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Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#81

Post by sylware »

Since there are many wayland compositors, wayland clients must be very conservative (don't be fancy) and most of all respect the dynamic discovery of the interfaces and features and must adjust (from core to stable interfaces).

For instance, a compositor may not support a clipboard, and the "data" related interfaces must be queried for availability (those interface are stable in core) and the client must disable such functionality if not there (for instance, wterm terminal is faulty because it forces a compositor to have such interfaces... but havoc terminal is doing it right). I don't know yet if libSDL3 wayland support "behaves" properly. wterm fix is boring but should be easy.

As wayland usage, it is probably almost everwhere (and Xwayland is there for some level of legacy compatibility).

(I am currently writting my own compositor for AMD GPUs... in risc-v assembly running on x86_64 via an interpreter)

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#82

Post by sylware »

badgersnake wrote: post #37
lpcvoid wrote: post #29

I've been using Wayland (wlroots/swaywm) for a few years now and it's been flawless, even with an eGPU. But I'm also running all AMD hardware, that may be a factor. Life is too short for nvidia bullshit on Linux.

I am the same, now. But I did have it working previously on Nvidia and it was good enough. I’ve also used the TILE patch at work and that seemed pretty good on the 5k screens they have there. I switched to get support for different scaling on different outputs and I have gone back.

The right way to handle high DPI is at the GUI toolkit level. Scaling in the compositor is just a dirty fix for legacy apps.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#83

Post by sylware »

mavamaarten wrote: post #54
fabian2k wrote: post #19

I just recently switched to Linux since I had some weird Windows issues I couldn't fix. I've tried to switch a few times before, but the main problem at some point was that I didn't have proper fractional scaling on Linux. And that alone pretty much made Linux unusable for me on my specific hardware. Wayland fixes that, so that part is a huge improvement to me. Unfortunately this also limited my choice of Distros as…

Yeah, fractional scaling is absolutely the one thing that I miss on Linux. On X11 it's too slow and laggy. On Wayland I have... Wayland issues. I don't entirely love MacOS (mostly because I can't run it on my desktop, lol). But it does fractional scaling so well, I always choose the "looks like 1440p" scaling on 4K resolution, and literally every app looks perfect and consistent and I don't notice any performance imp…

It seems wayland has fractional scaling, but it is recent, but the bottom of this is high DPI handling should be handled at the GUI toolkit level. Compositor scaling is just a dirty fix for legacy GUI apps.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#84

Post by sylware »

kallistisoft wrote: post #33

At this point the primary thing that's keeping me from switching to Wayland (KDE) is lack of support for remote desktop software, especially with multiple monitors... Hopefully AnyDesk and Remmina will address this issue before KDE ends it's mainline X11 support next year.

:) This is a feature of a wayland compositor: I don't want it able to do remote.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#85

Post by imtringued »

gsliepen wrote: post #2

A rather big problem is that Wayland is just a protocol, not an implementation. There are many competing implementations, like Gnome, KDE and wlroots. The problems you have with one of them might not appear in another. The reference compositor, Weston, is not really usable as a daily driver. So while with Xorg you have a solid base, and desktops are implemented on top of that, with Wayland the each desktop is reinven…

The real problem with post X compositors is that the Wayland developers assumed that the compositor developers will develop additional working groups (an input protocol, a window management protocol, etc) on top of the working group that exclusively focuses on display aka Wayland. Wayland was supposed to be one protocol out of many, with the idea being that if Wayland ever turns out to be a problem it is small in scope and can be replaced easily.

People who are thinking of a Wayland replacement at this stage, mostly because they don't like it, will waste their time reinventing the mature parts instead of thinking about how to solve the remaining problems.

There is also a misunderstanding of the ideology the Wayland developers subscribe to. They want Wayland to be display only, but that doesn't mean they would oppose an input protocol or a window protocol. They just don't want everything to be under the Wayland umbrella like systemd.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#86

Post by sylware »

Hendrikto wrote: post #36
safety1st wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's actually a very active fork of Xorg called Xlibre, started by a former Xorg contributor, which seeks to "revitalize and modernize" X: https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver?tab=readme-ov-file

This guy started that Xlibre fork over throwing a fit because he was told not to break Xorg with his contributions, and he ranted that he just wants to be able to merge whatever he wants. I would not trust the stability of that fork at all.

I build my own distro, I build myself Xorg: I did witness his Xorg breakage all over the place.

I did welcome happily the revert of all his code.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#88

Post by Solarsail »

Phelinofist wrote: post #47
thanatos519 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have essential workflows using x2x, xev, and xdotool. Apparently this kind of stuff is contrary to Wayland's security model, so I'm stuck on Xorg, and I'm ok with that.

Out of curiosity, what are these workflows?

Not the GP, but I recall the KeePass password manager using xdotool for its autotype feature. I struggled to get xdotool to work correctly back in 2014 on a Debian 7 personal computer. Not familiar with 'x2x' or 'xev'

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#89

Post by glimshe »

Note to people on this thread: the impression the discussions give is that Linux isn't ready for prime time desktop use. I thought Wayland was the latest and greatest, but folks here report issues and even refuse to ever use it.

Windows and Mac Os, for all their faults, are unquestionably ready to use in 2026. If you are a Linux on desktop advocate, read the comments and see why so many are still hesitating.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#90

Post by simonra »

My question is how long will it take for core necessities like push to talk in discord running in a background tab in my browser while I game with my 50+ closest friends to work under wayland. I hope I don’t develop a need for accessibility tooling the next couple of decades given the current progress.
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