able to install it okay, however it just doesn't open. I just brought up Brave because it's base on Chromium so I would expect Chromium to install without a problem since Brave did. Thanks for your reply though. Hopefully it'll help someone else.

[Gazzer]

No problem with installing and running Brave on wayland for me

I did ...

sudo apt install curl

sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg [URL]https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg[/URL]

sudo curl -fsSLo /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.sources [URL]https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser.sources[/URL]

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser​

as found here ... https://brave.com/linux/

[Cincinnatus]

Wasn't sure if I should make a new post or just ask it here, but I'll give it a shot. Speaking of apps and Wayland, I've installed Chromium browser and even though Brave (chromium based) works, Chromium seems like it wants to load, but never does. I can't open the browser. Has anyone else seen this issue?

[Gazzer]

Thanks once again, very helpful

[claydoh]

Use ksnip all the time for capturing parts of screen to remind me how i did something.
And simplescreenrecorder again to remind me how i did something months or years ago

Built-in spectacle does both.
Ksnip hasn't seen a release since 2023
SSR is even older but has much more recent code in git, with no recent releases since 2021.

would like to know how you got keystrokes to work on OBS

It has been a bit, but I either told it to run using xwayland (QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb obs) or set up scripts to use websockets. I see evidence of both in one of my old backup sets. I mainly use Spectacle for the purpose once it gained wayland support, and since it is already on my system.

This script looks good, and straightforward if one uses the flatpak for OBS
This is another one that should be coming along soon, now that Gnome only recently added support for the XDG Global Shortcuts portal that KDE has had for quite some time, OBS just needs to add it.
Not sure what the holdup is, since it has been a thing for a few years now

[Gazzer]

Hi Claydoh

thanks for that useful "ramble" it was very interesting and practical info.
would like to know how you got keystrokes to work on OBS as I downloaded the latest version and it ignores all keystrokes, something I am doing wrong ?

thanks for letting me know about the x11 is really x11, I was getting tired yesterday after 5 hours trying to get OBS to work, so perhaps I will try x11 and kubuntu-25-04 again

i to like to embrace change, but I do have a workflow that works, just simple things like a dock on left of screen for apps that i often use (don't think it can be done on 25.04)
Use ksnip all the time for capturing parts of screen to remind me how i did something.
And simplescreenrecorder again to remind me how i did something months or years ago

Anyway thanks Claydoh

[claydoh]

[ramble_mode]
I dunno. A couple of years ago, it was not as fun.

I have been using it exclusively since well before 2023 on all my systems, including a gaming rig.
I have zero real issues so far, in at least the past two years specifically. I don't use Nvida hardware currently, an this is where some issues used to be a thing.
Older software that is...old and maybe hasn't been updated in a while, might not work as well.

I have no issues with screen recording with KDE's Spectacle or OBS.
Both can be set to use keyboard shortcuts. meta-alt-r to start/stop in spectacle, for example
Zoom seems fine as well,

KiCAD, I dunno. Xwayland exists for xorg holdbacks and similar --- Steam games for example. -- so try the most current version of your applications and see how it runs? KiCad

https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/K...yland-Support/
Some of this may be outdated, or so to be. (desktop session restore window positions is very close close in Plasma 6.3, for example,)
Warping seems to work here. otherwise I have zero experience with the software.

Again, try things and see.
And do note that a Lot of the gripes and yelling on the internet are just that, so take most comments with a very large grain of salt. Even mine. Use your own eyes.



But it is obvious that the KiCad team have strong opinions, but they have time before X is gone, and they are forced to deal with it.

I did try logging in with x11 but it seems that it is not true x11 but a x11 Wayland bridge, so still had some problems.

No it is an actual x11 session. The 'bridge' indicates that something is using Xwayland --aka an xorg window inside Wayland.

Xorg has been dying for ages and ages, and Wayland development has been slow. Or rather the desktops implementing compositors that implement the protocols have been, but they have picking up the pace and filling the holes.

No, it is not 100%, and many of us old timers will find the more "edge" cases even as that list shrinks, for sure. And many of those system -level things my just need to migrate to a different tool (custom keybindings comes to mind). Accessibility is a major pain point, and may be for a while still.

But xorg isn't going away anytime soon. Unless you use Fedora, lol, and will need to find an external repo for it in the near future. Remember that Fedora is where Red Hat sort of ends up down the road.

I am an old timer myself, but I actually prefer a flow of changes --it is THE reason I have used KDE and Plasma for 25 years now, so I sort of embrace change, so my opinion will be shaded by that, even if I try to keep an open mind.

[/ramble_mode]

[Gazzer]

HI,

I have been using x11 and Kubuntu for many years absolutely no problems it just works.
Yesterday I tried Kubuntu 25.04 and Wayland.

For me it does not work so many problems.
I wanted to a video capture of my screen, a few apps do record, but you cannot use any keystrokes to start them, so you end up with the app interface in the video as you start and finish recording.
Tried a cludge someone wrote but it didn't work.

If Wayland can't to simple things like read a keystroke and send it to the App, it stops lots of Apps from working correctly.
I spent hours trying to sort this out but in the end gave up, until now Kubuntu as always just worked.

Also I read that Kicad cannot work correctly with Wayland.
If I kept going I'm sure there would be many other problems.

I did try logging in with x11 but it seems that it is not true x11 but a x11 Wayland bridge, so still had some problems.

So for me going to install 24.04 and hope that Wayland gets better over time or sadly will have to leave Kubuntu and find something that just works.

So I am not against Wayland as it does work well, but so many of the useful things no longer work.

I am only put this up here to see what others think and to give feedback, I am just an average hobbyist user, who is disappointed with Wayland being introduced, when it is not as useful to me as x11 is?

Thanks