Bug 455335

Summary:	Is replacing kwin still supported?
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	ngoonee.talk
Component:	Startup process	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	normal	CC:	Hi-Angel, kde
Priority:	NOR
Version:	5.25.0
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description ngoonee.talk 2022-06-15 14:41:37 UTC

SUMMARY
Arch Linux recently updated to 5.25.0, among the changes was to have systemdBoot as true. This prevents replacing kwin using KDEWM.

Personally I use i3 with plasma, and have thus disabled systemdBoot in startkderc. Will this continue to work as a supported way of running KDE with a different window manager? Should the "Using Other Window Managers with Plasma" be updated to disable systemdBoot? Or will kwin be required for X11 users at some point in the future?

Comment 1 David Edmundson 2022-06-15 14:47:31 UTC

It is as supported as before, which worked but not officially supported and with no UI.
One cool feature of the systemd boot is it is even easier to swap units about using standard systemd overrides. 

I helped someone on bugzilla once, you might be able to find that.

Comment 2 David Edmundson 2022-06-15 14:50:31 UTC


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 439481 ***

Comment 3 ngoonee.talk 2022-06-16 02:31:56 UTC

(In reply to David Edmundson from comment #1)
> It is as supported as before, which worked but not officially supported and
> with no UI.
> One cool feature of the systemd boot is it is even easier to swap units
> about using standard systemd overrides. 
> 
> I helped someone on bugzilla once, you might be able to find that.

Oh that's a good systemd-compatible alternative method. Unfortunately its user-specific and not selectable (current userbase method of having a separate xsession allows selection during login). So a bit less flexibility.

Agree with your comments on the other bug report - since kwin/plasmashell aren't really separable in wayland this usecase will naturally fall by the wayside over time (which answers my initial question). Hopefully by then the tiling plugins for KDE are better.

Comment 4 Konstantin Kharlamov 2022-06-24 13:34:39 UTC

(In reply to ngoonee.talk from comment #3)
> Hopefully by then the tiling plugins for KDE are better.

It is actually good, but there is a nuance: kwin doesn't support assigning virtual desktops to screens. So you're good as long as you don't use more than one screen 🤷‍♂️