Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years? • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by eviks » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:23 AM UTC

abram wrote: post #176

I've used Linux on desktops/laptops intermittently since the year 2000, but I've been using mostly MacOS in recent years. With Apple not inspiring confidence lately, I wanted to try using Linux as a daily OS again. So I installed Fedora on a laptop last month. After installation I noticed that the colors on my OLED display were very oversaturated. After some frustrating attempts to get ICC profiles working, I was dis…

> and having accurate colors in my photo editing apps

Should've stayed in the terminal where the distro wants you to be!

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

#222

Post by scheeseman486 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:28 AM UTC

righthand wrote: post #70

weaksauce wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they just agreed to move forward on the protocol to do that thing.

Okay. It still took them 17 years to agree on it. And regardless of moving forward on it they’ve demonstrated no concern with timely delivery.

"OK I was wrong, so I'm going to make another assumption because maybe this time whatever garbage I write might be right"

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

#223

Post by glzone1 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:29 AM UTC

Does anyone know what is up with RDP support on linux? I'm trying to migrate to linux but I need to be able to RDP to a headless machine running my desktop from Windows machines. How is this not solved? Is wayland worse or better here?

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

#224

Post by flomo » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:29 AM UTC

vova_hn2 wrote: post #80

> forced to make the switch > users that are now being forced to use unfinished software > frustration of being forced to use the new hotness > actual users are forced to use it Can confirm, Kristian Høgsberg and Drew DeVault personally came to my house and and installed Wayland on every computer I own. They made me watch it. It was horrible. Jokes aside, I think that it is worth remembering that open source develope…

There certainly is a paranoid style in Linux politics (where "they" are out to get you.)

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

#225

Post by mmmore » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

wildredkraut wrote: post #146

mmmore wrote: post #113

I've used Wayland (via sway) for multiple years including on machines with a 1060 and 5080 (mainly for good fractional scaling support). The only major issues I've had with it have to do with XWayland apps. I think there are some issues with providing a consistent experience with things like screen recording, 3rd party proprietary apps, etc. across different DEs/distros, but that's more of something that comes with t…

Of course redhat is indirectly enforcing it, by having people in key roles of the KDE, GNOME,systemd and wayland development, who are making decisions, accepting or blocking ideas and commits. It all goes hand in hand and is mainly driven by the key "Sponsors".

Sure one of the companies paying for Linux desktop development is influencing what software gets development. Doesn't sound very nefarious to me.

Red Hat, Canonical, etc. want a working and friendly Linux desktop as much as you do. They've decided that Wayland is the best way forward for their companies and their users. It's not some massive conspiracy.

And they're not stopping you from using X, which is open source and still works fine for a lot of people.

I don't really understand what people who vocally object to Wayland are looking to change about the world. Do they want Wayland to be better? Do they want the developers working on Wayland to start working on X instead? The first desire seems reasonable by I don't get why it would inspire such ire toward Wayland. The second desire is unreasonable.

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

#226

Post by hacker_homie » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:41 AM UTC

BowBun wrote: post #46

palata wrote: post #17

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…

> 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…

Comments like this make me feel like we are living in different worlds, I have KDE/Wayland on multi head machines with different DPIs and laptops. KDE has been the smoothest most reasonable desktops for a long time, I play games they just work, I can make zoom calls, they implemented device recovery. How are you experiencing this, are you rendering in software?

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

#227

Post by singron » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:44 AM UTC

throw567643u8 wrote: post #211

lhl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funy that you mention multi-monitor since it's one of the reasons I eventually moved to Wayland. The only way to support different DPI monitors in X was to do janky scaling or even jankier multiple X servers. I don't use KDE (or GNOME anymore) but while I had to deal with a lot of initial speedbumps a couple years ago, these days instead of a full DE, I'm using a Niri setup and it's worked out great for me. For my la…

Does anyone have links on how to set up multi monitor on Sway?

The default config file explains some common things you might want to do. E.g. left or right side and scaling factor.

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

#228

Post by nickelpro » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

wild_egg wrote: post #198

nickelpro wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is sort of the nature of the problem? In X11, the problem was Xserver. Now, X11's design philosophy was hopelessly broken and needed to be replaced, but it wasn't replaced. As you correctly point out, there is no "Wayland", Wayland is a methodology, a description, of how one might implement the technologies necessary to replace X11. This has led to hopeless fracturing and replication of effort. Every WM is f…

I miss the Unix philosophy

Wayland is far more aligned with the Unix philosophy than Xorg ever was. Xorg was a giant, monolithic, do everything app.

The Unix philosophy is fragmentation into tiny pieces, each doing one thing and hoping everyone else conforms to the same interfaces. Piping commands between processes and hoping for the best. That's exactly how Wayland works, although not in plain text because that would be a step too far even for Wayland.

Some stuff should not follow the Unix philosophy, PID 1 and the compositor are chief examples of things that should not. It is better to have everything centralized for these processes.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:47 AM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #120

palata wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by wutbrodo » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:57 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #208

globalnode wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> at least windows works and it works for games and graphics It doesn't, actually. I vividly remember trying and failing to play some old games on Windows. GTA San Andreas, I think. Didn't even launch due to missing DirectX libraries or whatever. I hunted down and installed all the redistributables and DLLs. Still didn't run. So much for the fabled backwards compatibility of Windows. Microsoft clearly does not give a…

In 2008, I remember playing starcraft over LAN with my roommate. It played better on Wine/Ubuntu than it did on his Vista machine (and unrelatedly but hilariously, in the middle of the game his computer gave him a countdown to reboot with no option to cancel it)