Waiting for Wayland seems like waiting for Jesus' second coming. Apparently its already possible for me but it sounds like I would be using a tech demo. At what point should I switch to Wayland? I'm running Kubuntu 15.10 with KDE Plasma 5.4.2
Well you can use it right now, but the issue is you need to upgrade your distro so that you can have access to the newest form of KDE.
I would recommend KDE neon. You will get a stable ubuntu backbone, with the latest and greatest KDE packages.
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I don't think I want to switch to KDE neon right now but you pointed me to the fact that my Plasma 5.4 isn't the latest. 5.6 is out and, being new, I assumed DE updates would be included in the updates. The 'dist-upgrade' command for aptitude doesn't find anything new. How does one upgrade from Plasma 5.4 to Plasma 5.6?
You get 5.6 by installing neon lol.
Here is the deal. Every distro has a set number of repositories. Those repositories are managed by the distro. Within those repositories you have a bunch of packages that the distro feels comfortable maintaining.
Those packages are things like the DE, various bits of software, programs, and so on.
Ubuntu and its derivatives are notoriously slow to adopt new software because they do not feel that it is "stable".
Other distros feel differently.
Now you can add extra repos that will allow you to get the latest KDE, but it would literally be the same thing as if you were to install KDE neon.
So rather than having a frakenstien conglomeration of packages, I would personally recommend you just install the somewhat official KDE distro and go from there.
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I think NVIDIA has added some Wayland support in their drivers, however I do not believe AMD has anything for it yet. Plus there may be other issues with running games, but if you plan to only use it as a desktop/browser platform then you should be ok.
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As far as I know you can install Wayland on Arch as well.
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Oh right. I think I understand. I came from Manjaro (SPDIF audio only barely worked with a dirty hack), which being a rolling release and having a bleeding edge philosophy would update to 5.6 quicker than Kubuntu. I've done so much distro hopping in a short space in time that I'm not keen for any more.
Anyhow thanks for giving the explanation I needed :D.
Also Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE and its application stack. KDE Neon is LTS Ubuntu with KDE and its application stack. So similar its the same. Is Kubuntu closer to Ubuntu and KDE Neon gives Martin of KDE more control? The name is also confusing, to install KDE Neon as on OS means installing a Desktop Environment as on OS. Of course you aren't you are installing Ubuntu with KDE Neon.
In any case the link to Neon (http://neon.kde.org/download) seems like its not ready for users. I'm 1/4 developer so I might give it a shot. Cheers and sorry if the reply was frustrating.
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Oh no, its not a frustrating response, its just a frustrating situation.
The thing that pisses me off right to hell is this stupid idea of stability.
All these distros think stability is super important (which it is) and they will block new packages from coming out until they deem them stable.
Well That ideology only works if you stick with KDE4 and block plasma 5. Plasma 5.1, 5.2, 5.X, and plasma 5.6 all have updates and bug fixes which makes the software usually more stable.
Its a completely retarded idea to block bug fixes under the guise that you are making things more stable.
Thats why KDE neon exists.
See everyone is going to be moving to a stable core bleeding edge package model.
Opensuse did this with leap. KDE neon is the same way. Ubuntu wants to kind of sort of do this.
And opensuse leap is where I suggest you make your home. Stable core, you can add the KDE repo, and get the latest updates. Supper robust tools to manage your OS. Happy days my friend. Happy days.
As for the name and everything else, its a bit more complicated.
Ubuntu, kubuntu, ubuntu gnome, Xbuntu, and pretty much anything with a buntu in the name is all part of the ubuntu family.
As far as I know they all use the ubuntu repos and packages as their backbone, and then they add their DE, and they have some choice as to what packages they want to include.
Linux mint, elementary OS, KDE neon, and a few others use ubuntu repos and packages at their core, but most of the OS is actually completely managed by the individual teams and they have their own design goals.
Same idea behind manjaro. Manjaro uses the arch core, and everything else is different in some way or another.
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On ubuntu.. ages.
Other distros like Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Gentoo. Pretty much now.
Fedora 24 wont ship with wayland as default only because its currently still missing a few accessibility features that weren't finished before the freeze (it will be default in Fedora 25 (7 months from now). When Wayland is default in Fedora it'll be ready to be default in every distro.
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