Solved KDE Plasma 6 in Trixie

[CaffeineAddict]

Which is exactly what M$ devs have been doing

Oh well M$ is totally separate story, their devs are paid to do the work and fail, but M$ still charges its users for crap that they produce.
Linux devs are volunteers but still testing is lacking.

You can also change the scale (Alt + F3 then type in display and hit enter).

Didn't test, already removed xfce.
UI scaling to non-natural value usually results in blurry UI, or fonts or icons.

 

[osprey]

How is LXDE maintained, or is it at all?
When I try to go to their website, I get security warning: https://www.lxde.org/

Same response found here. Following through the security warning, the forums and wiki were not reachable.

There's the LXQT project here: https://lxqt-project.org/about/, which is still in development. It's been used here on a couple of machines without problems. It's stylistically "conservative", meaning reminiscent of traditional DEs of over a decade ago, but has been quite solid. Users here actually moved from LXDE to LXQT when LXDE looked like it was winding down.

The tasksel program in debian offers Cinnamon and Mate as well as LXDE and LXQT.

The arch wiki offers a fairly comprehensive overview of other DEs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

Other alternatives are window managers. Icewm was one that suited me for a while. There's a list of both live and dead ones here: https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/xwmtable.html

Whether it's a "rite of passage" in linux, or not, there was a period lasting years when I spent investigating DEs and window managers, installing literally scores of them to find something that appealed to me. Apart from the learning that emerged from it, I did end up in the tiling window manager ecosystem about 10 years ago and have been there ever since, but I'd say it took me more than 10 years to get there. These things are personal journeys I guess.

 

[tinfoil-hat]

KDE Plasma 6 in Debian Trixie is one huge pile of garbage.

The amount of UI freezings, audio stopping to work, hibernate not working, auto sleep not working, whole system freeze and a ton of other issues I've experienced so far is too much for my patience.
When I was using Bookworm I've heard from other people how buggy Plasma 6 is, now I see my self, it's beyond all repair, time to purge it and install something else, I'm thinking about giving a try to GNOME even though I don't like lack of settings.

are you using Wayland or X11?

 

[KGIII]

Tried both XFCE and GNOME.

I really don't like GNOME, and XFCE is unable to remember my wifi password, I've typed it twice, selected to remember for this user only and then by pressing "save" button it immediately drops it instead of saving it, and so not able to connect to wifi.

You can probably set that manually. Your wireless password is stored in plain text.

Want To See The WiFi Password In The Terminal? • Linux Tips

It's remarkably easy (assuming one can gain access to a privileged account) to get the WiFi password from the terminal.

linux-tips.us

 

[KGIII]

There's the LXQT project here:

Yup. They're still working on it. LXDE is no longer really worked on but LXQt is. The devs from one moved to the other.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

are you using Wayland or X11?

X11, just like in bookworm with KDE 5, because passwordsafe doesn't work well with wayland, wayland is not an option for me unfortunately.
Still haven't removed KDE, will try out wayland.

You can probably set that manually. Your wireless password is stored in plain text.

Want To See The WiFi Password In The Terminal? • Linux Tips

It's remarkably easy (assuming one can gain access to a privileged account) to get the WiFi password from the terminal.

linux-tips.us

Thanks for the tip, but this defeats the purpose of UI approach, if one has to resort CLI.
I really want stable, smooth and flawless DE that I'll be using for years to come.

LXDE is no longer really worked on but LXQt is. The devs from one moved to the other.

Thanks for confirming, I've heard before LXDE is no longer full under development.

The arch wiki offers a fairly comprehensive overview of other DEs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

Other alternatives are window managers. Icewm was one that suited me for a while. There's a list of both live and dead ones here: https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/xwmtable.html

Thanks, I'll certainly explore all available options before making final decision, I'm yet to find something to stand out of GNOME.

 

[KGIII]

I really want stable, smooth and flawless DE that I'll be using for years to come.

Oh, I agree entirely. I was just giving you an alternative in case you REALLY wanted to use that DE.

 

[Mike-BTU]

FWIW, I've been using KDE Wayland for over a year. (KDE for at least 5 years; in Debian and Manjaro). When is the last time you tried Wayland? There were some Wayland bugs at first, but they were squashed.

Maybe you can find an alternative program or a way around your KDE issues.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I've been using KDE Wayland for over a year. (KDE for at least 5 years; in Debian and Manjaro). When is the last time you tried Wayland? There were some Wayland bugs at first, but they were squashed.

Just tried wayland, everything is blurry
I have everything configured for wayland such as DRM modeset.

Maybe you can find an alternative program

Sadly no, password safe doesn't support wayland yet, don't like any alternatives to it.

