KDE and Plasma Probably Won't be Wayland-Only

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 28, 2025,
updated Nov 28, 2025

Based on false pretexts, some folks brainwash us into thinking Wayland is "inevitable" for KDE users. In reality, however, KDE stuff gets forked (KDE 3.5 is still alive) and many distros proved that systemd can be avoided if the developers are sufficiently eager. It'll be the same with Wayland.

KDE and Plasma users who rely on scripts/applications that don't support Wayland ought not worry; for many years to come X (or X11) will still be an option.

Wayland's wishful thinking and false prophecies go over a decade back.

"The Plasma Team" - a generic name which made the announcement - makes no disclosure/s about corporation/s or personal affiliation/s. This was its first and last blog post:

This could just as well be IBM staff. In LWN, the following long comment stands out at the top:

I was not pleased when seeing the amount of errors in KDE 6.
KDE works with Wayland in a starting program - ending program - loop.
Not when using a lot of editors, shells, ... - where the workplace
is crucial ... like for professional workstations - or desktops.


I don't know whom to blame for the lack of features which
had been in CDE - but when no one needs professional features,
no one seems to work in a professional way any more.


But saving session should be one of the 1st things one would expect
to get working - I am not sure but I might read something about
this would be realized by Wayland protocols ... but not ready yet.


It seems a smartphone is all one needs to work in the digital world,
while no professional ever takes a smartphone seriously.


I hope KDE will get stable and I wish for a feature complete Wayland
experience - and like to work with it.


But security is just a bet - not a proven feature - and the lack of speed
when playing games show that a lot went wrong on the way to heaven.


I think dreaming or making perfect plans are not the way to achieve
a big technology win - except by marketing.


After 16+ years (as started in 2008) of Wayland development a lot
is lacking - and since years it was told that Wayland is ready ...
which I can not confirm - not at all.


And I can work with X11 why Wayland is not capable concerning my
workflow. Maybe any professional work with computers is about
to get illegal ... ;)
Otherwise, I don't think Wayland makes any sense in the current form.


A pletora of Wayland compositors show that there had been no clue in
the beginning and no real consolidation was done in all these years ...
so why are people still pretending Wayland is the future when it does not
even come near feature wise to the same level as CDE (started mid 1993
by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SunSoft, and USL).


I think this is striking. And 'Wayback' should mean using X11 and not
trying to build on shattered ground.


We will see if that could ever be fixed ...

The immediate reply to that was sympathetic:

I feel you on the no working session saving and reloading next login. I really enjoyed that feature in KDE back when I still used X11... although I think it has been broken (or just not implemented) in the 6 series completely. Another feature I'd like to see is in konsole, it saving tabs and tab names. Given that I usually want 19 tabs with specific names when I start up, it is a pain to have to do all of that manually.

Anyhoo, with regards to having applications auto start, you the autostart config works and I've just listed the programs I want open. Sort of a manual session. Works well enough but of course it doesn't remember the desktop each program was on, and forget about Activity support. Admittedly, it has been a while since I've even tried session features in KDE Plasma... so I would love to be wrong and find out, silly me, they implemented already.

Now, having said all of that, I do not want to sound like a whiny, entitled person. Maybe it is too late. But I do indeed appreciate all of the hard work they do and have actually contributed funds a few times, but nowhere near as much as I should be given that I've been using KDE since 1998. I strongly encourage folks to donate to the project.

There are several more complaints further down the page, with some people (as usual) trying to blame applications rather than Wayland-related software with its shortcomings and inferior performance. █