[Qgis-user] QGIS Qt6 Wayland ongoing status

[chris hermansen]

Extremely informative Andreas, thank you.

I should have thought about the developer list! Drat!

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 22:10 Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:

> Hi Chris, Adam and others,
>
> I am not the technical person to answer details, but I am on the QGIS PSC
> and can assure you that building QGIS on Qt6 is high up on our priority
> list (for at least a year or even longer). You can already build QGIS fine
> on Qt6 (for at least 2-3 versions now) but the core devs came across some
> blockers that had to be solved first, before we can bring this to the end
> users without major regressions:
>
>    1. isues around qt3d and webengine compatibility (one could either use
>    3D or the webengine, not both together)
>    2. issues around the fact that Qt webengine cannot output HTML/web
>    output to vectors when rendering to PDF
>    3. PyQt6 bindings had to be done
>
> While the first issue is already solved, the 2nd issue is currently being
> solved by introducing another library (
> https://github.com/JakubMelka/PDF4QT) and the third item is roughly 2/3
> done and still actively being worked on.
>
> Then there is the issue that all QGIS plugins have to be migrated to PyQt6
> ...
>
> We will probably offer QGIS Qt6 builds as technology previews soon in
> parallel to the normal Qt5 builds.
>
> Now - about wayland: all of this has really nothing to do with Wayland but
> has to be done anyway, because Qt5 isn't developed any further and
> QGIS.ORG already invested in Qt6 improvements from which we cannot yet
> take advantage of until we ship with Qt6.
>
> Moving QGIS to Qt6 doesn't automatically mean that all QGIS wayland issues
> are solved - but probably quite a few of these issues.
>
> Hope this clarifies the situation? If you want more detailed, more
> technical responses, I recommend discussions on the QGIS developers mailing
> list. It would only bore regular QGIS users ...
>
> Greetings,
>
> Andreas
> QGIS.ORG treasurer and PSC member
>
>
>
> 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, sot
> 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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