[gentoo-user] some help with wayland

[Jack]

I've been running xorg (KDE Plasma) for years, and have been perfectly
happy, but every now and then I have tried wayland, with less or even
less success. My recent attempts give me a plasma session in the upper
1024 x 768 of a monitor that does 1920x1080. It also doesn't recognize
the second monitor at all. However, the mouse cursor moves freely
across all of both monitors. I've modified /etc/default/grub per the
Wayland wiki page with no change. My main question right now is where
to find any log of the wayland session. There is a KDE page which says
where to look if you launch wayland from sddm, but I'm launching from a
command line, using startx, with the last line in .winitrc (so I can
also keep my original .xinitrc) of either "exec dbus-run-session
startplasma-wayland" or "exec dbus-launch --sh-syntax
--exit-with-session startplasma-wayland".

Thanks for any pointers.

Jack

[Mark Dymek]

wayland in my opinion is still many years off from being stable. i don’t know why gnome and kde switched to it as default. i have lots of issues with it currently on arch install. my advice would be switch back to xorg.

hopefully the freedesktop people can get their stuff together and fix this buggy and bloated software.

Post by Jack
I've been running xorg (KDE Plasma) for years, and have been perfectly
happy, but every now and then I have tried wayland, with less or even
less success. My recent attempts give me a plasma session in the upper
1024 x 768 of a monitor that does 1920x1080. It also doesn't recognize
the second monitor at all. However, the mouse cursor moves freely
across all of both monitors. I've modified /etc/default/grub per the
Wayland wiki page with no change. My main question right now is where
to find any log of the wayland session. There is a KDE page which says
where to look if you launch wayland from sddm, but I'm launching from a
command line, using startx, with the last line in .winitrc (so I can
also keep my original .xinitrc) of either "exec dbus-run-session
startplasma-wayland" or "exec dbus-launch --sh-syntax
--exit-with-session startplasma-wayland".
Thanks for any pointers.
Jack

[Michael]

Post by Jack
I've been running xorg (KDE Plasma) for years, and have been perfectly
happy, but every now and then I have tried wayland, with less or even
less success. My recent attempts give me a plasma session in the upper
1024 x 768 of a monitor that does 1920x1080. It also doesn't recognize
the second monitor at all. However, the mouse cursor moves freely
across all of both monitors.

Stating the obvious, but have you tried systemsettings to change the Display
resolution? Logout, then login.

Also, have you tried dropping into a console and back again into the wayland
desktop?

I know some of the above sounds like cargo-culting, but I have found them to
work with mixed results.

Post by Jack
I've modified /etc/default/grub per the
Wayland wiki page with no change. My main question right now is where
to find any log of the wayland session. There is a KDE page which says
where to look if you launch wayland from sddm, but I'm launching from a
command line, using startx, with the last line in .winitrc (so I can
also keep my original .xinitrc) of either "exec dbus-run-session
startplasma-wayland" or "exec dbus-launch --sh-syntax
--exit-with-session startplasma-wayland".

Without sddm, you can run the startplasma-wayland stanza from a console, do
your thing, logout and the console would have captured various logs - just as
startx does. Alternatively, to check wayland or xwayland applications from
within wayland, run in a terminal:

qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.showDebugConsole

I moved to wayland 2-3 years ago for the opposite reasons to you. After the
odd update(s) Xorg had started playing up with two monitors, causing the
Plasma Task Manager to disappear, messing up the resolution, switching the
primary monitor from left to right, and other problems I can't recall.
Reconfiguring Plasma settings would not survive a reboot. I never bottomed
out the causes of these problems (Plasma, Xorg video driver, mesa) and was
about to give up on Plasma when I thought of trying out Wayland. Surprisingly
Wayland provided a more stable desktop than Xorg had become! I have three
systems running Wayland, all with radeon graphics. I don't know if Nvidia
needs particular tweaking for NVENC, I've no experience with Nvidia in
general. An intel laptop with Enlightenment works in Wayland, although the
odd xwayland application fails to launch (e.g. Gkrellms).

[Jack]

Post by Michael

Post by Jack
I've been running xorg (KDE Plasma) for years, and have been
perfectly happy, but every now and then I have tried wayland, with
less or even less success. My recent attempts give me a plasma
session in the upper 1024 x 768 of a monitor that does 1920x1080. It
also doesn't recognize the second monitor at all. However, the
mouse cursor moves freely across all of both monitors.

Stating the obvious, but have you tried systemsettings to change the
Display resolution? Logout, then login.

Display Settings said that 1024x768 was the only available resolution.
(see below)

Post by Michael
Also, have you tried dropping into a console and back again into the
wayland desktop?

Same behavior.

Post by Michael
I know some of the above sounds like cargo-culting, but I have found
them to work with mixed results.

