Mageia forum

Hello,

I have a convertible laptop with a stylus that doesn't work well with X11, only with Wayland. I would like to have a virtual keyboard when I use the laptop as a tablet. I have noticed that there is a package called maliit-framework and some other packages related to it. I have installed such packages, yet there is no virtual keyboard. What may I be doing wrong? Can someone help?

Best regards,

Flaviano

I dont know this but... have you checked https://maliit.github.io/documentation/ ?

Possibly you need maliit-framework-qt5 for Plasma and similar desktops, did you install that too and reboot?

Which desktop system do you use?

As an alternative, i see we also have qtvirtualkeyboard5 and qtvirtualkeyboard6

I am using KDE Plasma.

I have installed those packages and rebooted the system. I did not work as intended. I have also installed ibus, thinking it would help me change input method to maliit. It didn't work. Systemsettings does not show any option of virtual keyboard.

The documentation of maliit project gives me two options, as far as I have understood: compiling from source or downloading and installing openSUSE's rpms. I have tried both before and none worked. I thought that since there is a maliit-framework package, there could be something missing in my installation. I am trying as much as I can not to create a "Frankengeia". "Frankendriva" caused me a lot of problems in the past. Because of openSUSE rpms, I changed to openSUSE altogether. Maliit worked fine, but then I got problems with wine (wine worked perfectly with Mageia). Since wine is more important to me, I installed Mageia again.

Well, there are two ways I can follow now. Which one may cause less damage to my OS, compiling from source or installing foreign packages?

More info:
When I try to run maliit-server, I get the following error messages:

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org.maliit.framework: bool MIMPluginManagerPrivate::loadPlugin(const QDir&, const QString&) Error loading plugin from "/usr/lib64/maliit/plugins/libmaliit-keyboard-plugin.so" "A biblioteca compartilhada não foi encontrada."
org.maliit.framework: No plugins were found. Stopping.



Note: "A biblioteca compartilhada não foi encontrada." translates as "Shared library not found."
"urpmf libmaliit-keyboard-plugin.so" does not show anything.

1) As it seems mallit is missing a part, i think you should open a bug on it, so we get it fixed.
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/How_to_report_a_bug_properly

2) maybe try qtvirtualkeyboard5/6?

FWIW, have a look at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Accessibilit ... _Keyboards and maybe try some of the alternatives.
I've glanced over our maliit packages and I don't think we have the keyboard packaged, as this is not contained in the framework repo but it's a separate repo on their github, see https://github.com/maliit
As the keyboard seems to be required by maliit-server, you should open a bugreport as mentioned.

I'll try to whip up a package for it so that you can test, but I'd prefer you try one of the packaged alternatives first.

On a followup, maliit might be dead upstream, there have been no new relases since 2022, and there are a lot of open issues for the keyboard.

So we should ponder dropping Maliit for Mageia 10 then, if it is neither usable nor fixable.
- Or do it provide some useful functionality as is?

I can't really comment on that. Some upstream comments say that it's only useable on a system which has touch input otherwise it doesn't show up, some say it only works in a wayland session.
The packager who imported it is not with us anymore (RIP) and I've not seen any forum posts or mails regarding maliit at all.
That could mean there are no users, and from a quick check it doesn't seem to be required by anything.

But it could also mean that it works without issues just fine for some users ...

I have tried maliit and I can confirm that it works as is and does only work in Wayland session. I have not tried it with anything other than touch input. When I tried to run maliit, it complained (can I say "complained?") that "/usr/lib64/maliit/plugins/libmaliit-keyboard-plugin.so" is missing, and indeed is. I tried to install maliit-plugins from openSUSE repository. The installer said that a library is missing, but when I tried to install it with urpmi, it was already installed, then I gave up.

I will try to compile from source. I just thought that since there is a maliit-framework package, I was doing something wrong and it did not work.

As to qtvirtualkeyboard5/6, I have installed both, yet haven't seen any virtual keyboard.

Since I have seen it working, is reporting a bug a advisable course of action, even though maliit seems dead upstream?

And one more thing: none of the options at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Accessibilit ... _Keyboards is appropriate to my intended use, since none of them works in a Wayland session.

When you say that you tried it and it works, what does it actually do? (even when it complains that "/usr/lib64/maliit/plugins/libmaliit-keyboard-plugin.so" is missing )

Sorry, I was not clear. It does nothing. I should have said that it works on openSUSE. However wine is not working with openSUSE for me. I couldn't find anything about it over the internet, so I think it's a problem with my installation. I only solution I can envision for that is installing the OS again, and since I am about to install the OS again, I will install Mageia again in a few days, even if it means not having a virtual keyboard on Wayland session. But I would like to have one. I am trying to get maliit to work in another computer (not a convertible one) which runs Mageia, then use what I learn to make it work on the convertible computer after I install Mageia again. The problems I am facing now are the same I had with the convertible computer, but I think I can identify when the only thing preventing maliit to work is lack of a touchscreen.

