161–170 of 502 posts
is it possible to create another alternative to both x11 and wayland that might correct some of these issues? (especially now with ai assistance?) I can see arguments for improving x11 but wayland still isn't there and I end up having to not use it for that reason
Even if someone made something, are they really going to get buy in from all the major players?
It’s Wayland. It’s over.
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> They did what they thought was best. My problem with it is their proxy for "best" seemed to be "opposite of X11." This was not a solid engineering choice, and I think this post is trying to demonstrate, that had costs. I'd probably be completely fine with Wayland if it didn't have this obsession with military style desktop security. If it was as open as extensible as X11 by default then we all would have switched.…
They were in a better position than anyone else to be able to make those calls. To whatever degree the choices didn’t work out, which I think is likely overstated, they learned something. But if they just threw everything away again, people would be pissed. Again. This all feels like so much Monday morning quarterbacking.
I don't trust blind appeals to authority.
> But if they just threw everything away again
No one suggested that.
> This all feels like so much Monday morning quarterbacking.
I don't like the system. I don't know what to tell you. I write a lot of X11 software. I don't really want to switch to writing Wayland software. The developers missed this point of view.
The adoption rate is unusual. I'm offering an explanation. I understand people consider it hostile to Wayland but I can't understand why. If you want to solve the fundamental problem, then I have to admit, I'm part of that problem, for the reasons stated. You can ignore them, but you'll have to live with an exceedingly slow adoption, which as the article points out, may be so long that it is replaced nearly the time it is finished. Which would not be ironic considering that's exactly what is happening to X11.
Again, I have nothing against leaving X11, but it should clearly be a hard sell to anyone who likes X11 to go to a platform that is actively hostile to some of it's well regarded core features.
Open source has become fractious. It feels intentional. I say all these things because I honestly wish it was not. If none of this had happened we'd have a genuine alternative to the commercial offerings, and given some of their choices lately, we could have greatly capitalized on that. Que bono?
Disclaimer: I don't have any skin in this game, I was fine with X11 and I am fine with Wayland, and I actually think it's nice to have both (and more, like Xlibre I think?). I understand complaints about systemd, I don't understand the complaints about Wayland. This whole article sounds like a big rant and doesn't seem to bring much information. > I also don't care for the "security" argument when parts of the core r…
Microsoft is correctly being called out for forcing people onto Windows 11, even though it's entirely possible for users to remain on 10 with workarounds.
Gnome is forcing people onto Wayland, that you can stop using Gnome or choose to use an outdated OS doesn't really change that for me. I guess if you don't want to say they're being forced onto Wayland, they are definitely being forced to change their display setup: use Wayland, or don't use Gnome, starting with Ubuntu 26.04 next month.
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It's just some of the so many reasons why the "Year of the Linux Desktop" will never see the light. Linux is doomed to run mainly headless on a dark chamber hardware. As always when the Linux Desktop is just starting to take off, somebody comes up with a new great self destructive idea(wayland), it always has been like that and probably will never change.
Have you USED macOS 26?
people may remember 'Y' from many years ago, AFAIK it was suppose to replace X, but never got to the point were Wayland is now. >The original conceit behind Wayland is to only implement what is needed for a simple Linux desktop And this is my biggest issue with Wayland. If it started out with portability in mind maybe I would give it a try. But I am sticking with X because it is fully usable on the BSDs.
I do wonder what the BSDs will do. The Wayland developers were the X developers. The problems with X all still exist.
How big a share of the desktop market do the BSDs have compared to Linux? I imagine it’s quite small, unfortunately.
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 we…
> 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) Author’s argument is those hardware improvements could have been had for free with X11 upgrades. I’m not saying it’s a complete argument. But talking about architectural wins sounds like conceding the argument.
I do NOT miss having tearing all the time with X11. There were always kludgy workarounds. Even if you stopped and said ok, lets not run nvidia, let's do intel they have great FOSS driver support, we look back at X11 2D acceleration history. EXA, SNA, UMA, XAA? Oh right all replaced with GLAMOR, OK run modesetting driver, right need a compositor on top of our window manager still because we don't vsync without it.
Do you have monitors with a different refresh rate? Do you have muxes with different cards driving different outputs? All this stuff X11 sucks at. Ok the turd has been polished well now after decades, it doesn't need to run as root/suid anymore, doesn't listen for connections on your network, but the security model still sucks compared to wayland, and once you mix multiple video cards all bets are off.
But yeah, clipboard works reliably, big W for X11.
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> Who is forced to use it? Just use X11, as you said (many times) you do already. This is my understanding of his actual concern - Linux corps are pushing Wayland as a replacement for X11 when it is full of issues. Anecdotally my experience was the same. I'm a dev so I'm fine in a terminal, but trying to switch to KDE actually sent me BACK to Windows. Basic windowing stuff just does not work, and like the OP says, to…
as much as i dislike m$, at least windows works and it works for games and graphics. when i need text or computation without a ui, i use linux. similar to the argument in the article about use what works, i use what works.
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Anecdotally, my experience with Wayland has been a lot better than with X11. I have been on Wayland for years, I can't remember the last time I had an issue (running Sway).
Additionally, the Steam Deck ships with Wayland by default. Hundreds of thousands of gamers are stress-testing it without any complaint that I'm aware of.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1445kc7/citie...
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> weird Linux conspiracy theories floating around these days There is this MAGA Linux Youtuber that is something to be studied on this topic, especially the community around it (some overlap with HN too), its basically just hate posting about woke, rust, systemd, python, mozilla, wayland, ubuntu, it goes on and on - https://www.youtube.com/bryanlunduke I don't know why some hackers turned so reactionary it's so stran…
Dunno if I'd call the people whining about Wayland hackers. More like freeloaders. Hackers make stuff. Also there's nothing about Linux or hacking culture that would be necessarily left or right wing. Maybe somewhat anti establishment with the desire for computing freedom (and in the west the left is firmly the "establishment", pushing the surveillance state forward).
I agree. But if you pretend there is there’s a big audience on one side ready to lap it up and give you ad views.