Bug#902050: kde-plasma-desktop: has severe keyboard latency when displaying remote KDE desktop
Package: kde-plasma-desktop
Version: 5:102
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
Because of <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=900087>
I currently cannot run this fast box (Ryzen 7 1700, 8 cores, 64GB)
very long with direct X display before it locks up. So until that bug
is fixed (likely when kernel 4.17 propagates to Debian Buster) I run
various desktops (e.g., xfce, KDE) on this fast box with xdm installed
and configured in such a way that I can actively manage and display
those desktop results on a slow box (connected to the fast box via a
1Gb/s LAN implemented with approprate ethernet hardware on both ends
plus a crossover cable) where I execute "X -query <fast_box_name>" to
start the X server on the slow "X-terminal" box.
I typically run many instances of konsole and konqueror for my desktop
and for my previous (Jessie) version of Debian, the above X-terminal
method worked so well that it was impossible to tell from latency or
speed issues whether you were running the fast box desktop directly on
the fast box or remotely from the X-terminal. But that has all
changed for Debian Buster of KDE where if you run, say, 5 idle
instances of konsole, the keyboard on the X terminal starts showing
severe latency issues for the active konsole (where it might take a
half second or so to get a response to an individual key stroke).
I hasten to add this is not an issue that is specific to the konsole
example I gave since similar keyboard latency issues occur for
anything having to do with the keyboard such as typing in a URL in the
location bar of konqueror, editing files, etc. In constrast, there
appears to not be any obvious KDE desktop latency issues associated
with the mouse or display. I have also tried running many instances
of konqueror and konsole using an XFCE desktop, and this keyboard
latency issue completely disappears for that case. In sum, the
network neutrality you expect from X works fine for all of keyboard,
mouse, and display for many konqueror and konsole instances running on
an XFCE desktop, and *just* the keyboard part of those good
network-neutral results fails (i.e., shows severe latency issues) if
running the same number of konqueror and konsole instances on the KDE
desktop running on this fast box.
Because of this annoying KDE desktop issue with keyboard latency for
an X-terminal configuration I must necessarily use for a while, I
currently do all my work using the XFCE desktop. But I would be happy
to try the KDE desktop remotely in an X terminal environment again if
you have some additional test you would like me to run or if there is
some newer KDE desktop version you would like me to try.
Alan
-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 4.16.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_CA:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages kde-plasma-desktop depends on:
ii kde-baseapps 4:17.08.3+5.102
ii plasma-desktop 4:5.12.5-1
ii plasma-workspace 4:5.12.5-1
ii udisks2 2.7.6-3
ii upower 0.99.7-2
Versions of packages kde-plasma-desktop recommends:
ii kwin-x11 4:5.12.5-1
pn sddm <none>
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.7+19
Versions of packages kde-plasma-desktop suggests:
pn kdeconnect <none>
-- no debconf information
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