Virtual keyboard unusable on Plasma Wayland (non-touch desktop)

Brainstorm
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1

I’ve filed a bug for this already, but I wanted to raise visibility and get feedback from others.

Bug: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=519561

On Plasma Wayland (Kubuntu 26.04, Plasma 6.6.4), there currently does not appear to be a functional virtual keyboard solution for non-touch desktop systems.

What I tested:

  • Maliit:

    • Runs, but does not appear or function without a touchscreen

    • No reliable manual invocation

  • Onboard:

    • Works partially

    • Crashes on close (segfault)

    • UI inconsistencies under Wayland

  • wvkbd:

    • Fails with:
      virtual_keyboard_manager not available

This leaves no reliable fallback input method for:

  • accessibility use cases

  • temporary keyboard failure

  • mouse-only workflows

  • remote or kiosk scenarios

On X11, Onboard works fine. On Windows, the on-screen keyboard is always available regardless of touch capability.

On Plasma Wayland, there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent.

I’m not trying to point fingers at a specific component here—this seems like a broader gap between:

  • Wayland protocol support

  • Plasma integration

  • virtual keyboard expectations on desktop

Curious if:

  • others are running into this

  • there are recommended approaches I missed

  • there are plans to improve non-touch virtual keyboard usability

This feels like a pretty fundamental desktop usability gap.

2

Have you tried Plasma Keyboard, with KWIN_IM_SHOW_ALWAYS=1 to force it to appear on non-touch devices?