How to get KDE virtual keyboard on Debian

[Yvan Masson]

Le 28/03/2023 à 03:39, Duncan a écrit :
> Yvan Masson posted on Mon, 20 Mar 2023 20:39:23 +0100 as excerpted:
> 
>> Hi list,
>>
>> Using Debian testing, I can not find how to enable virtual keyboard.
>> I installed package `qtvirtualkeyboard-plugin` and it works with SDDM,
>> but not within KDE.
>>
>> When I go to KDE preferences, there is something strange:
>> - If running with Wayland, there is a "Input Devices -> Virtual
>> Keyboard" section, but "None" is the only choice.
>> - If running with X11, there is no "Virtual Keyboard" section inside
>> "Input Devices".
>>
>> Do I need to install a specific package? Or should I configure
>> something?
> 
> No real answer here, but I've wondered the same -- at idle-curiosity-
> priority-level, so I hadn't even looked for candidate packages until your
> post prodded me to do so.  Unfortunately, here on gentoo I come up with
> only the same single plausible package you tried, qtvirtualkeyboard, so no
> help there.
> 
> And I too get only "none" as a wayland option (no X besides xwayland
> installed), tho I imagine that's to be expected without whatever virtual
> keyboard component installed.
> 
> Three other possibilities come to mind, however:
> 
> 1) Maybe it's a stub that for now only works on plasma-mobile, stubbed out
> on the desktop as they intend to add the functionality there, but haven't
> yet.  With frameworks 5 feature-frozen as they prepare frameworks/plasma6,
> if this is the case, it could remain so until 6. (Regarding 6, gentoo/kde
> dev comments suggest it's not expected until late year.  And of course the
> first releases can't be expected to be as stable as the mature 5, so an
> actually usable release is more likely sometime next year, depending on
> your stability expectations.)
> 
> 2) (Less likely?) Perhaps the virtual keyboard doesn't show up if there's a
> physical keyboard plugged in.  Since you say it's working in SDDM, what
> about unplugging the physical keyboard before logging in there, using the
> virtual keyboard to login, and seeing if by some chance it continues to
> work and/or populates the kcm with something other than "none", then?
> 
> 3) Maybe the virtual keyboard has to be run as a system service?  But I'd
> guess that's how you're getting it to work in SDDM, so I don't know...
> Maybe it needs to be configured as a user service as well (started by the
> systemd user instance)?
> 
> Whatever the case, I'm curious on the resolution, so I'll be following this
> thread with interest as well.
> 
Even if you do not give an answer, thanks for you detailed answer 
Duncan: your 3 possibilities are interesting.

As a temporary workaround, and as suggested by someone on 
debian-user at lists.debian.org, I would use xvkbd under X11 for what I was 
trying to do: using OpenBoard (so X11 is required) on KDE with 
interactive video projector.
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