So, I have two problems: one with maliit on Mageia and one with wine on openSUSE. I prefer having wine working (for reasons) so I thought it would be best to try to solve the problem with maliit on Mageia, or not solve at all and just hope that Mageia 10 will have a virtual keyboard for Wayland session. I think that people on KDE are working on something to substitute for maliit, since as doktor5000 said, it's dead upstream.

Maybe this simple caveat: "The virtual keyboard will be automatically enabled when there is no hardware keyboard detected. ", from https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/kwin/kc ... index.html

It seems a quick web search finds some threads to follow
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=plasma+virtual+keyboard

Using drakrpm i found other virtual keyboards packaged in Mageia: matchbox-keyboard, xvkbd, onboard, florence
Also possibly interesting: dasher - Graphical predictive text entry system​

doktor5000 wrote:I'll try to whip up a package for it so that you can test, but I'd prefer you try one of the packaged alternatives first.

Here it is, try it out and mention if it works for you.

I installed the package on the computer with the touchscreen. The maliit icon appears on the notification area, but when I touch a text entry field, the virtual keyboard doesn't appear. I am trying to look for some configuration file which may be wrong. By the way, I have selected maliit as a virtual keyboard on Systemsettings.
Matchbox-keyboard, xvkbd, onboard and florence don't work with Wayland.

Well, you would need to find out why it doesn't show. Best bet is either opening a terminal and as root leaving

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journalctl -af

running in the background, then try any text entry field and see if journal shows any error messages or something about maliit at that time and post it here.

And checking journal logs after a fresh boot if there are any error messages during desktop login with something like

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journalctl -ab |grep -iE "maliit|keyboard"

sudo journalctl -af does not show anything when I try to enter text.

On the other hand,

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 sudo journalctl -ab |grep -iE "maliit|keyboard"



results are the folowing:

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mai 08 19:22:07 localhost.localdomain kernel: input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input3
mai 08 19:22:09 localhost.localdomain service_harddrake[902]: KEYBOARD took:  0:00:00
mai 08 19:22:09 localhost.localdomain systemd-logind[952]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event3 (AT Translated Set 2 keyboard)
mai 08 19:22:21 localhost.localdomain kwin_wayland_wrapper[3043]: The XKEYBOARD keymap compiler (xkbcomp) reports:
mai 08 19:22:21 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: QSoundEffect(pulseaudio): Error decoding source file:///usr/share/maliit/keyboard2/sounds/key_tick2_quiet.wav
mai 08 19:22:50 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: qt.qpa.wayland: No shell integration named "inputpanel-shell" found
mai 08 19:22:50 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: qt.qpa.wayland: Loading shell integration failed.
mai 08 19:22:50 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: qt.qpa.wayland: Attempted to load the following shells ("inputpanel-shell")
mai 08 19:22:50 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: QSGContext::initialize: depth buffer support missing, expect rendering errors
mai 08 19:22:50 localhost.localdomain maliit-keyboard[3041]: QSGContext::initialize: stencil buffer support missing, expect rendering errors



Well, apart from packaging the keyboard, I'm not really sure that I can try to reproduce on a system with touch input, might need to read up on if that can be simulated.
Virtualbox offers an USB multi-touch device, not sure if that works for me.

Please also try to run

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QT_IM_MODULE=maliit maliit-exampleapp-plainqt


and post the full output here, it should run an example application with the keyboard module from maliit.

flavianoep wrote:sudo journalctl -ab |grep -iE "maliit|keyboard"

Can you please try again with

sudo journalctl -ab |grep -iE "maliit|keyboard|xkbcomp"

You can also view the journal without the grep behind that, and check of there are any other lines around the keyboard matches in the log excerpt that might be related and post those too.
You can also attach a full journalctl log here from a fresh boot, after trying with an input text field.

Actually, the package you made works perfectly. I thought that only it would be enough. There were some packages missing: maliit-framework-examples and maliit-framework-qt5. Thanks for all the help. I really don't know how to thank you enough.

Thank you for the heads up and tests flavianoep, and doktor5000 for the support and package.

Next, we should open a bug on adding this missing package to mga9 & Cauldron

I'll try to create that, can also attach my package draft there.

edit: created https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34266