Talking about X11 again in my opinion is superfluous, as all distros have gone straight to Wayland and it is now becoming the main engine, so X11 will increasingly fall into disuse until it is no longer maintained.
Even talking about Windows or MacOS OSKs is useful since they may have some useful features/approaches that may be worth considering.
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I know I’m always the usual naysayer, but can you explain to me why gnome doesn’t need this protocol and kde does? Having said that, I can’t speak for Apple, as far as Windows is concerned it has its own OSK, but Windows basically never changes its graphics engine or other things, Windows has always been the same, only the things that kids like change, so the little lights rather than other stupid things like that.
hm, what do you mean? 
afaik Gnome does not have any accessibility OSK on Wayland (or even X11, only third-party). The built-in OSK only shows up when focusing on text fields, and not in all apps (e.g. does not work in Discord).
Something like this should be possible in KDE already (I guess it’s just that iirc it never had built-in OSKs), but you said yourself that such OSKs are too limited.
(https://github.com/Vishram1123/gjs-osk)
Not is perfect but it is certainly an optimal point from start is a good is an osk for gnome.
hm, yeah, that’s a good question. 
It works much better, can send keys not just to the text fields, and not limited to the Gnome apps like their built-in OSK.
And apparently the author did not even have to do some kind of weird hackery, it just uses Clutter (which seems to be abandoned since 2022), I guess more low-level source code is here clutter/wayland/clutter-input-device-wayland.c · master · Archive / clutter · GitLab
I managed to get Onboard working on wayland. Kubuntu 25.04
#1 Edit the shortcut in the menu. Within the KDE Menu Editor look for the Environment variables field and add “GDK_BACKEND=x11”.
#2 Go to Onboard preferences page. Under Keyboard – >Advanced set:
Input Options → Input event source: GTK
Key-stroke Generation → Key-stroke generator: uinput
If you have time please try it. I would like to know if it works for others too.
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I can confirm that this works on Arch with Plasma 6.4.2!
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Will it work with sddm during login?
If ‘yes’ how would you configure it?
Same here CachyOS with Plasma 6.4.3
It works on bazzite with Plasma 6.4.5. Tysm!
Thank god I can finally use Wayland because this works like a charm on CachyOS Plasma 6.5.2.
This worked for me with some modifications:
- I had to install the
onboardpackage from this unofficial package ( COPRleigh123linux/onboard) since it’s not available on Fedora 42 anymore. Though that package itself is unmaintained, see other discussionCan’t get Onboard to work on Fedora 40on the Fedora discourse board. - Setting the keystroke generator to
uinputdid not work: clicking on the virtual keyboard did not generate any actual key presses.
What worked was theXTestoption.
The first time you try to use it by clicking on the virtual keyboard, you’ll see a popup asking for permission to remote control your session (e.g. the kind of popup you would see if you tried something similar with KDE Connect).
I’m running these versions:
copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:leigh123linux:onboardversion 1.4.2 x64_64- Fedora 42
- KDE Plasma version 6.5.2, KDE Frameworks version 6.20.0, Qt version 6.9.3
- Kernel version 6.17.8-200.fc42.x86_64 (64-bit)
Confirmed working on Debian GNU/Linux 13 with KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland).
What finally worked for me was using Onboard with X11 + uinput:
-
Launch Onboard with:
GDK_BACKEND=x11 onboard -
In Onboard Preferences → Keyboard → Advanced:
Input event source: GTK
Key-stroke generator: uinput
Additionally, I had to enable uinput properly on Debian:
- Load the uinput kernel module
- Create a udev rule to allow user access to /dev/uinput
- Add my user to the uinput group (relogin required)
After that, Onboard reliably sends key events under Plasma Wayland.
Tested on:
Debian 13, Plasma 6.3.6, Wayland, kernel 6.12.57+deb13-amd64
I’ve found this really nice and easily customizable virtual keyboard. Only problem being its an .py file and nothing more, its not recgonized by KDE.So you have to manually launch from taskbar, but still way better than maliit in my opinion.
I can’t send links (I assume its because i’m new user?) but its called “vboard” and avaible on Github.
Very cool! (here’s the link: GitHub - mdev588/vboard: Virtual keyboard for Linux )
It does have instructions for creating a shortcut which Plasma will recognise in the Readme
Yeah, but its a desktop file. What I meant was automaticly launching on text input focus like maliit and other osks. Since its recgonized as a normal app ather than a osk.
KDE Plasma 6.5.4 wayland on NixOS 25.11 also working well, with default onboard in nixpkgs. Only have to run with GDK_BACKEND=x11 (full command: QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb GDK_BACKEND=x11 onboard)