KDE is may favorite DE. I’m a satisfied KDE user since I switched my first desktop device to Linux.
Lately I bought a used Dell tablet device. I installed fedora 40 KDE spin. After a few quick tests, I set up my environment. Unfortunately, I only tested the tablet mode extensively afterwards.
To my surprise, KDE is currently almost unusable on a tablet (at least under Wayland). The biggest problem is the poor onscreen keyboard. The Mallit OSK is not very user friendly. It’s too big and it lacks several keys. All special keys like CTRL, ALT or cursor are missing. Many applications do not work with the onscreen keyboard. E.g. Libre Office, Softmaker Office and Chromium-based browsers, to name but a few. If you click a input field, the OSK is not triggered. At least Libre Office has no issues on Gnome. And for all applications like Brave browser which don’t trigger the OSK, Gnome has a swipe-up gesture for bringing up the keyboard in such cases. I can’t find keyboard gestures in KDE.
The other OSK option, iBus Wayland, doesn’t work at all.
Unfortunately, after a few tests, I realize again that Gnome and I will probably not become friends. I badly want to stick to KDE.
So, what are my options here? Does X11 perform better with touchscreens? Or do I have to surrender and go back to Windows on this device?