I've seen stranger things work.
I'm not sure what in your response that gave me a clue, but although I
modified .xinitrc into .winitrc to use startplasma-wayland, I was still
calling it with startx. DOH! So now, just running .winitrc gets me
full resolution.

However, running as a new user, it sees both monitors, but running as
my existing user, it only sees one monitor. At least now I can start
digging through changes in .login/.config between the two users.

Post by Michael

Post by Jack
I've modified /etc/default/grub per the Wayland wiki page with no
change. My main question right now is where to find any log of the
wayland session. There is a KDE page which says where to look if
you launch wayland from sddm, but I'm launching from a command line,
using startx, with the last line in .winitrc (so I can also keep my
original .xinitrc) of either "exec dbus-run-session
startplasma-wayland" or "exec dbus-launch --sh-syntax
--exit-with-session startplasma-wayland".

Without sddm, you can run the startplasma-wayland stanza from a
console, do your thing, logout and the console would have captured
various logs - just as startx does.

still didn't notice anything useful in the output, other than finally
noticing that X was still starting when I least expected it.

Post by Michael
Alternatively, to check wayland or xwayland applications from within

I might still try that, but it's that basic system, not any particular
application that was the issue.

Thanks for the clue, or at least triggering me to find it.

Post by Michael
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.showDebugConsole
I moved to wayland 2-3 years ago for the opposite reasons to you.
After the
odd update(s) Xorg had started playing up with two monitors, causing the
Plasma Task Manager to disappear, messing up the resolution,
switching the
primary monitor from left to right, and other problems I can't recall.
Reconfiguring Plasma settings would not survive a reboot. I never bottomed
out the causes of these problems (Plasma, Xorg video driver, mesa) and was
about to give up on Plasma when I thought of trying out Wayland.
Surprisingly
Wayland provided a more stable desktop than Xorg had become! I have three
systems running Wayland, all with radeon graphics. I don't know if Nvidia
needs particular tweaking for NVENC, I've no experience with Nvidia in
general. An intel laptop with Enlightenment works in Wayland,
although the
odd xwayland application fails to launch (e.g. Gkrellms).

I have also had odd behavior with X and two monitors, but I always
managed to get it working without excessive effort. My most persistent
problem was if the right monitor was plugged into the primary output,
reordering the monitors in the Display Settings would eventually get
lost and require me to do it again. At this point I can't remember why
I was so against just switching the cables.
Final point - I still haven't found where the wayland log is when not
using sddm.

Jack

[Michael]

Post by Jack
I have also had odd behavior with X and two monitors, but I always
managed to get it working without excessive effort. My most persistent
problem was if the right monitor was plugged into the primary output,
reordering the monitors in the Display Settings would eventually get
lost and require me to do it again. At this point I can't remember why
I was so against just switching the cables.

In my use case, it was related the user wanting a higher quality calibrated
monitor on the right hand side to examine and process photographic samples of
products, while the left was used to set up layouts and run usual productivity
apps.

Post by Jack
Final point - I still haven't found where the wayland log is when not
using sddm.
Jack

When you logout and return to the console from which you launched wayland,
isn't there some output showing what was running and any problems with it?

[Jack]

Post by Jack

Post by Jack
I have also had odd behavior with X and two monitors, but I always
managed to get it working without excessive effort. My most

persistent

Post by Jack
problem was if the right monitor was plugged into the primary

output,

Post by Jack
reordering the monitors in the Display Settings would eventually get
lost and require me to do it again. At this point I can't remember

why

Post by Jack
I was so against just switching the cables.

In my use case, it was related the user wanting a higher quality calibrated
monitor on the right hand side to examine and process photographic samples of
products, while the left was used to set up layouts and run usual productivity
apps.

Post by Jack
Final point - I still haven't found where the wayland log is when

not

Post by Jack
using sddm.
Jack

When you logout and return to the console from which you launched wayland,
isn't there some output showing what was running and any problems with it?

Nothing that (at the time) made any sense to me. What was happening is
that I was inadvertently launching startplasma-wayland with xorg
running, so I can see KWin getting confused. Now that I understand
that, I can try again and see if the output actually gives any hint(s)
I missed.

[Jack]

Still some work to do, but much better now.

In the sterr output when run as a new user where both screens are used,
I saw
Checking screens: available: (QScreen(0x55723012fa90,
name="DVI-I-1"), QScreen(0x55723011a010, name="DVI-I-2")) redundant:
QHash() fake: QSet() all: (QScreen(0x55723012fa90, name="DVI-I-1"),
QScreen(0x55723011a010, name="DVI-I-2"))

but run as my regular user, where wayland only finds one screen, I saw
Checking screens: available: (QScreen(0x55ff257aaaf0,
name="DVI-I-2")) redundant: QHash() fake: QSet() all:
(QScreen(0x55ff257aaaf0, name="DVI-I-2"))

After flailing about trying to figure out why one of the monitors
didn't seem to be available, I found kscreen-doctor and I realized that
I COULD select the "missing" monitor in the Display Settings and enable
it. I'm still having problems getting that change and the relative
positioning of the two monitors to stick across sessions, but at least
I've now got stuff to work with.

