Gnome -> KDE Plasma DE Keyring Issue

[KyleRConway]

I was pointed toward this software based on an issue I've seen before and a family member is experiencing regarding keyrings after installing KDE Plasma on top of an initial Gnome DE (in this case Fedora). My understanding is that you've created a tool that currently can protect DE's that want to install on top of other DE's... but also that you're working on fixing common issues that result from this behavior.

On the one hand, I'm hoping to gain some understanding of how you currently handly this keyring issue (if you do), or how we might work to identify &/or report this issue up-stream to the appropriate parties (maybe KDE/Gnome) as I also remember experiencing this issue many many years ago.

In any case, here's the issue as described to me most recently:

A family member installed KDE Plasma Desktop on top of a Fedora Gnome installation (has both DE's installed, but started with Gnome) and is loving the Plasma desktop... but KDE Wallet doesn't seem to play nice with whatever GPG keys were automatically set up on Gnome. I'm not totally clear on what's happening, but it's presenting a password field that he doesn't know (or, if he does, it's not being accepted), and I'm told this wasn't an issue on Gnome? Any thoughts?

I think he's just going to do a fresh install at this point, but I'd love to understand enough to report an issue well. My best understanding is that the Gnome login seems to seamlessly store and unlock certain passcodes following initial login screen somehow. Super convenient until you install KDE plasma DE and it seems like your login password for Gnome isn't what will unlock your keyring for KDE Wallet (I think). When I tried searching I found a lot of random posts, but never anything approaching a solution. It would be good to resolve as I'm seeing more and more people try Linux and DE-switching via apt/dnf/etc. is irresistible once you start feeling comfortable.

Very much appreciate the project you're undertaking here.

[lawmurray]

Thanks for raising this one @KyleRConway, it's a common issue I think.

Mending Wall does not currently handle keyrings. My understanding is that while, historically, GNOME Keyring and KWallet have been used separately for GNOME and KDE, the freedesktop.org Secret Service API is meant to replace them, providing a common interface for all desktop environments with a common store. The details may require some checking, but both GNOME Keyring and KWallet can work as that common store I believe, and then anything can access them via the Secret Service API, regardless of which desktop environment is running. Most apps are using this new approach already, some apps are yet to update; or at least, that has been my experience.

I had this issue myself recently. For a while I just used GNOME Keyring on GNOME and KWallet on KDE and stored things twice if necessary. That mostly worked, and occasionally broke (e.g. Signal seemed to only work on GNOME, were I originally set it up). Recently, I decided to migrate all my passwords and keys etc to KeePassXC, which can also work as a Secret Service API backend. All my apps on both GNOME and KDE are now happily using the one KeePassXC database, besides a few that seemed tied to GNOME Keyring (e.g. Proton VPN was one), where I found alternatives.