I made the switch recently, and have some things to report. It's noticeably faster - a pleasant surprise. Screen sharing via Nextcloud works, expecting Jitsi et al to work too. Audio issues resolved: I use OS-level microphone muting instead of app muting (Jitsi, Nextcloud, etc). No longer are the hot-keys and mouse actions on widgets out of sync, leaving me unsure if I'm muted or not. Works 100% of the time. The audio quality *seems* distinctly better in Nextcloud meetings. Finally, an extremely odd issue where WebRTC sounded terrible with crackling and popping sounds *only when 3rd monitor* enabled is *gone*. That took months to realize the sound was fixed when I disabled that monitor - now I don't have to do that. (YouTube audio was never an issue, just WebRTC.) I'm running KDEneon FWIW.
Have you tried Kubuntu? Neon is latest KDE on top of Ubuntu LTS. I don't think desktop influences audio. On 2026-02-10 20:40, Ron via Talk wrote:
I made the switch recently, and have some things to report.
It's noticeably faster - a pleasant surprise.
Screen sharing via Nextcloud works, expecting Jitsi et al to work too.
Audio issues resolved:
I use OS-level microphone muting instead of app muting (Jitsi, Nextcloud, etc).
No longer are the hot-keys and mouse actions on widgets out of sync, leaving me unsure if I'm muted or not. Works 100% of the time.
The audio quality *seems* distinctly better in Nextcloud meetings.
Finally, an extremely odd issue where WebRTC sounded terrible with crackling and popping sounds *only when 3rd monitor* enabled is *gone*.
That took months to realize the sound was fixed when I disabled that monitor - now I don't have to do that. (YouTube audio was never an issue, just WebRTC.)
I'm running KDEneon FWIW.
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William Park via Talk wrote on 2026-02-10 18:30:
Have you tried Kubuntu?
Its packages were too stale for my liking.
Neon is latest KDE on top of Ubuntu LTS.
Perfect.
I don't think desktop influences audio. I wouldn't have thought switching composers could influence audio either, but while "voice quality sounds better" is quite subjective, it's irrefutable that the crackling is gone now.
And, it's *extremely* weird. WebRTC + Xorg + 3rd monitor = noisy. WebRTC + Xorg + disabled 3rd monitor = fine. WebRTC + Wayland + 3rd monitor = fine (maybe even better than before). I just cannot fathom what might be responsible for the noise that drove me nuts during video calls for almost an entire year. 100% reproducible, -100% discoverable.
On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 9:06 PM Ron via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
William Park via Talk wrote on 2026-02-10 18:30:
Have you tried Kubuntu?
Its packages were too stale for my liking.
Neon is latest KDE on top of Ubuntu LTS.
Perfect.
I don't think desktop influences audio. I wouldn't have thought switching composers could influence audio either, but while "voice quality sounds better" is quite subjective, it's irrefutable that the crackling is gone now.
And, it's *extremely* weird.
WebRTC + Xorg + 3rd monitor = noisy. WebRTC + Xorg + disabled 3rd monitor = fine.
WebRTC + Wayland + 3rd monitor = fine (maybe even better than before).
Fascinating - - - a 3rd monitor! Would you please describe your monitors? TIA
o1bigtenor via Talk wrote on 2026-02-11 04:55:
Fascinating - [snip] a 3rd monitor!
Would you please describe your monitors?
Left to right: Dell 1920x1200 DVI main monitor * Firefox * Firefox incognito: most browsing done here GPU#2 RX570 Acer 1920x1080 HDMI * Thunderbird * konsole GPU#2 RX570 8GB OC "Armor" LG 1920x1080 DVI * Firefox YouTube GPU#3 nVidia (ancient GeForce 8500 GT) GPU#1 is integrated and I can't get it working simultaneously with RX570. Maybe should revisit, but don't have DP nor HDMI monitors to plug into it.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 5:47 PM Ron via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
o1bigtenor via Talk wrote on 2026-02-11 04:55:
Fascinating - [snip] a 3rd monitor!
Would you please describe your monitors?
Left to right:
Dell 1920x1200 DVI main monitor * Firefox * Firefox incognito: most browsing done here GPU#2 RX570
Acer 1920x1080 HDMI * Thunderbird * konsole GPU#2 RX570 8GB OC "Armor"
LG 1920x1080 DVI * Firefox YouTube GPU#3 nVidia (ancient GeForce 8500 GT)
GPU#1 is integrated and I can't get it working simultaneously with RX570. Maybe should revisit, but don't have DP nor HDMI monitors to plug into it.
Thanks I might (heavy on the indefinite) might be interested as I have 4 monitors like yours and a 5th 4k 43" - - - love the screen real estate and so far I find no one who has say 4 or 5 monitors running on Wayland. Thanks again!
