Moving from openSUSE Leap to Kubuntu (and to Wayland)

[anandrajan]

I’ve been running SUSE/openSUSE since late 2003 (following a Linux journey that began with Slackware in 1995 and then RedHat in 1996). With openSUSE transitioning toward ALP (which I affectionately call the alien linux platform), I decided to switch my primary workstation to Kubuntu 26.04 LTS. Here are my installation impressions and a question regarding Wayland vs. X11.

Hardware:

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime X299-A II
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
• Storage: NVMe M.2 (2TB)
• CPU / Network: Standard high-end desktop configuration

Installation Impressions: I was previously running openSUSE Leap 15.6 on the 2TB NVMe drive. I booted the Kubuntu 26.04 installer aiming to expand my / partition (formatted as ext4). While the GUI partitioning step offered repartitioning options, the layout changes didn't take, so I opted to reuse the existing partition structure while explicitly leaving /home unformatted.

I stuck with the open-source Nouveau driver during the installation. At the very end of the installation process, the monitor showed line artifacts and began blinking during session teardown. I had to trigger a manual reboot and expected to re-do the install, but to my pleasant surprise, the base system installed successfully! My /home directory remained intact, and after booting in, I immediately installed the proprietary NVIDIA 595.84 drivers.

The Wayland / Gamma / SDDM Friction: Out of the box, Kubuntu 26.04 defaulted to Plasma 6 on Wayland. Coming from openSUSE (where I relied on nvdock), I immediately hit a wall: under Wayland, hardware color ramps and gamma adjustments inside nvidia-settings and kgamma are unavailable. At the ripe young age of 65, default display brightness without fine-grained gamma correction is a dealbreaker for my eyes.

Furthermore, logging out from the Wayland session produced a black screen with two unrendered, unreadable icon outlines (< and another symbol)—a result of KWin's logout greeter overlay failing to render cleanly over the display manager handoff.

Question for the Community: Since Kubuntu 26.04 ships Wayland-only by default on the ISO, what is the officially recommended procedure to install and switch back to a native Plasma (X11) session?

Specifically:

1. Which meta-packages (plasma-workspace-x11, xorg, etc.) should be pulled from the universe repositories for a clean X11 desktop?
2. Is X11 still recommended for users who require hardware gamma controls (kgamma/nvidia-settings) and rock-solid session teardowns on modern NVIDIA GPUs until Wayland compositor protocols mature?

Thanks for any insight!

[skyfishgoo]

the question about X11 support and what package to install is better directed at the 26.04 sub-forum

and according to the nvidia website your GPU should be using the 595.91.07 driver, but if .84 is the best you can get from the official repositories, then it should be the right one.

[die.boer]

Which meta-packages (plasma-workspace-x11, xorg, etc.) should be pullehe universe repositories for a clean X11 desktop?

​sudo apt update

sudo apt install plasma-session-x11​

Reboot/log out - SDDM - Session - Plasma (X11).

[anandrajan]

Thanks. I used Gemini and based on its recommendations, I did the following:

 
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install plasma-workspace-x11 xorg xserver-xorg-core

and then I selected Plasma (X11). Everything works now but IMHO there should be some kind of check during the installation that the monitor could hang because the Nouveau driver is not yet up to the task. Perhaps the installer could switch to console mode and warn the user.

[barfly]

anandrajan Welcome to Kubuntu. It is indeed a pity that the Kubuntu team did not see fit to have the option to keep xorg as an installable at new install time for the many thousands of Nvidia users and other users for whom Wayland does not YET fit their requirements. It is Canconical's wish to promote Wayland to the fullest extent possible, even if it results in many user's dissatisfaction. Do not blame the Kubuntu developers, when you hit a brick wall like this, just keep reminding yourself that the developers do their best within the bounds they are set and give their time and expertise freely, from which we all benefit.