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Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

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Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#31

Post by andrewstuart2 »

martinald wrote: post #7

FWIW I recently switched full time to Linux and have had absolutely 0 problems with GNOME, Wayland and Fedora, though I am using an AMD GPU. wl-copy works fine, askpass works, copy and paste works, screen sharing with Google Meet works, drag and drop works. Using an iphone as a webcam works as does recording my screen. Most importantly using multiple monitors with fractional scaling works perfectly. AFIAK this is not…

My experience lately has been similar. Most things work well now.

But, I think the article has some valid points about how long it's taken to get even this far. And it just kinda sucks that some things are still broken or don't have alternatives (the #1 thing I miss right now is Barrier (Synergy) for using my macbook from my linux desktop). HDR gaming on linux is possible thanks to Valve but it's still nowhere near as simple as plugging in your HDR display and toggling one switch.

And it's been rough getting here, and it seems like there are still some things that are slow and hard to get right. I'm not a display protocol dev, so I don't really have educated opinions about the protocol. But I know it's been a rough transition relative to other projects I've adopted even when there was major pushback (systemd springs to mind).

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#34

Post by wildredkraut »

martinald wrote: post #7

FWIW I recently switched full time to Linux and have had absolutely 0 problems with GNOME, Wayland and Fedora, though I am using an AMD GPU. wl-copy works fine, askpass works, copy and paste works, screen sharing with Google Meet works, drag and drop works. Using an iphone as a webcam works as does recording my screen. Most importantly using multiple monitors with fractional scaling works perfectly. AFIAK this is not…

Yeah? Then try to drag out a tab of firefox or GNOME files to the upper direction, good luck. Then check how "awful" Blender 5.1 titlebar and window frame integrates to GNOME. Have fun trying to make Deskflow/Synergy working on GDM.

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#35

Post by hparadiz »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #22
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #13

I switched to wayland mainly because screen lock on X11 is not possible to do securely. If some way is found to crash the big screen lock window in X11, the attacker gets access.

well if some way is found to crash wayland the attacker also gets access...

You'll get thrown to a tty login prompt.

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#36

Post by Liftyee »

Honestly as someone who mostly operates my computer instead of tinkering I don't care whether X or Wayland or something else, I just want something non-opinionated that works reliably. X doesn't support palm rejection so I can't use my stylus/touchscreen for note taking. Wayland doesn't pass through the pen properly (??) leading to glitches and full screen disabling the pen until I restart the wacom kernel module.

Apparently this bug has been fixed in Ubuntu 26.04 and it's to do with Mutter actually. We'll see when I upgrade.

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#37

Post by chillfox »

martinald wrote: post #7

FWIW I recently switched full time to Linux and have had absolutely 0 problems with GNOME, Wayland and Fedora, though I am using an AMD GPU. wl-copy works fine, askpass works, copy and paste works, screen sharing with Google Meet works, drag and drop works. Using an iphone as a webcam works as does recording my screen. Most importantly using multiple monitors with fractional scaling works perfectly. AFIAK this is not…

I recently had to go through several remote desktop apps before I found one that would work.

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#38

Post by yyyk »

Look, it's a done deal. Some of the choices Wayland made are not to my liking, there will be a long term cost (even static linking won't save you from differing protocol implementations). But it's done and there's no point in complaining.

(Running X11 right now, I'll switch when the distro forces me to, in hope I'll get a bug free experience after everyone else runs it)

Re: Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?

#40

Post by jasoneckert »

In short, this reads like a mix of valid historical pain points and outdated assumptions.

The post frames Wayland security as “you can’t do anything,” but that’s a misunderstanding. Even under X11, any app can log keystrokes, read window contents, and inject input into other apps. Wayland flips this to isolation-by-default: explicit portals/APIs for screen capture, input, etc.

Moreover, the performance argument is weak and somewhat contradictory. The author claims there is no clear performance win, and that it's sometimes slower and hardware improvements make it irrelevant. But Wayland reduces copies and avoids X11 roundtrips (architectural win). Actual performance depends heavily on compositor + drivers, and I've found that modern hardware has HUGE performance improvements (especially Intel, AMD, and Apple Silicon via the Asahi driver).

The NVIDIA argument is also dated. Sure, support was historically bad due to EGLStreams vs GBM, but this has improved significantly in recent driver releases.

Many cited issues are outdated too. OBS, clipboard, and screen sharing issues are now mostly (if not entirely) solved in the latest GNOME/KDE.

I've been using Wayland exclusively on Fedora and Fedora Asahi Remix systems for many years alongside Sway (and occasionally GNOME and KDE). Adoption has accelerated in many distros, and XWayland for legacy apps is excellent (although I believe using the word "legacy" here would be a trigger word for the author ;-).

There's no stagnation here... what we're looking at is a slow migration of a foundational layer, which historically always takes a decade or more in the Linux world.

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