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+Title: Plasma Profile to enable PipeWire, Wayland support
+Author: Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org>
+Posted: 2023-05-21
+Revision: 1
+News-Item-Format: 2.0
+Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma
+Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma/systemd
+Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/plasma/systemd/merged-usr
+Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma
+Display-If-Profile: default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/plasma/systemd
+
+Reasons
+=======
+
+Gentoo's Plasma profile has not had any sound server enabled since the days of 
+KDE's own aRts. As the way we output sound has changed dramatically in the years
+since - using wireless or often several devices, dynamically connected and 
+shared between multiple systems, a modern desktop environment is expected to 
+handle this effortlessly by default.
+
+In Wayland sessions, the video functionality of PipeWire is not only used for 
+screensharing but also to take screenshots and -recordings or simply to cast 
+window content onto task managers' window previews. This is why PipeWire and 
+Wayland enablement are happening at the same time.
+
+Plasma Wayland support has come a long way and we consider it stable enough for 
+daily use with a lot - if not all - systems, even if some known papercuts 
+remain [1]. Therefore it makes sense for Plasma profile to provide sane default 
+settings.
+
+
+Changes
+=======
+
+New global USE flags enabled: pipewire, pulseaudio, screencast, wayland
+New package.use default: media-video/pipewire[sound-server]
+
+We want broad sound server support in packages, and these settings will make
+PipeWire act as our PulseAudio server where there is no native PipeWire support.
+
+
+Impact On Happy X Users
+=======================
+
+Minor. Most dependencies were already required with kde-plasma/plasma-desktop 
+and its dependencies. Upcoming stable versions of kde-apps/spectacle and 
+kde-apps/krfb will depend on (K)PipeWire unconditionally.
+
+No one will lose their X session, but will have the option to easily log in to 
+a working Wayland session at any time.
+
+It is possible to set USE="-wayland" against these changes, but it will amount 
+to no dependency savings, just micro-optimisation in affected packages.
+
+
+User Action Required
+====================
+
+In order to enact all changes:
+
+    emerge -1avUD @world
+    Check out how to configure PipeWire for your purpose [2][3]
+
+In order to keep a PulseAudio or ALSA-only setup:
+
+    Invert above new USE flag settings as needed, see also [2].
+
+In order to avoid media-video/pipewire completely:
+
+    This can only be achieved by losing basic task manager, screenshot/screen
+    recording/sharing functions as provided by Plasma and KDE applications.
+
+
+[1] https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Showstoppers
+[2] https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2022-07-29-pipewire-sound-server.
+html
+[3] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PipeWire