Kde and Systemd - In the News

kapqa · 2026-02-03 10:57:02

Hello ,

am using Devuan 6-7 on the laoptop with KDE Plasma

goes like this

-----------
`'dPPd:,. OS: Devuan GNU/Linux 7 (freia/ceres) x86_64
`:b$$b`. Host: 20KMS0DL1J (ThinkPad A475)
'P$$$d` Kernel: Linux 6.18.5+deb14-amd64
.$$$$$` Uptime: 1 day, 1 hour, 17 mins
;$$$$$P Packages: 4429 (dpkg), 6 (flatpak)
.:P$$$$$$` Shell: bash 5.3.3
.,:b$$$$$$$;' Display (CMN14F2): 1920x1080 in 14", 60 Hz
.,:dP$$$$$$$$b:' DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.4
.,:;db$$$$$$$$$$Pd'` WM: KWin (X11)

most things function, which is comfortable;

i liked that the "airplane mode" is persistent over reboots.

however,
found this in the news.

https://hackaday.com/2026/02/02/kde-bin … d-systems/

so i wonder,
wonder if will be able to continue using it such frictionless-ly?

blackhole · 2026-02-03 12:59:59

It relates to PLM (a fork of SDDM), not plasma itself, but yes it could be a sign of what's to come... otherwise, why fork SDDM to be systemd reliant and make that the default...

Last edited by blackhole (2026-02-03 13:21:14)

steve_v · 2026-02-04 08:49:34

it could be a sign of what's to come

I'd say "definitely is", and probably soon. IME KDE will do what they always do - death by a thousand bugs. Let [thing they want gone] rot until the userbase is sufficiently annoyed, then trot out a replacement that requires [thing they want to depend on] and use it as justification for never fixing what used to work...
Just like X11 support and the "~~x11-only~~ never ever fix these, they're meant to be annoying" tag on the bugtracker.

SDDM has problems sure, but it certainly isn't beyond saving. KDE could have just adopted it as-is (and as initially implied) or pitched in with maintenance, but instead it's an excuse for yet another rewrite, to use systemd user-services for session management... Which will inevitably spread to KDE in general, as D.E. has been not-so-subtly hinting is "the best way forward" for a while now.

why fork SDDM to be systemd reliant and make that the default

Same reason every new app for KDE that runs a background service (e.g. KRDP) and every new control-panel applet that touches services (e.g. plasma-firewall) also depends on systemd, usually for no convincing reason.
Several influential developers want to move all of KDE's various daemons and services to systemd user-units, so they can get rid of KDED & co. They have for quite some time.
The old "sure we support BSD, we've always supported BSD... You just miss out on some new stuff" pot of totally-not-boiling-yet water is the best way to make that happen with a minimum of screaming, so we get "stay calm, it's just an optional feature. SDDM will still work (for now)".

With any luck Gentoo will patch things to use openrc user services, or Sonic DE will gain the traction and the manpower to be an X11-first and systemd-optional KDE fork.
Both efforts would stand to benefit from some cross-distro support and packaging, but as far as Devuan goes who knows. As far as I can see we're still at "read forum, figure it out yourself" for pipewire, with nary a sign of an official proposition (let alone a solution) for user services more generally.

Last edited by steve_v (2026-02-04 08:58:57)

RedGreen925 · 2026-02-04 09:53:30

I'd say "definitely is", and probably soon. IME KDE will do what they always do - death by a thousand bugs. Let [thing they want gone] rot until the userbase is sufficiently annoyed, then trot out a replacement that requires [thing they want to depend on] and use it as justification for never fixing what used to work...

