[gentoo-dev] [RFC] Plasma Profile to switch on PipeWire, Wayland support

[Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org>]

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Title: Plasma Profile to switch on PipeWire, Wayland support
Author: Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org>
Posted: 2023-05-20
Revision: 1
News-Item-Format: 2.0
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma/systemd
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma/systemd/merged-usr
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma
Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma/systemd

1. PipeWire

Gentoo's Plasma profile has not had any sound server enabled since the days of 
KDE's own aRts. As the way we output sound has changed dramatically in the 
years since - using wireless or often several devices, dynamically connected 
and shared between multiple systems, a modern desktop environment is expected 
to handle this effortlessly by default.

This means the profile will enable both USE="pipewire,pulseaudio" globally, and 
enable media-video/pipewire[sound-server] to make it act as our PulseAudio 
server.

User action required:
- Check out what, if anything, you should configure to make PipeWire work for 
your purpose [1].
- For kde-apps/kmix users, a second sound mixer will appear in system tray: 
kde-plasma/plasma-pa as pulled in by kde-plasma/plasma-meta. Quit KMix and it 
will not re-appear on next startup.
- If you want to keep your PipeWire or ALSA-only setup, invert above USE flag 
settings globally, as needed.

2. Wayland

Plasma Wayland support has come a long way and we consider it stable enough 
for daily use with a lot - if not all - systems, even if some known papercuts 
remain [2]. For those willing to switch it makes sense for Plasma profile 
to already provide sane settings. For everyone else it means only negligible 
impact in dependencies, as most of it was already inevitable with 
kde-plasma/plasma-desktop and its dependencies.

Plasma profile will enable both USE="wayland,screencast" globally. The latter 
flag is tied to the video functionality of PipeWire, and e.g. used to 'cast'
window content onto task managers' window previews. This is why PipeWire and 
Wayland enablement are happening at the same time.

User action required:
- If you want to keep your PipeWire or ALSA-only setup with Wayland, note that 
media-video/pipewire installation can not be avoided, but configuration not to 
act as a sound server is possible [1].
- None. No one will lose their X session, but will have the option to easily 
log into a working Wayland session instead.

[1] https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2022-07-29-pipewire-sound-server.html
[2] https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Showstoppers

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