Every DE apart from GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cosmic and a couple of obscure tiling WMs is still based entirely on X11. We are still a very long distance away from abandoning X11.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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Yeah, even from a non-accessibility standpoint, they're severely lacking. Text replacement shortcuts, mouse automation, it feels like a nightmare when you long for the control Windows users still have over their systems.
I've been using the Speed of Sound appimage for voice input, but it's just basic whisper to text on a global hotkey. I can get mouse control via python but only relative positioning. I tried to hack in some dead reckoning going to a bounding corner and coming back out but it's super cagey with accelleration which i'm not willing to turn off.
You're not an edge case; there are lots of us out there who would use a proper input api.
It's not so bad like the article author describes, there is work being done to address the input issue e.g. libei and wayland protocols. (also N.Graham answer that says that it should be done on wayland level if they require universal solution is right if a bit unkind)
And how many years will it take before this reaches a usable state, when people need (not just want) it now?
First, it is usable just not the way Talon requires (and its developer doesn't want to support wayland). Second people can use LTS distributions that will ship X11 for many years, and by that time it will either be good enough or won't.
Just to clarify, I didn't write this blog post. It's just intended to raise awareness and spread it around here as well. I just don't believe in editorializing titles :)
You can avoid the ambiguity by posting it as "Author: title of post". This way we can see you attribute the post to someone else.
xdotool and kin didn’t work on Wayland for me.
same, these are surfaced in python, but it's barely usable
device = uinput.Device([
uinput.BTN_LEFT,
uinput.BTN_RIGHT,
uinput.REL_X,
uinput.REL_Y,
])
device.emit(uinput.REL_X, 0)
device.emit(uinput.REL_Y, 0)
device.emit(uinput.BTN_LEFT, 1)
device.emit(uinput.REL_X, -100)
device.emit(uinput.REL_Y, -100)
Yeah I wrote something using a lower level interface. Like at the usb layer or some shit, I forget. I gave that up and went back to X.
There is wdotool, it's not complete re-implementation yet, but it works.
I agree that Wayland has massive accessibility deficits but it certainly doesn't help if the talonvoice developer shuts down attempts to improve the situation with "Wayland is not supported.".
I agree, but this seems like a matter of poor communication. It doesn't sound like the Talon dev knows that actual members of the KDE team are earnestly interested in making Talon work with their Wayland compositor. It sounds like they assumed it's just another user asking for Wayland support without any way of helping to make it happen.
The Talon and KDE devs should open a direct line of communication to actually get this going.