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Please Don't Promote Wayland

stoppromotingwayland.netlify.app

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Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#21

Post by ants_everywhere »

kstrauser wrote: post #5

I’m not a fan of Wayland or a detractor of X. I’m not personally invested in either of them. I couldn’t care less what’s pushing pixels at my screen as long as it works. That said, what you need to know about Wayland is that the X.org devs mostly migrated to it en masse because they said X had hit an evolutionary dead end and couldn’t be dragged into the present, by the design of it. These were the people who were al…

In case anyone is unaware, X and Wayland are developed by the same group (freedesktop.org)

- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver

- https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland

It's not just that developers migrated to a new project. Wayland is essentially the successor to X and is developed by the same group.

(That doesn't mean there aren't still lots of bugs and sharp corners.)

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#22

Post by eurleif »

rtpg wrote: post #4

I am very open to Wayland in theory but I legit worry because it's been in the air for years and years and it still feels so far away. And some of the Wayland-y points around things like security just never felt relevant to me. Though the real pain points for me have been around the various containerization things that just cause things like my IME to barely function. At least Python 3 if you started your project on…

X11 session support is being removed from the default install of Ubuntu with the upcoming 25.10 release. Gnome and KDE Plasma plan to remove X11 session support entirely within the next few years. Ready or not, Wayland is here.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#23

Post by DiabloD3 »

Wow, what a crackpot website.

The ship sailed when Keith Packard, brilliant programmer and X.org project lead, decided that the era of X11 is over, and no further development will happen to the Xserver, and that the rootless Xserver for Wayland, in the near future, will be the only actually supported version.

This lead to the weird fork of Xlibre that is more about politics than it is about technological solutions.

Everyone has chosen to abandon the security nightmare that is X11, somehow it took 15 years instead of 5. But hey, we finally made it.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#24

Post by xtracto »

rtpg wrote: post #4

I am very open to Wayland in theory but I legit worry because it's been in the air for years and years and it still feels so far away. And some of the Wayland-y points around things like security just never felt relevant to me. Though the real pain points for me have been around the various containerization things that just cause things like my IME to barely function. At least Python 3 if you started your project on…

All engineers implementing Wayland should read Joel Spolsky's seminal article on software rewrite https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

And Martin Fowler article on Strangle Fig pattern.

It's been a waste of resources to have yet another biffurcation on the Linux Desktop ecosystem.

It's pretty sad.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#25

Post by rtpg »

stingraycharles wrote: post #14
rtpg wrote: post #4

I am very open to Wayland in theory but I legit worry because it's been in the air for years and years and it still feels so far away. And some of the Wayland-y points around things like security just never felt relevant to me. Though the real pain points for me have been around the various containerization things that just cause things like my IME to barely function. At least Python 3 if you started your project on…

It’s mostly application support that’s lagging, right? And of course window managers like i3 needing complete replacement, but those seem to be mostly down already.

I guess? I mean like 2 years ago I couldn't even use Wayland on my machine with an Nvidia card (I didn't try that hard, though).

Like this feels super bleeding edge and in that case I really don't get how this didn't _start_ in x11 land and then take over things from there.

My only hope is that money from people who "need" linux graphics to work solves this.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#26

Post by rtpg »

sleepy_keita wrote: post #10
rtpg wrote: post #4

I am very open to Wayland in theory but I legit worry because it's been in the air for years and years and it still feels so far away. And some of the Wayland-y points around things like security just never felt relevant to me. Though the real pain points for me have been around the various containerization things that just cause things like my IME to barely function. At least Python 3 if you started your project on…

The IME problem was the only thing keeping me on "legacy" X11 a couple years ago. Is it still the same today?

My IME issues were so dire I went back to a Mac (well also work giving me a Mac). But my IME issues linked to snaps and the like, not Wayland.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#27

Post by FloatArtifact »

Accessibility is dead to me on Wayland... Until emulate key, mouse presses in other windows, registering global hotkeys that isn't a hack and Enumerating window title and executable.

Wayland fragmented development efforts on Linux. It's gotten a little better as some compositors consolidate, but still pretty awful to cobble together a stack that works for the features above.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#28

Post by superkuh »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #6

A lot of wild quotes here > Training Overhead > $5,000-$15,000 per IT staff member for multi-compositor environment training When's the last time your IT department gave you "multi-compositor training"? > Software Replacement > $500-$2000 in software replacement costs when tools don't work under Wayland > Multi-Monitor > X11: Reliable, consistent behavior > Wayland: Compositor-dependent, often buggy > Distro wars int…

Well, most of the time applications don't work around the new problems wayland has introduced. Most applications on most wayland compositors cannot be used by people who need screen readers.

These days in many places supporting the differently abled legally is on the way out, but I still think it's a good thing. And yeah, the dollar figures smell, but this is a real problem that the waylands introduced by not being a single wayland. One that has so far only been addressed by GNOME in their compositor by introducing two entirely new acccesibility protocols with no support for the last 30 years of accesibility.

If you want to actually be following the guidelines of American's with Disabilities Act of 1990 this might matter to you.

Re: Please Don't Promote Wayland

#29

Post by rtpg »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #12

The primary argument is to avoid fragmentation sprinkled with some other not-well-thought-through points. Distros aren't rolling back to X11. That ship has sailed. You can either help move things along, or drag your feet and increase fragmentation - the thing being complained about.. Everything under the "security" section of this article is so unbelievably wrong, that I'm not sure if it's worth anybody's time to ref…

I don't have a dog in this fight, I would be curious to know about the security stuff. Like is screen sharing a massive pain? Or is it "just" a prompt kind of like in the browser?

Stuff like global hotkeys sounds unfun tho

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