I see you have noticed the same as I have in my got to be twenty-five years of using it now since the pre-1.0 days all them years ago. The way they do the death by thousand cuts method of elimination. I was pissed enough at the x11 rot they did on the transition to the version 6 but seeing the deeper integration with the systemd garbage and the wayland only announce pushed me over the top and I dumped it. I went with the LXQt still uses the toolkit and same type layout but way less resources. First time in years I have seen a load under 1 on my machine and it is on a regular basis, none of this three or four BS anymore for just being logged in. I used to think those people going on about it being bloated piece of junk were just Gnome trolls, they were/are most times, but they actually had a point about the resources the damn thing used for doing next to basically nothing but showing desktop. Who knows if the Sonic people can gather enough momentum to get a fork going to allow for a reasonable means to go forward, I gave the TDE a try as well it is based on the old 3.5 code with a modern skin applies it looks good not like a Fisher Price toy OS those old skins from twenty years ago make it look like. So hopefully there will be couple of choices for people who like the free software they use to actually support freedom of choice not just pay lip service to it, while the developers kiss the ass of the parasite corporations who seek to lock down everything and tell you how to use your own computer.

steve_v · 2026-02-04 10:51:13

my got to be twenty-five years of using it now since the pre-1.0 days

You and me both. I do like KDE, (even the current iteration) but the development model is utterly infuriating. Sadly, warts and all, I'm not convinced there's a better "full DE" option right now.

resources the damn thing used for doing next to basically nothing

It's still not terrible (and still better than GNOME), but only if you get quite brutal ripping out the worst offenders *cough* akonadi.
Bare plasma without all the chaff is comparable to current XFCE IME.

Who knows if the Sonic people can gather enough momentum to get a fork going

I tried it out a little while back, and I can say it at least compiles and runs (or master did at that moment in time) on Gentoo. Currently I'm just cherry-picking a couple of changes on top of upstream plasma, because I'm too lazy to write proper ebuilds and untangle the KDE apps / frameworks dependencies.

TDE

Yes... But also no. QT3 is long dead, and not entirely without reason. Security support might as well be nill, and no modern applications target it so you end up with a pretty horrific mix of QT3,5,6 & a bit of GTK to boot.
I try to stick to no more than 2 clashing GUI toolkits where I can.

kapqa · 2026-02-04 10:57:09

the newer KDE feels a little bit more "color-y" but i don§t mind as long it function well and allows for good flow.

maybe KDE 4 liked very much, but would not ever get to use it for long; (maybe had knoppix installed for portable use on a usb-stick at some time)

now, with newer computer, KDE resource usage became newer a problem;

this laptop even has 16 gb of ram, and the real hog can be firefox AND thunderbird.

but since the this laptop will probably not get much faster, could freeze the OS for the time being, or maybe revert the "rolling" devuan 7 to a more stable devuan 6?

can i just switch the repository back from Freia/Ceres to Excalibur or how could i freeze the OS so that i don§t get trouble once KDE 6.6 get release?

thanks.

(sorry i f could not chime in to the news of what is best or what is slim - login - system)

EDUT:

after fresh-start the OS consume maybe about 3GB of RAM on Devuan 7, with 2 firefox window open (and around 35tab)

Last edited by kapqa (2026-02-04 16:06:46)

brocashelm · 2026-02-04 11:06:21

Well, it's a shame that GTK2 wasn't forked before MATE made the full switch over to GTK3. It's the only workable GUI toolkit in my experience, as I find modern forms of GTK and Qt too restrictive and bloated. I had to mix older Devuan and Debian (pre-Systemd infection) repositories to get the preferred versions of software that I needed. My systems all only have very, very few programs depending on GTK3 (no GTK4 at all) and Qt5 (no Qt6 at all).

I really wanted to like TDE, but it's a bit wonky to set up, and the hard dependency on Konqueror (a shitty file manager and an even shittier Web browser in one) is a major turnoff. If and when I am "forced" to stop using older Xfce for the sake of shiny new shit, and I'd depend on a DE, I would just fuck with LXQt and do whatever it takes to keep as little GN*ME or GTK+ as possible.

RedGreen925 · 2026-02-04 12:49:38

can i just switch the repository back from Freia/Ceres to Excalibur or how could i freeze the OS so that i don§t get trouble once KDE 6.6 get release?
thanks.

No you are committed to them now you have upgraded libc to the newer version it is the MAIN building block of your entire operating system in Linux. Once you do that there is no going back.

