Plasma 6.8 and Plasma Login Manager

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I have been following the development of plasma 6.8 and Plasma Login Manager for quite a while now.

Plasma 6.8 is planned to remove the X11 Session.

I would have switched to Wayland a while back but our TW servers are terminal servers used by multiple users so I have stuck with X11 and xrdp to provide the headless, multiuser, multisession support we need.

I am not alone as many schools are also in this situation.

Plasma Login Manager is planned to have that support similar to what GDM+GNOME already provides but last time I checked it still only provided remote control of the active session and not true headless RDP support.

With Plasma 6.8 listed as being released in less than 3 months on 10/08/2026 and the fact that even my Neon test system does not have PLM with headless support, I am quite concerned about 6.8 being released without the support we need.

Could someone PLEASE provide some insight is to the status of Plasma 6.8 and PLM with
headless, multiuser, multisession support we need ?

Are you planning to continue X11 session support in 6.8 if PLM does not provide this needed functionality ?

I would hope that you would change your plans and NOT abandon long term users when the migration path is not ready yet.

It seems that if X11 is removed from KDE and PLM doesn’t provide this needed support then our only option will be to move everyone to GDM+GNOME and abandon KDE but we really do NOT want to do that.

If we are forced into the GDM+GNOME migration, then I don’t see us ever migrating back to KDE.

Have I missed anything or is there something else to consider ?

With only 3 months left it seems more than reasonable to have some guidance and insight as to how this is going to play out so that companies can plan appropriately.

I would have at least expected a test version by now with only 3 months to go.

Any insight would be GREATLY appreciate and help us determine our course of action.

Thank You !

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I’m not doing it myself at present and may be off the mark, but your worries about xrdp may be outdated. Apparently it works and is the most reliable method for remote desktop.

https://www.fosslinux.com/158237/linux-remote-desktop-rdp-vnc-wayland.htm

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The review did not cover waypipe that works well and does not need any X11.

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@smash,

Thanks but my concerns are most definitely not outdated, I have been following the develop and all options for well over a year now.

That article spends a lot of time talking about xrdp with X11. That works perfectly and I’ve used it for years but XRDP does NOT currently work with Wayland ( although development is working on it. )

The Ubuntu and Fedora examples are xrdp+x11 NOT Wayland.

GDM+GNOME + gnome-remote-desktop also works flawless for GNOME desktop users but as I stated we are KDE users.

TigerVNC works with xrdp but NOT with Wayland.
The ssh example is x11 forwarding which does NOT work with Wayland.

They wayland remote desktop reality section talks about using GDM+GNOME which works great if you want to use the GNOME desktop environment but does NOT work with KDE.

RustDesk does NOT provide multiple concurrent sessions for different users like a terminal server does.

I appreciate your reply but I would not have posted if I didn’t fully understand the current state of the Wayland situation. The issue is that X11 is going away in Plasma 6.8 and NONE of the available options which provide true headless, multisession, multiuser RDP support like a terminal server are currently ready and available.

99% of the articles about RDP that I find are about Remote Control of an existing session NOT true Remote Desktop where many users connect and get their own desktop, and that can all occur even while another user is logged onto the local system.

With Plasma 6.8 without X11 support only 3 months away I’m trying to plan how to deal with that if the solutions are not ready yet.

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@barryscott

Doesn’t waypipe require the RDP client and RDP server to both be running Linux ?
Our Linux terminal servers are accessed by both Linux and Windows RDP clients.

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Waypipe is not using rdp protocol, It’s remoting the wayland protocol I believe.

I think i tested waypipe from windows using wsl fedora successfully. But that was a while ago and I rarely boot into Windows.

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I just tested waypipe from Windows 11 using Fedora under WSL2 and it works just fine. waypipe must be installed on both client and server. Note: WSL2 support wayland so GUI apps work.

I use a script wassh:

#!/bin/bash
if [[ "$WAYLAND_DISPLAY" = "" ]]
then
    echo "Error: WAYLAND_DISPLAY is not defined"
    exit 1
fi

/usr/bin/waypipe -c zstd=7 ssh "$@"
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I find it disappointing that X11 was a true Server-client with support for remote mutli-user sessions while the replacement of X11 would not support the same. Dropping features in a replacement is not cool.

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Typically windows 11 users ( and some win 10 still ) are not going to have WSL or be very command line oriented but good to know if that really works.

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Well GDM+GNOME + the gnome-remote-desktop package works quite well with Wayland in my testing but that doesn’t help KDE users and I would not want to move my users from KDE to GNOME.

Plasma Login Manager is going to replace SDDM and it too will have exactly what I need ( similar to what GDM+GNOME + gnome-remote-desktop have accomplished ) the real issues is that PLM may not have the headless support in place for when Plasma 6.8 removes X11.

IMHO, you don’t screw over your user base with a change like this until it is ready. If PLM doesn’t have the feature set yet, then you continue to support X11 until you do.

The terminal servers were one of the big reasons we moved everyone to linux in the first place. It is kind of crazy that linux has always been a multiuser system where Windows has not and now with Wayland the completely left out that basic functionality.

I am still hoping PLM is released and this becomes a non issue but getting details has been difficult.

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Very few people were using the X11 network support.
Instead, most people were either using X11 forwarding via SSH or using a remote desktop protocol like VNC or RDP.

All of these things are also possible on Wayland: forwarding through SSH with waypipe and VNC/RDP connections.

The thing @jmscdba is referring to is a subset of the latter which requires a remote capable login server.

Traditional software for this, e.g. xrdp, didn’t get updated for Wayland quickly enough, so GNOME and KDE have started implementing it in their login managers.
Support in GDM got finished a while ago, support in Plasma Login is being worked on.

My guess is that it is either finished by the 6.8 release date or distributions which support remote desktop setups do not move on from 6.7 until it does

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If GDM is good enough for multi-user login server with remote display, how difficult is it to port it to PLM? I believe, it should be straight forward to moderate effort, if the underlying architecture is similar.
Thanks a lot for the KDE developers who ported SDDM to PLM and pushed its capability forward.

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I think your guess will be wrong for rolling distros like TW which is what my terminal servers are running. So I will be in a situation where other than switching to GDM+GNOME, my only other option is to stop updating the server until PLM has the support. The question is how long can I wait ??? 6.8 is 3 months away, I would have at least expected an alpha or beta by now.

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I would hope that the PLM developers are looking at exactly how GDM did it and adapting where necessary so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

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Sadly I don’t know.

I am actually wondering if GDM couldn’t handle the login and start the Plasma session but I guess that only works locally.

Probably no standard way to hand over the RDP stream between servers

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SonicDE might be an option. At least until Wayland is ready.

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Ah, I see.

I assumed a server would be running something stable, maybe even an LTS release.

Given that 6.7 has just been released a few weeks ago I would be surprised if 6.8 had already reached a state for that.

However the timing of each cycle is likely documented some where.

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TW has been rock solid for us for years. We don’t update every time there is an update and are very selective in the TW build we update to after first testing in another environment.

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You asked the same questions on my blog and I replied over at About Plasma’s X11 session – Adventures in Linux and KDE.

TL;DR I think you’re using the wrong OS for your server. If you switch to a server-focused OS, you can transition to Wayland on your schedule, not ours.

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