I recognize this is a low priority request (X11 instead of Wayland, why? - #8 by MichaIng) and I’m happy to help although I can use some guidance on what would need to be completed.
Debian ships with Plasma 5. Plasma 6 is the latest version and only utilizes Wayland replacing the need for X11.
My ideal is to add Plasma as a new desktop to DietPi which would install Wayland as part of it’s setup and avoid installing X11.
How would you think about attacking this? Some of my questions:
Would a Plasma DietPi desktop option utilize Debian’s v5 or is v6 an option?
I assume adding Plasma (6) should necessitate having an option to also install Wayland inside of DietPi or would you want to make it dependent on a Plasma only install?
You can not operate Plasma 6 with DietPi based on Debian Bookworm (i.e. our actual images are based on Bookworm), because Debian Bookworm installs Plasma 5.27.
To operate Plasma 6, you need to upgrade to Debian Trixie (aka “testing” instead of Debian Bookworm aka "stable). Then, Plasma 6.2 is installed.
On a raw DietPi installation with KDE plasma installed (as you mentioned above), I could run Plasma 6.2, when I moved to Debian trixie by:
editing /etc/apt/sources.list resp. all files below /etc/apt/sources.list.d and replace “bookworm” by “trixie”
execute apt update && apt upgrade && apt full-upgrade and follow the instructions (normally answer “yes” to the questions resp. automatically restart services resp. keep existing configuration files)
Then do a reboot
Then execute apt autoremove to clean up your system
Thank you. Yes. I should have mentioned Trixie. That’s what I’m using as well so no migration necessary for me.
I’d like to see it in dietpi-software (and happy to put in the work). My question being the inclusion of Wayland. Would the maintainers expect to see that broken out as a separate option in diet-software as well?
My thinking, fwiw, on Trixie, Plasma 6 is the default install which means Wayland is part of the install. So creating a new option for Plasma desktop is fine.
However, I would think we’d want to break Wayland as a separate install as it’s not specifically tied to Plasma?
@MichaIng and me did a test by installing (a nearly minimal) Plasma with apt install plasma-desktop sddm systemsettings plasma-discover
At least, actually X11 (package xserver-xorg etc.) will be also installed. Maybe this will change in the future.
Remark: If you need the basic Plasma applications, use kde-plasma-desktop instead of plasma-desktop above.
Regarding the Plasma installation option, we are planning to look for this if Debian Trixie is out.
Whether an isolated Wayland installation option makes sense (without an X11 server installation) has to be found out then.
Hey, that’s great to hear. I’ve been testing this out on the last dev build from late Oct for Pi5 and Trixie. And here’s what I have so far come up with and doesn’t require X11 installation at all.
I found I needed to additionally install kde-cli-tools and kscreen to help scale the screen and disable power management suspend. Maybe installing kde-plasma-desktop would be a better option.
I wanted to test plasma-workspace-wayland but it’s not a thing right now given Pi5/Trixie/DP/Plasma combo.
# EDITED post - this DOES NOT work as documented
# This installs Plasma with Wayland as the default.
apt install plasma-desktop kde-cli-tools kscreen
apt install systemsettings plasma-discover
systemctl set-default multi-user.target
dietpi-software install 113 189 # Codium installs / Chromium does not at this time
startplasma-wayland
@rpidp : Your commands did not work for me. I used virtual machines (AMD64) on a Proxmox system. I.e. no real SBC, e.g. ARMv8.
Test #1:
I startet a fresh DietPi Bookworm system, upgraded it to Trixie (changing sources.list stuff, apt update, apt upgrade, apt full-upgrade,…).
Then I did your installation steps given above. startplasma-wayland did not start any GUI, I needed to use startx. But then, the GUI did not run fully: No start button area,…
@StephanStS You are correct. I noticed this myself last night. My initial instructions do not work as claimed. I spent some time trying to figure it out last night, but too many variables to diagnose, although I was able to startup using startplasma-wayland.
I asked ChatGPT for some help and it came up with this sequence, however, I couldn’t get that to work for me either. I plan on spending more time this weekend and share an update.
### CHATGPT INSTRUCTIONS
# edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add
# `deb http://deb.debian.org/debian experimental main`
# ChatGPT suggests using `-t experimental` for the apt installs, but this doesn't work either so I've commented out the entire section
apt update
apt install plasma-workspace plasma-desktop sddm
apt purge xserver-xorg* xwayland
apt install qtwayland5 kwin-wayland
systemctl enable sddm
# above commands fails. sddm requires X so the system can't enable the service after the purge a few commands above
# edit /etc/sddm.conf
[Wayland]
Enable=true
[General]
Session=plasmawayland.desktop
systemctl restart sddm
apt purge xwayland
# to test
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
plasmashell --version
# other K installs
apt install dolphin konsole kate
I’m using the Oct 29 version of DietPi for Pi5 and Trixie. While Wayland is the default in Plasma 6, it appears to still require X11
The Debian wiki page for KDE seems to explain how to configure it with Wayland, but I weirdly cannot access it via mobile browser currently: KDE - Debian Wiki