I really wanted to like TDE, but it's a bit wonky to set up, and the hard dependency on Konqueror (a shitty file manager and an even shittier Web browser in one) is a major turnoff.

Old Konqueror which it is was at its time the best file manager around allowing the split view of side by side or up/down split or both if wanted. With plenty of plugins so you could sftp, ftp, ssh, smb from the address bar and need nothing else but it to do all of your work if you want. Still can in the modern version too I have numerous bookmarks that do just that to connect to my various machines using them protocols. Then of course the killer feature a split the screen in a top / bottom arrangement so you can see the entire file name and not some truncated piece of junk view that side by side view all other file managers do. Wasting all of that space that can give you a proper view of the name. It is my only browser I have used in all of these years since I first started using it and it works fantastically. I avoid the Gnome like the plague and have for decades now, gtk apps well there are some that you have no choice but to use like the Handbrake though if not feeling like going graphical I have my encoding scripts that do the same thing using the ffmpeg.

Edit:

You and me both. I do like KDE, (even the current iteration) but the development model is utterly infuriating. Sadly, warts and all, I'm not convinced there's a better "full DE" option right now.

Yes it is definitely a polished effort I will give them that but they way they have gone about it over the years has severely pissed me off to the point I do not even care to use it anymore. Who knows perhaps the LXQt will not continue to be my good enough for me to use in its place option. But I have figured out the quirks that bother me and it is working well. If not I will have to build a bridge and get over it on the KDE BS go back to it if it is even possible then.

Last edited by RedGreen925 (2026-02-04 12:57:32)

greenjeans · 2026-02-04 16:48:58

I have my encoding scripts that do the same thing using the ffmpeg.

Man it's great ain't it? I'm in the big love right now with ffmpeg, so many things you can do.

@brocashelm, I probably understand your frustration with gtk 3 better than most right now due to immersion for the last year, it's a real pain to deal with. But it's likely the best candidate for forking gtk, the right group of smart people could fix a lot of it's shortcomings and unneeded complexities.

RedGreen925 · 2026-02-04 19:33:37

Man it's great ain't it? I'm in the big love right now with ffmpeg, so many things you can do.

Oh it certainly is one hell of a program a bit of a steep learning curve to it but damn the things you can do..

brocashelm · 2026-02-04 22:39:56

greenjeans wrote:

@brocashelm, I probably understand your frustration with gtk 3 better than most right now due to immersion for the last year, it's a real pain to deal with. But it's likely the best candidate for forking gtk, the right group of smart people could fix a lot of it's shortcomings and unneeded complexities.

Probably best to start looking into CTK, which is a fork of GTK3 (used for CAFE, a fork of MATE).

Even still, there's a lot that you could do with GTK2 comparatively (two that I can recall being forked are STLWRT and a debloated fork). I would consider no Wayland support a _feature_.

Calamity · Today 10:28:24

no choice but to use like the Handbrake

I found that Avidemux can do most of the things that Handbrake can, with a better interface too.
One thing that's missing from it is setting up MP4 chapters. But encoding works great from my experience.

The AppImage uses Qt6 toolkit with the embedded Fusion theme.

RedGreen925 · Today 11:40:08

I found that Avidemux can do most of the things that Handbrake can, with a better interface too.

It can do more even you can edit the video, combine videos together things like that. I use it all of the time the deb-multimedia.org archive I get it from has the -qt variant you can install of it, which I did.

steve_v · Today 12:56:21

I found that Avidemux can do most of the things that Handbrake can, with a better interface too.

Avidemux is a video encoding swiss-army-knife, handbrake started out as (and to some extent still is) a specialised tool for ripping DVDs. That's a good part of why the interface is a bit strange for general transcoding tasks.
I haven't used either in a while, but back when ripping DVDs was a common thing handbrake was faster than anything else by a significant margin.

Last edited by steve_v (Today 12:57:31)

Calamity · Today 13:42:59

It can do more even you can edit the video, combine videos together things like that.

