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GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

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Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#111

Post by Ferret7446 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #94

I love Linux and vastly prefer it to Windows, but whenever people tell me Linux is vastly more stable than Windows, I think of the whol X11/Wayland saga. I still scarcely know what these are. In fact I actively don't want to know about compositors and whatnot. When I want GUIs, I just want to see them. I can list many crappinesses of Windows, but stuff like this kinda just works.

This stuff just kinda works on Linux too. This discussion is for distro maintainers (think of them like OS packagers) and power users. If you just install Ubuntu or Bazzite or whatever, it should just work

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#112

Post by bigyabai »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #110
vidarh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want that feature, then the display server doesn't need to be the one to support it when the display server lets applications obtain and control window positions. Wayland doesn't let you do that, and it's a deliberate choice. See e.g.: https://wayland-book.com/xdg-shell-in-depth/interactive.html "However, a deliberate design trait of Wayland makes application windows ignorant of their exact placement on screen…

Wayland deliberately chose to break user workflows. Is it any surprise that users resent Wayland?

I don't resent it. x11 is laggy and poorly supported on modern desktops, even if all the bugs were fixed it would be a pretty sore daily driver experience. Without Wayland I'd still be dual-booting into Windows, the same likely goes for every Steam Deck owner.

x11 desktops can and will continue to exist, and users will choose whichever one they prefer.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#113

Post by serf »

christophilus wrote: post #34

I haven’t booted into an X11 environment in maybe 4 years. Wayland has been fine (Fedora + Gnome, Fedora / Arch + Niri). I think this is one of those issues where hardcore users overestimate how much anyone else cares or will notice.

> I think this is one of those issues where hardcore users overestimate how much anyone else cares or will notice.

I don't think users that rely on accessibility featurescount as 'hardcore', and the majority of X->Wayland complaints i've heard center around all of that stuff.

Little of it has been remediated last I checked.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#114

Post by bigyabai »

exe34 wrote: post #71
gabrielgio wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the implementation details but I can't really complain about the state of wayland today. It used to be annoying to get working many years ago (worse because I had a nvidia gpu). But today I drive a nigthly build of niri, run it by just spawning an dbuss session and everything works. Bluetooth audio, screen sharing, fractional scaling, no tearing, no font blurring. Every utility I needed has been created…

X11 is far more stable now since they stopped improving it! I haven't had a crash in 15 years.

Hardware-accelerated x11 is buggier than software-accelerated Quartz Compositor, on my machine.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#115

Post by serf »

rich_sasha wrote: post #94

I love Linux and vastly prefer it to Windows, but whenever people tell me Linux is vastly more stable than Windows, I think of the whol X11/Wayland saga. I still scarcely know what these are. In fact I actively don't want to know about compositors and whatnot. When I want GUIs, I just want to see them. I can list many crappinesses of Windows, but stuff like this kinda just works.

what's the drive to use a nix but 'actively dont want to know' about things?

just need to fulfill some software necessity?

The two most major OSs out there specialize in catering to users that don't want to know how the thing works -- it seems like you're swimming against the current a little bit, no?

also I don't think that anyone has ever called any nix stable and had software politics and human-stuff in mind ; what's meant is that it doesn't crash and burn when you're trying to use it.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#116

Post by erelong »

I'm curious to what extent things in this article have been fixed:

"Think twice before abandoning X11. Wayland breaks everything!"

https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d...

In my experience Wayland always had problems, so depending on how XWayland works, I'd probably have to drop Gnome if there's no X11 support that's functional and I imagine a lot of others would need to do so (until X11 support is reinstated)

What are some better Gnome alternatives that support X11?

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#117

Post by mhitza »

sunshine-o wrote: post #106

One of the big problem I am/was facing with Wayland is the performance when accessing a VM with SPICE and virt-viewer. You basically had to use X11 on the host and the guest for everything to work in an optimal way. Do anybody knows if any progress have been made on this front?

SPICE is slowly being phased out by Redhat, so I'm doubtful we'll see improvements on that front any time soon.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#118

Post by xedrac »

ginalloa wrote: post #97
killerstorm wrote: post #25

I've been using Gnome for years, but, honestly, it just isn't good: seems like it's optimized for very basic use. Something as simple as adding launcher to a panel now requires an extension. Also Wayland has some problem on my system (Thinkpad / Intel Xe) where it randomly just goes slow, this makes it an easy choice to try things other than Gnome.

As discussed earlier on HN, KDE these days has been the most usable desktop for many users. It is mostly stable, feature rich and can be customized easily.

I tried KDE on several different occasions this year, and each time the bottom panel froze on me when trying to configure it, usually within the first minute or two. It felt a bit like I was still using KDE4 when it was first released.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#119

Post by Spivak »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #109
ColonelPhantom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is broken for you? At this point, starting from roughly KDE 6, Wayland has been pretty much flawless for me. KDE 5.27 was pretty much fine already as well.

Fractional scaling is awful on Wayland if the application relies on XWayland to work. Drives me up the wall having to find the various flags to force Wayland mode.

I mean don't worry, once there's no more X11 you won't have to switch it into Wayland mode anymore.

Re: GNOME 50 completes the migration to Wayland, dropping X11 backend code

#120

Post by bsder »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #103
vidarh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want that feature, then the display server doesn't need to be the one to support it when the display server lets applications obtain and control window positions. Wayland doesn't let you do that, and it's a deliberate choice. See e.g.: https://wayland-book.com/xdg-shell-in-depth/interactive.html "However, a deliberate design trait of Wayland makes application windows ignorant of their exact placement on screen…

We know it's a deliberate choice. It's just wrong. >This decision affords Wayland compositors a greater deal of flexibility — windows could be shown in several places at once, arranged in the 3D space of a VR scene, or presented in any other novel way. Wayland is designed to be generic and widely applicable to many devices and form factors. Do ANY of these other features work? Furthermore, all our applications are bu…

> Maybe some graphics nerds with weird monitor setups are geeking out about fractional pixel coordinates and multiple refresh rates.

They're complaining too because Wayland upscales everything (quadrupling the number of pixels and trashing performance) in order to downscale it for fractional scaling.

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