Problem Description:
KiCad 's about window fails to respond to clicks, many, many other objects, especially text fileds/tables are not clickable/editable after a random time.
Example:
start kicad w/o GDK_BACKEND=x11
observe that the about window tabs do not respond. (click 8 tabs)
start kicad with GDK_BACKEND=x11
observe that the about window tabs respond, for a while - try to switch between 8 tabs, if it works, it may stop doing so in a while/on next window opening. This is very easy to reproduce.
Click those tabs for a minimal test:
Relevant System Information:
This is reproduced on more than one 25.10 computer, both Nvidia driver, and Intel graphics.
Screenshots or Error Messages:
The whole issue is well described here:
KiCad does run on Wayland systems, but with significant limitations and known issues that substantially degrade the user experience. While you can design PCBs using KiCad on Wayland, you will encounter numerous problems that we cannot fix at the application level.
For Professional Use
If you use KiCad professionally or require a reliable, full-featured experience, we strongly recommend:
Use X11-based desktop environments such as:
XFCE with X11
KDE Plasma with X11
MATE
Traditional desktop environments that maintain X11 support
Install X11-compatible display managers like LightDM or KDM instead of GDM if your distribution defaults to Wayland-only
Choose distributions that maintain X11 support - some distributions are moving to Wayland-only configurations that may not meet your needs
Thank you, that was very … enlightening, basically, be stuck in the past or deal with it.
Unfortunately the future of X11 is very limited as big distros are dropping it, so this is a highly temporary “workaround”.
For stupid simple things like restoring window positions, it is incredibly crazy that Wayland does not support it.
For simple things like keeping input working, being able to click buttons - I see no sane reason for KiCad to be the only application that has issues with it.
This issue doesnt seem to be Kicad specific. I started to look into that a bit deeper and it seems any wxWidget app which used wxAui seems to have this problem on 25.10. I created a Kicad issue for it: Kicad issue 22154
@philipaxer Thank you very much for looking into this - it is a frustrating issue, and especially important in these days as new ex-windows-10 users may believe such issues are part of the Linux desktop experience.
The world is moving forward to Wayland, Ubuntu / Gnome and some other distros dropped X11 support. Often this does not look like moving forward- more like a regression.
Think of the new KiCad users that never have seen KiCad operate normally, they will have a very bad first impression and believe it is too buggy for any serious use.
I suggest that KiCad detects Wayland and warns about it - listing some possible issues. Then offers to snooze that warning for a week or permanently. (some users switch between X11 and Wayland, and it could be nice to be reminded)