Yes, it's a very nice linear video editor, something akin to VirtualDub. You can also losslessly cut videos by keyframes, or splice them together if they share the same FPS, bitrate and dimensions. The filter set is quite respectable as well.

I considered adding the deb-multimedia repository and installing it that way, but it requires very careful management and resolution of possible conflicts, so I'm using the appimage format for now. Although it's good that they provide several options for installation.

I haven't noticed much difference in speed compared to Handbrake, but yeah - both programs have their pros and cons. The usage of GTK4 by HB is certainly unfortunate, and the program doesn't play nice with some themes due to their choice to forgo the Libadwaita stylesheet support.

RedGreen925 · Today 14:18:55

I considered adding the deb-multimedia repository and installing it that way, but it requires very careful management and resolution of possible conflicts

Yes it certainly does you have to be careful or you end up with one hell of a mess. But then again is is not made for us it is a Debian idea though his care for respecting the build/install dependencies could be much better. You would think as a Debian developer he would know these things.

greenjeans · Today 15:09:24

The usage of GTK4 by HB is certainly unfortunate,

Is that in excalibur/trixie? Because it's still gtk3 in daedalus.

Calamity · Today 15:30:51

That's correct, it's in Trixie/Excalibur. One of the major disappointments with the upgrade...

From what I use foliate, font-manager and nicotine fell victim as well, but the first two have proper theme support, while nicotine can (thankfully!) be told to use GTK3 via environment variable.

Devarch · Today 19:09:27

Pity.

Only KDE and Cinnamon support HiDPI displays. Some stuff look ugly under xfce and Co while scalled. Gnome is over and the game over. Budgie (which scales excelent) is broken in Excalibur/Trixie (pb. adding items to panel).

Last edited by Devarch (Today 22:32:40)

Devarch · Today 19:12:16

figure it out yourself" for pipewire

why there is no support for user services in openrc? Pipewire starts by services at least in alpine, artix and gentoo. Who knows

grunchy · Today 22:31:15

damn, this is bad news. i had hoped PLM would primarily be a bug-fix fiesta as SDDM has been left to rot.

theregister has a good write-up about this move:
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/26/ … emd_login/

the article says that PLM depends on the systemd-logind service. maybe elogind can be adapted to handle whatever it is that systemd-logind is doing beyond what elogind already handles?

too bad openrc user-services management have not been adopted by devuan. that could provide a way to (semi-automatically?) transliterate systemd user-unit syntax/semantics to something else; or, at least provide insight on how to go about providing user-services management in an sysvinit-based system. but maybe this is not possible.

regardless, this move clearly signals the intent of the KDE devs to willingly abandon part of their userbase. who does that? numpties, the lot of them.

Devarch · Today 22:50:21

https://amutable.com/ -A new secure foundation
Bringing determinism and verifiable integrity to Linux systems

The author is Lennart Poettering

New init -> new security

steve_v · Today 23:03:17

why there is no support for user services in openrc?

There is. The version of openrc in Devuan is, as usual, many versions behind.

RedGreen925 · Today 23:11:19

There is. The version of openrc in Devuan is, as usual, many versions behind.

Well since Devuan only repackages the Debian released packages it is as always Debian is so far behind the curve most times it is pathetic.

Devarch · Today 23:43:55

OK. But Debian is systemd while Devuan is not. Devuan follows Debian. It's OK, the idea is clear. But why does Devuan follows obsolet versions of inits that are not inits in Debian? Here is the difference between Debian and Devuan, why not to improve init? It's done already in other linuxes so it should not be very hard.

Last edited by Devarch (Today 23:44:23)

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#1 2026-02-03 10:57:02

Kde and Systemd - In the News

#2 2026-02-03 12:59:59

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#3 2026-02-04 08:49:34

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#4 2026-02-04 09:53:30

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#5 2026-02-04 10:51:13

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#6 2026-02-04 10:57:09

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#7 2026-02-04 11:06:21

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#8 2026-02-04 12:49:38

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#9 2026-02-04 16:48:58

Re: Kde and Systemd - In the News

#10 2026-02-04 19:33:37

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#11 2026-02-04 22:39:56

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