[Qgis-user] QGIS Qt6 Wayland ongoing status

[chris hermansen]

Adam and list,

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 5:34 PM Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at shikadi.net> wrote:

> > I have been trying to find a mostly definitive and mostly up-to-date
> > conversation about the status of QGIS, Qt6 and Wayland and I'm not having
> > any luck.
>
> What's the underlying need for this information?
>

I don't know if you have recently run QGIS on a Wayland desktop, but there
is a stern message strongly suggesting reverting to X.

So as we seem to be marching away from X and ever forward to Wayland, I
would like to start planning ahead a bit, and I would especially like to
find some real information, as opposed to "I think this (but I really don't
know)", or even worse, the people who can see a bright future for (let's
say) Wayland-only desktops and aren't worried about the bumps on the road
getting there.

Fortunately it seems Ubuntu 24.04 will continue to support X
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-desktop-24-04-lts-roadmap-highlights/41032
so in my case at least I know I can drop back to X if / as necessary for
the immediate future.

>
> > There is some stuff on GitHub but it seems to be at least a year or two
> > old, talking about Qt6.0 and I gather we are at Qt6.6 by now.  Plus
> endless
> > short conversations in places like Reddit that throw off more heat than
> > light.
>
> Updating to a new Qt version is likely going to be a lot of work, so I
> imagine nobody is that keen on starting until there's really no choice.
>

As it happens, a search for qt6 in the QGIS repo on GitHub shows work being
done on qt6, apparently for QGIS 4.  So maybe someone has started already?
I wonder how that's going?

>
> > Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to keep informed on this
> > topic?  Because it seems like Wayland is coming whether we want it or
> not...
>
> Wayland has been around for many years at this point, and is already the
> default on some Linux distributions, which have no problem running
> QGIS.  There is so much legacy code that they are always going to have
> compatibility modules to keep non-Wayland programs usable.  I wouldn't
> worry about any programs suddenly breaking due to Wayland.
>

While I appreciate your attempts to reassure me, this isn't helping.

I'm aware from firsthand experience that Wayland has been around for many
years at this point.  I have even used it on and off.  In fact it's my
daily driver on my laptop.

My concern is learning how QGIS development might converge - or not - with
a Wayland-only future, since it seems several important Linux distros are
leaning away from supporting X to some degree or another.

As to whether QGIS might break under Wayland, there are 31 issues in the
QGIS repo as of this evening related to Wayland in some form or the other.
Plus the warning I mentioned above.

-- 
Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com

C'est ma façon de parler.
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