Thanks for the pointers.

[Jack]

Post by Jack
Still some work to do, but much better now.
In the sterr output when run as a new user where both screens are
used, I saw
Checking screens: available: (QScreen(0x55723012fa90,
QHash() fake: QSet() all: (QScreen(0x55723012fa90, name="DVI-I-1"),
QScreen(0x55723011a010, name="DVI-I-2"))
but run as my regular user, where wayland only finds one screen, I saw
Checking screens: available: (QScreen(0x55ff257aaaf0,
(QScreen(0x55ff257aaaf0, name="DVI-I-2"))
After flailing about trying to figure out why one of the monitors
didn't seem to be available, I found kscreen-doctor and I realized
that I COULD select the "missing" monitor in the Display Settings and
enable it. I'm still having problems getting that change and the
relative positioning of the two monitors to stick across sessions,
but at least I've now got stuff to work with.

While figuring out the kscree-doctor commands to set the displays, I
discovered I had some old data in ~/.local/share/kscreen. Deleting
that folder appears to have let plasma simply find the right default
configuration, without my actually needing to set or fix anything.
That folder has not been recreated by plasma, so I don't know why it
was overriding reality, nor where the equivalent now lives.

[Wol]

Post by Michael
Without sddm, you can run the startplasma-wayland stanza from a console, do
your thing, logout and the console would have captured various logs - just as
startx does.

Does that actually work now? Last I tried I ended up looking for the
docu, and found that it said that was a bad idea and not guaranteed to
work. Certainly on my system, it just hung with, iirc, no logs whatsoever.

Once I enabled sddm.service, it worked fine ...

Cheers,
Wol

[Michael]

Post by Wol

Post by Michael
Without sddm, you can run the startplasma-wayland stanza from a console, do
your thing, logout and the console would have captured various logs - just
as startx does.

Does that actually work now? Last I tried I ended up looking for the
docu, and found that it said that was a bad idea and not guaranteed to
work. Certainly on my system, it just hung with, iirc, no logs whatsoever.
Once I enabled sddm.service, it worked fine ...
Cheers,
Wol

It works here with Radeon graphics and Intel graphics (no Nvidia to try):

dbus-run-session startplasma-wayland

What works less satisfactorily or not at all on this laptop, is Ctrl+Alt+F2 or
some other console and then returning to F1. The wayland desktop rendering is
corrupted with horizontal tearing and flickering on the monitor. I can't see
any menus to restart/logout. Sadly Ctrl+Alt+Backspace has no effect on it.
If/when it locks completely the magic SysRq key combo does not work either.

Due to muscle memory, dropping in a console is a regular occurrence with me,
so I only launch wayland with sddm. Sessions started with sddm can be
recovered, if I first return to F7 where sddm is running, then to F8 where the
wayland session is.

[Jack]

Post by Michael

Post by Wol

Post by Michael
Without sddm, you can run the startplasma-wayland stanza from a
console, do your thing, logout and the console would have captured
various logs - just as startx does.

Does that actually work now? Last I tried I ended up looking for the
docu, and found that it said that was a bad idea and not guaranteed
to work. Certainly on my system, it just hung with, iirc, no logs
whatsoever.
Once I enabled sddm.service, it worked fine ...
Cheers,
Wol

dbus-run-session startplasma-wayland
What works less satisfactorily or not at all on this laptop, is
Ctrl+Alt+F2 or some other console and then returning to F1. The
wayland desktop rendering is corrupted with horizontal tearing and
flickering on the monitor. I can't see any menus to restart/logout.
Sadly Ctrl+Alt+Backspace has no effect on it. If/when it locks
completely the magic SysRq key combo does not work either.

Well, switching consoles was working for me for a while, but is now
broken as described. However, typing Alt-F2 and then logout, then
hitting Enter, seems to end the session, apparently cleanly (or cleanly
enough?). I first tried "kwin_wayland --replace" but without success.
I'm not certain if it needs some other parameter to be fully
successful, as on at least one try, the screen went totally black for a
bit, then the mouse pointer reappeared, but nothing else.

Post by Michael
Due to muscle memory, dropping in a console is a regular occurrence
with me, so I only launch wayland with sddm. Sessions started with
sddm can be recovered, if I first return to F7 where sddm is running,
then to F8 where the wayland session is.