One of the facts which I have written about before, is that modern desktop managers will use compositing – i.e. will use hardware-acceleration – to render desktop effects, specifically, when we are only running regular, 2D applications with a GUI. This feature exists with the old KDE 4, under Debian / Jessie, as well as with the new Plasma 5, under Debian / Stretch.
Under Debian / Jessie, this feature is extremely stable. Under Debian / Stretch, it is not yet so.
What will happen under Debian / Stretch, as far as I can make out, is that if an attempt has been made to disable compositing, instead of this succeeding, the desktop-session becomes corrupted, in that black rectangles will display, when we simply open multiple windows / dialogs. AFAICT, This can only be fixed, by rebooting / starting a new user-session.
I became aware of this, when running Steam-based games on the computer I name ‘Plato’. When games run that are heavy on OpenGL / Hardware-Rendering, it’s normal for the game-platform to try to switch compositing off, because often, the hardware-rendering of the game is not compatible with the desktop-compositing. After I have finished my session with Steam, the rendering errors in my desktop manager become noticeable, and Steam does not gain the permissions, to install any system software.
I do not blame this on Steam per se, because I can reproduce this problem by just clicking <Shift>+<Alt>+F12, which used to be the key-combination under KDE 4, that toggled desktop compositing on and off at will. Within seconds, under Plasma 5, this key-combination will also cause the malfunction.
(Updated 12/03/2017 : )
Now, there is a simplistic workaround for me:
Continue reading There is a bug in the Wayland Compositor, under Debian Stretch.