Bug 507997

Summary:	Warn user that VirGL is not enabled when running inside a VM
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	Peter Eszlari <peter.eszlari>
Component:	performance	Assignee:	KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	nate, sitter
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.4.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Peter Eszlari 2025-08-07 19:51:01 UTC

Current versions of virt-manager (5.0) and gnome-boxes (48) don't enable hardware OpenGL acceleration through VirGL by default. Other software like VirtualBox might not even support VirGL.

If Plasma detects that it's running inside a VM and VirGL is not enabled, it should display a warning about reduced performance and recommend to the user to run a KVM+QEMU+VirGL based VM software.

While this might not solve the performance problem for users coming from Windows (but at least they know the cause), it could improve the impression of Plasma by users coming from other Linux desktops environment who want to try it safely in a VM first.

Comment 1 Harald Sitter 2025-08-08 08:35:47 UTC

A while ago I wrote a boot service that is meant to detect this and warn the user https://invent.kde.org/sitter/plasma-minesweeper/-/tree/master/plasma-vm-3d-warning?ref_type=heads

Didn't really do anything with it though.