Plasma on Wayland
by Adam Batkin
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
5 hours, 11 minutes
No login screen after update for VMWare Fusion fedora 33 VM
by Barry Scott
I updated my VM and I no logged have a login screen.
The only thing I have spotted at the moment is a problem with sddm-helper.
# systemctl status sddm
● sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2021-01-23 16:30:10 GMT; 47s ago
Docs: man:sddm(1)
man:sddm.conf(5)
Main PID: 934 (sddm)
Tasks: 4 (limit: 5828)
Memory: 84.7M
CPU: 448ms
CGroup: /system.slice/sddm.service
├─934 /usr/bin/sddm
└─937 /usr/libexec/Xorg -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{30741cdf-5986-4495-a598-b44f1a9f322d} -background none -noreset -displayfd 16 -seat >
Jan 23 16:30:10 vmf33.chelsea.private systemd[1]: Started Simple Desktop Display Manager.
Jan 23 16:30:11 vmf33.chelsea.private sddm-helper[943]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=995) by (uid=0)
Jan 23 16:30:15 vmf33.chelsea.private sddm[934]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 11
Any one else seeing this?
I attempted to roll back the transaction but dnf history
rollback did nothing and did not report an error either.
I did try rolling back parts of the update to did not manage
to find what might have been the cause.
Barry
1 day, 6 hours
What package for widget bugzilla
by Ed Greshko
I want to write a bugzilla against the Bluetooth widget that appears on the System Tray. However,
I can't seem to find what package it should be written against. How to determine that?
--
The key to getting good answers is to ask good questions.
1 day, 19 hours
Plasma "exit screen" black background
by Ian Pilcher
After upgrading from F32 to F33, I now have a black background in the
Plasma "exit screen." (This is screen that appears when you select
"Leave" from the desktop pop-up menu and offers the Sleep, Restart,
Shut Down, and Log Out options.
I remember having this issue before, but I can't remember how I fixed
it.
Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?
--
========================================================================
In Soviet Russia, Google searches you!
========================================================================
1 week, 2 days
Freezing Plasma in Fedora?
by Mikhail Ramendik
Hello,
I had to leave Fedora a year ago because of breaking KDE Plasma
updates mid-cycle (even on "current minus one" Fedora). I have since
learned that this problem is unavoidable because of the Plasma release
cycle, when the previous (non-LTS) release immediately stops being
supported; this forces an update mid-cycle to a new Plasma and
glitches can happen.
I am looking at trying again, but can I somehow freeze all Plasma
packages, while not disabling updates for all other stuff? I know what
"dnf versionlock" is, but how do I create a correct list for it?
The idea would be to freeze Plasma packages in advance of a Plasma
version update and unfreeze a month after the new version goes into
Fedora, watching for critical security issues in the meantime.
--
Yours, Mikhail Ramendik
Unless explicitly stated, all opinions in my mail are my own and do
not reflect the views of any organization
1 week, 2 days
Coordinating resolution of BZ 1912046
by Ben Cotton
I've been asked to coordinate a resolution of BZ 1912046 (BASH_FUNC
environment variables reigning havoc and it just keeps getting worse)
between systemd, GNOME, and KDE maintainers. Anyone want to volunteer
to be the contact?
[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1912046
Thanks,
BC
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
1 week, 3 days
Are these rkhunter warnings serious?
by Lester M Petrie
Hi,
I am running KDE in Fedora 33. With some fairly recent update, I have started seeing the following warnings from rkhunter. They mostly seem tied to kde components.
[13:19:12] Warning: Checking for possible rootkit files and directories [ Warning ]
[13:19:12] Found file '/lib/libkeyutils.so.1.9'. Possible rootkit: Sniffer component
[13:19:12] Found file '/lib64/libkeyutils.so.1.9'. Possible rootkit: Sniffer component
[13:19:12] Found file '/usr/lib/libkeyutils.so.1.9'. Possible rootkit: Sniffer component
[13:19:12] Found file '/usr/lib64/libkeyutils.so.1.9'. Possible rootkit: Sniffer component
[13:19:12]
Warning: The following processes are using suspicious files:
Command: abrt-applet
UID: 1000 PID: 2505
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-applet
UID: 2610 PID: 2505
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-applet
UID: 2611 PID: 2505
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-applet
UID: 2620 PID: 2505
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrtd
UID: 0 PID: 958
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrtd
UID: 990 PID: 958
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrtd
UID: 992 PID: 958
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dbus
UID: 0 PID: 2614
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dbus
UID: 2617 PID: 2614
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dbus
UID: 2618 PID: 2614
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dump-journ
UID: 0 PID: 993
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dump-journ
UID: 0 PID: 994
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: abrt-dump-journ
UID: 0 PID: 995
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: akonadi_akonote
UID: 1000 PID: 2915
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: akonadi_akonote
UID: 2929 PID: 2915
Pathname: 3604249
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
... many,many more entries
Command: sssd
UID: 0 PID: 924
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: sssd_be
UID: 0 PID: 1015
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: sssd_nss
UID: 0 PID: 1058
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
Command: trivial-rewrite
UID: 89 PID: 402543
Pathname:
Possible Rootkit: Spam tool component
This seems to have been introduced sometime between Jan 3 and Jan 8.
--
Lester
1 week, 4 days