Getting Started With KDE Plasma Mobile
I've been playing a lot with KDE Plasma Mobile, and wanted to document my experiences so far.
I have it working on both a Dell Venue 11 Pro and a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e.
Here's the setup I'm using for both of them:
- Debian 12
- KDE + Plasma Mobile shell
- SDDM (display manager) with virtual keyboard enabled
First, install Debian 12 — make sure to set up an account for yourself and choose KDE as your desktop.
(Remember to install & enable sshd if you need it!)
Then, run this command:
apt install plasma-mobile plasma-mobile-tweaks qtvirtualkeyboard-plugin
The kscreenlocker problem
On both devices, if the system is idle for long enough to go into standby, then kscreenlocker will nearly always will crash.
When it crashes, it shows a screen stating “The screen locker is broken and unlocking is not possible anymore.”
Fortunately, it gives you instructions on how to force-unlock it anyway, but it requires a keyboard, so that's pretty annoying on a tablet.
Here's what I've determined so far:
- If the screen is idle for long enough to lock the screen and then turn off the screen, the screen locker always crashes when I try to unlock it.
- If I lock and unlock the screen quickly, it seems fine.
- If I lock the screen, wait 5 seconds, then unlock the screen... it crashes.
Every time, dmesg outputs two lines that look like this:
[ 1424.914725] kscreenlocker_g[2396]: segfault at 218 ip 00007fd938b46f9c sp 00007ffc4f1c0e70 error 4 in libQt5Feedback.so.5.0.0[7fd938b46000+4000] likely on CPU 0 (core 0, socket 0)
[ 1424.914744] Code: 8d 15 58 fa ff ff 89 f5 53 48 89 fb 48 83 ec 08 48 8b 07 48 8b 40 60 48 39 d0 75 4a e8 5d 08 00 00 48 89 de 48 89 c7 48 8b 00 <ff> 50 48 39 e8 75 0d 48 83 c4 08 5b 5d c3 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 e8 3b