Ron via Talk said on Tue, 10 Feb 2026 19:06:07 -0800
William Park via Talk wrote on 2026-02-10 18:30:
I don't think desktop influences audio. I wouldn't have thought switching composers could influence audio either, but while "voice quality sounds better" is quite subjective, it's irrefutable that the crackling is gone now.
And, it's *extremely* weird.
WebRTC + Xorg + 3rd monitor = noisy. WebRTC + Xorg + disabled 3rd monitor = fine.
WebRTC + Wayland + 3rd monitor = fine (maybe even better than before).
This is a guess: Audio on Jitsi requires a heck of a lot of processing power. I draw this conclusion based on my 2020 switch from 2 cores 2 threads 16GB RAM to 6 cores 12 threads 64GB RAM. On the old machine, sound was bad enough that 100ms the dropouts significantly reduced legibility, something you don't want to happen when you're charging good money to train a remote team. With the new machine, legibility is pretty close to 100%. Maybe Wayland uses less processing power, leaving more for your sound. SteveT Steve Litt http://444domains.com
Steve Litt via Talk wrote on 2026-02-11 12:03:
This is a guess: Audio on Jitsi requires a heck of a lot of processing power.
Interesting idea, but it was never a problem on previous computer, AMD FX(tm)-8320 Eight-Core Processor, 16GB RAM - very anemic processing power. But when I upgraded a year ago to AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6-Core Processor, 32GB RAM, I threw old parts found laying around into new box. And that nVidia G86 [GeForce 8500 GT] is attached to the monitor that needs disabling for audio (WebRTC, not YouTube) to work well. I'd suspected interference, but Wayland fixing the issue puts that idea to rest. Bloody weird, and I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen with my own eyes the ability to reproduce it reliably. Anyone else telling me this, I'd doubt it. One untested scenario: moving WebRTC to that 3rd monitor instead of disabling it. Since that's where YouTube sounded good, would WebRTC sound good there too? Unlikely, and I'm not interested in pursuing it further as everything's working so well now.
A few months ago I went on a journey that took me through a number of KDE-using distributions. Here are some observations based on that journey: - Avoid KDE Neon. I had used it for quite a while but left when it stopped being the KDE flagship. That honour now goes to the immutable KDE Linux (which is more of a reference platform than one aimed at end-users). When KDE Linux was released, its developers had said that having a state-of-the-art release of the desktop sitting on old LTE versions of core OS software was not reliable or sustainable. As a result Neon is now something of an orphan and IIRC is only being maintained by a single person. - Non-LTS Kubuntu is indeed more stale than many KDE distros but still not so bad. Kubuntu is more stale than Fedora which itself is more stale than CachyOS/Arch (where I ended up). - For a distro that is business-stable and solid on KDE, you might want to also have a look at the two SUSE offerings. All of the above, I recall, now default to Wayland. Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 On Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 22:07 Ron via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
William Park via Talk wrote on 2026-02-10 18:30:
Have you tried Kubuntu?
Its packages were too stale for my liking.
Neon is latest KDE on top of Ubuntu LTS.
Perfect.
I don't think desktop influences audio. I wouldn't have thought switching composers could influence audio either, but while "voice quality sounds better" is quite subjective, it's irrefutable that the crackling is gone now.
And, it's *extremely* weird.
WebRTC + Xorg + 3rd monitor = noisy. WebRTC + Xorg + disabled 3rd monitor = fine.
WebRTC + Wayland + 3rd monitor = fine (maybe even better than before).
I just cannot fathom what might be responsible for the noise that drove me nuts during video calls for almost an entire year.
100% reproducible, -100% discoverable.
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On 2026-02-10 22:06, Ron via Talk wrote:
William Park via Talk wrote on 2026-02-10 18:30:
Have you tried Kubuntu?
Its packages were too stale for my liking.
Neon is latest KDE on top of Ubuntu LTS.
Perfect.
If you haven't done too much modifications, then try Fedora/KDE and CachyOS/KDE. They are as "latest" as you can get, and both are 100% Wayland.
One more thing I've noticed with Wayland: I often add videos to the playlist, sometimes until there are 20 videos there. When I want to reorder the sequence, moving items up the list was really hard: grab, drag up, let go before scrolling goes nuts and I lose my place. As a work-around, I'd reorder items by always moving things down so I could control placement. With Wayland, dragging items in either direction works flawlessly. Unexpected & unexplainable. But yet another pleasant surprise with Wayland. YMMV, but with KDE it's possibly better than Xorg now.
participants (5)
-
Evan Leibovitch -
o1bigtenor -
Ron -
Steve Litt -
William Park