[Qgis-user] QGIS Qt6 Wayland ongoing status

[Nyall Dawson]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2024 at 13:56, chris hermansen via QGIS-User <
qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> 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?

... gather round folks, for a truly sorry tale! Here's the definitive(*)
situation regarding QGIS and wayland.

- Qt 5 based applications do NOT work well under any wayland environment.
There's fundamental broken functionality, and its functionality which QGIS
requires. A good example is trying to drag a toolbar or dock panel --
you'll instantly "break" the application with non functional empty windows.
- This particular issue HAS been fixed in very recent Qt versions. Read all
about it here:
https://blog.david-redondo.de/kde/wayland/qt/2023/08/08/xdg-toplevel-drag.html
. BUT... this fix ONLY works if the desktop environment supports the fix.
So you'll also need a very recent KDE release for this to work. Gnome, in
typical Gnome fashion, have shown no interest in helping out other toolkits
and implementing this new Wayland protocol and so Qt applications (even
those built with Qt 6.6+) will still be broken. There's little hope on the
horizon that Gnome will change their ways, so you'll also need to move to
KDE and put Gnome in the past. 🤷
- So let's say you're running KDE, on a distro with a very recent Qt
version. You'll still need a QGIS build based on Qt 6. That's a heavy work
in progress at the moment. We're all ACTIVELY working toward that, but it's
still some time away. You CAN build master versions and get a mostly
working QGIS Qt6 build, so long as you don't require any Python support,
that is!
- Ok, now lets assume you're on KDE, have recent Qt 6 library, have built
QGIS master with Qt6 support and don't need python/plugins. Yay! Will
everything work on Wayland? Well, not quite!.. There's still going to be
broken functionality (such as the color picker not working outside of the
QGIS application). There's also STILL fundamental missing bits in Wayland
itself, such as proper restoring of Window locations. Every time QGIS opens
a new dialog it'll just be thrown on some random screen at some random
location. There's still no real progress toward that being fixed. Read
about the sorry state of it here:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/247

So yeah, not a happy situation. At least on the QGIS side we're making
progress toward Qt 6 compatibility, and that's all we can really do from
our end.

Nyall




>
>
> 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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