Review of Resolute Raccoon Kubuntu 26.04 LTS

[barfly]

claydoh and tenplus1 My apologies for not responding earlier. I am not referring to shortcuts as in links to applications or files/folders.

I am referring to the issue with Wayland and it's inability to implement a system-wide pasting of completed snippets of text or code to any desktop or activity. Before Kubuntu 24.01 there was a very simple system application to implement this in the system keyboard menu. With the introduction of Wayland, that has been quietly dropped for obvious reasons.

This has very serious ramifications for many users that are so used to a keyboard shortcut to insert a passage of text, an address, email address or snippet of oft-used code into a document or text.
The ramifications on the productivity of users so used to this facility is enormous.

Even in Windows it is a very simple thing to set up.

This is the primary failing of Wayland and one reason for the massive backlash against it's precipitous introduction. A form of keyboard logging across applications and desktops is required for this to be implemented - the antithesis of the whole philosophy behind Wayland.

I do not see how it is ever going to be resolved, but if Wayland is to be implemented wholesale across the Linux world we will be driving many workers back into the arms of Microsoft and Apple.

[tenplus1]

barfly - I use copy and paste a lot in the Kubuntu clipboard and haven't seen any problem doing so throughout all my apps, although pasting in an entirely different desktop is not a thing I use and I wonder why this should be an option at all?!

[claydoh]

I am referring to the issue with Wayland and it's inability to implement a system-wide pasting of completed snippets of text or code

Before Kubuntu 24.0

Wayland existed, or was available, well before Kubuntu Noble, and even there, it is not the default, and one needs to physically install the Wayland session package to even be able have it as a login option in SDDM. So I suspect something else it at play, maybe a bug.

[deadsplash]

If I perform a manual system upgrade once Kubuntu 26.04 is stable, will Wayland be installed by default or will X11 remain? Will Snap be installed? What would be the best way to upgrade from Kubuntu 24.04?

Thank you for your attention.

P.S. The new version looks great.

[claydoh]

will Wayland be installed by default

It will be installed, but the x11 login session will not be removed.

Will Snap be installed?

Probably, but that may depend on how you removed or disabled it.

What would be the best way to upgrade from Kubuntu 24.04?

There is only one way, using the official Ubuntu upgrade tools., either from the notification you will see circa October, or started manually after upgrades are enabled at some point after release.

[oshunluvr]

I'm unable to log into Kubuntu 26.04 since Feb. 5th. If I update all the packages I end up with a non-working install. It boots and the login screen appears, but when I attempt to log in,, it goes to a black screen and stays there - no apparent activity at all.

In the last working version I have, syslog ends with:

2026-04-06T08:51:57.531179-04:00 kubuntu2604 PackageKit: get-updates transaction /826_dadcabdc from uid 1000 finished with success after 393ms
2026-04-06T08:51:57.553712-04:00 kubuntu2604 kded6[2541]: Registering ":1.72/StatusNotifierItem" to system tray
2026-04-06T08:52:05.912930-04:00 kubuntu2604 org.kde.kdeconnect[2817]: qt.bluetooth.bluez: Missing CAP_NET_ADMIN permission. Cannot determine whether a found address is of random or public type.
2026-04-06T08:52:06.193752-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1]: systemd-localed.service: Deactivated successfully.
2026-04-06T08:52:11.600895-04:00 kubuntu2604 dolphin[3307]: kf.notifications: No event config could be found for event id "BellVisible" under notifyrc file for app "dolphin"
2026-04-06T08:52:15.555883-04:00 kubuntu2604 dolphin[3307]: message repeated 2 times: [ kf.notifications: No event config could be found for event id "BellVisible" under notifyrc file for app "dolphin"]
2026-04-06T08:53:03.650550-04:00 kubuntu2604 dolphin[3307]: kf.notifications: No event config could be found for event id "BellVisible" under notifyrc file for app "dolphin"
2026-04-06T08:53:27.676415-04:00 kubuntu2604 dolphin[3307]: message repeated 23 times: [ kf.notifications: No event config could be found for event id "BellVisible" under notifyrc file for app "dolphin"]​

The non-working version ends with:

2026-04-06T13:22:33.386931-04:00 kubuntu2604 PackageKit: get-updates transaction /861_eccabeac from uid 1000 finished with success after 242ms
2026-04-06T13:22:37.930232-04:00 kubuntu2604 kdeconnectd[2926]: kdeconnect.core: Could not query capabilities from notifications server
2026-04-06T13:22:42.905857-04:00 kubuntu2604 kdeconnectd[2926]: qt.bluetooth.bluez: Missing CAP_NET_ADMIN permission. Cannot determine whether a found address is of random or public type.
2026-04-06T13:22:42.930431-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1]: systemd-localed.service: Deactivated successfully.
2026-04-06T13:22:51.543395-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1948]: plasma-ksplash.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
2026-04-06T13:22:51.549854-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1948]: plasma-ksplash.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=15/TERM
2026-04-06T13:22:51.549948-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1948]: plasma-ksplash.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
2026-04-06T13:22:51.550140-04:00 kubuntu2604 systemd[1948]: Failed to start plasma-ksplash.service - Splash screen shown during boot.
2026-04-06T13:22:55.082857-04:00 kubuntu2604 chronyd[1293]: NTS-KE session with 91.189.91.112:4460 (3.ntp.ubuntu.com) timed out
2026-04-06T13:23:12.965247-04:00 kubuntu2604 org.freedesktop.Notifications[3080]: org.kde.plasma.waitforname: WaitForName: Service was not registered within timeout
2026-04-06T13:23:12.966581-04:00 kubuntu2604 dbus-daemon[1973]: [session uid=1000 pid=1973 pidfd=5] Activated service 'org.freedesktop.Notifications' failed: Process org.freedesktop.Notifications exited with status 1
2026-04-06T13:23:44.865121-04:00 kubuntu2604 kernel: hrtimer: interrupt took 13360 ns​

I can't seem to find the problem but it looks like the splash screen is what's locking up.

I have left it alone for hours and it shows no activity at all after the above.

[skyfishgoo]

seems like dejavu all over again...

did you try deleting "quiet splash" from the kernel parameters in grub?

[claydoh]

I'm unable to log into Kubuntu 26.04 since Feb. 5th.

Have you tried a more current ISO?

I have seen breakages in the past that aren't easily fixable/traceable, with a nuke and pave being the easier option. I suspect stray lib versions not removed, and/or in different locations, and the package database is blissfully unaware of all. With things in Beta now, all that should be locked down now.

[oshunluvr]

Worked with no issues. Thanks again for the suggestion!

[oshunluvr]

Have you tried a more current ISO?

I have seen breakages in the past that aren't easily fixable/traceable, with a nuke and pave being the easier option. I suspect stray lib versions not removed, and/or in different locations, and the package database is blissfully unaware of all. With things in Beta now, all that should be locked down now.

No, I'm updating an early January install on bare metal. I'll try a totally new install when I get time. Thanks for the suggestion.

I was planning on switching from Neon back to Kubuntu since Neon may not live long now that KDE Linux is being developed. I have no interest in learning the Arch way to do things nor do I want to learn how to work in an immutable environment. However, I did just read that Neon will likely be re-based to 26.04 so I would be able to kick the can down the road a bit. My current Neon install is from 2018 so I'm of the mind that a fresh install and new home is past due.

[claydoh]

However, I did just read that Neon will likely be re-based to 26.04

Yeah, the lone main dev plans to keep it around as long as there is interest.

As to KDE Linux, there really is absolutely zero Arch stuff to learn. They just use it to build the base OS image. There is no pacman or aur or anything at all

The immutability part, well, that depends. Currently, things are not fleshed out. When they offer a User focused version, this should be better, but no idea on how much that can do to make it useful for system-level tinkering. As I am wont to do here and there, considering I run it on a Chromebook that needs keyboard support added.

For more 'normal' usage, it isn't bad, even considering it uses pre-release Plasma versions. But most Linux users are NOT normal, lol. Someone who can find everything they need in Flathub will be fine. But most people, even normal users, will find third-party things like VPN clients challenging at this time. A stable release (of the dev version) iirc is hoped to be here in a few months so there is a while still before a user focused version is released.

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, the lone main dev plans to keep it around as long as there is interest.

As to KDE Linux, there really is absolutely zero Arch stuff to learn. They just use it to build the base OS image. There is no pacman or aur or anything at all

The immutability part, well, that depends. Currently, things are not fleshed out. When they offer a User focused version, this should be better, but no idea on how much that can do to make it useful for system-level tinkering. As I am wont to do here and there, considering I run it on a Chromebook that needs keyboard support added.

For more 'normal' usage, it isn't bad, even considering it uses pre-release Plasma versions. But most Linux users are NOT normal, lol. Someone who can find everything they need in Flathub will be fine. But most people, even normal users, will find third-party things like VPN clients challenging at this time. A stable release (of the dev version) iirc is hoped to be here in a few months so there is a while still before a user focused version is released.

I installed KDE Linux in a VM and it seems not horribly different than what I'm used to but I didn't fiddle with it too long. I guess that I've been operating in a certain way for a long time and just stubbornly don't want to change. From a higher level, I can see a future where we might achieve an "unbreakable" Linux release which might dramatically change the OS landscape. I "feel" that one of the main things I love about Linux - my ability to "make it my own" - would become impossible and I don't like that idea. Probably, it's more likely I would just have to learn a new way to do things.

In any case, my livelihood no longer depends on my knowledge of operating systems so this is just chaff.