 

[f33dm3bits]

But devs releasing software with bugs and not testing it is frustrating.

Which version of KDE Plasma does Trixie have, I know there were a lot of issue withe KDE Plasma when it came out and there were a bunch of updates released since 6.0 was released. So wondering if those updates came with Trixie or that they stuck to 6.0?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Which version of KDE Plasma does Trixie have

It's 6.3.6.

I'm so reluctant to dump KDE because no other desktop appeals to me, for audio disappearing it appears it's enough to do systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse
However I still haven't tested how to resolve system not going to sleep automatically.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I've found an interesting article worth reading:

6 reasons why GNOME is still the best Linux desktop environment

Learn why GNOME 3 is a responsive and stable environment that allows the user to focus with minimal distractions.

opensource.com

What's the most influential in it for me is that gnome is stable unlike KDE, that should fit well with Debian, all this time I was under impression that KDE is stable DE because KDE 5 was somewhat stable in bookworm, there were few issues but nothing as breaking as KDE 6.

 

[blizzardfromoz]

I've found an interesting article worth reading:

6 reasons why GNOME is still the best Linux desktop environment

Learn why GNOME 3 is a responsive and stable environment that allows the user to focus with minimal distractions.

opensource.com

What's the most influential in it for me is that gnome is stable unlike KDE, that should fit well with Debian, all this time I was under impression that KDE is stable DE because KDE 5 was somewhat stable in bookworm, there were few issues but nothing as breaking as KDE 6.

That article is from 2017. The writer has a youtube channel.

Go to 2:09:

 

[f33dm3bits]

It's 6.3.6.

On Arch the plasma-desktop package is at 6.4.4. So could be that there are some fixes in there that Trixie is missing.

 

[theLegionWithin]

Which is exactly what M$ devs have been doing, at least with the 24H2 version... endless bugs and issues, even causing BSOD and that not in relation to the clownstrike fiasco.

Microsoft has been testing in Production (ie: after release) for a long time now. its not really new

 

[theLegionWithin]

On Arch the plasma-desktop package is at 6.4.4. So could be that there are some fixes in there that Trixie is missing.

yep, but I dont remember KDE 6.3 being all that slow or that bad. of course, I also am not using debian on any of my computers.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Unfortunately I had to abandon GNOME and return back to KDE.

Been using gnome for 10 days but sadly it's lacking a lot of features I'm used to, workflow is not easy at all, using keyboard shortcuts to navigate windows and desktops is not my thing.

Extensions are not a solution, while gnome itself is way more stable than kde, extensions can turn the tide quickly and break stability if you install a lot of them, not sure how they may affect privacy or security, didn't investigate.

I managed to contain some kde issues, however here and there it still freezes but not very often, animations are running slow but ultimately choosing between living with those issues and using gnome I find living with few issues less of a trouble.

Need to figure out how to turn off remaining window animations in kde.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

i'm sorry for posting on a thread marked "solved." but i have something to say.

i'm surprised the op had more problems with "x11" than wayland session. a few days ago i installed q4os "andromeda". with plasma desktop. it surprised me that for 2-1/2 hours. i was running wayland session! it never suddenly gave up to force me to log in. i was able to drag-and-drop in dolphin. despite other funny behaviors. now i wish i remembered some more. those two issues. and more annoyances. i had from pclinuxos. from the "darkstar" iso dated october-2024. wayland was a bust with that one. decided to replace it with this q4os.

many thanks to the q4os developers for this release.

if it weren't for that. and for sparky linux. i would have steered completely clear of "trixie". "bookworm" being slower than "bullseye" turned me off a long time ago. soon i would have to decide. if i want to remain with a distribution. i cannot add programs for any longer. i'm sad that ubuntu "focal fossa" fell end-of-life.

q4os "andromeda" is less awesome. than my installation of "gemini". but i must have that. to prepare for the future. desktop is getting cuter. but i don't always go for appearances.

for me appearances are better with sparky linux with mate desktop. "seven sisters" release also based on debian "trixie". a bit disgusted however. it's not with mate 1.28, but with the previous release. i read the review a week ago on distrowatch. someone commented about it. as soon as i read it. i became very angry. also angry at myself. i had to install "xdg-desktop-portal-gnome". only so a poorly-written music-creation application. was able to create save file requesters out of zenity.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Update:

After several system updates (now Debian 13.1, previously 13.0) I no longer experience any issues with KDE at all.
I've also fresh reinstalled 13.1

Not sure what package was faulty but now it works great.
Also looking at sudo lnav -r /var/log there are barely any problems reported.