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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?

#221

Post by amelius »

MarsIronPI wrote: post #218
amelius wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason I could imagine is security. Right now with X11, IIRC, if one application has access to your display they can read what is going on in other applications running on the same display. If browser tabs were able to do that, all hell would break loose. So why do we accept it from applications? Anyway, despite this, I still use X11 instead of Wayland because of all the shortcomings.

> If browser tabs were able to do that, all hell would break loose. So why do we accept it from applications? Because I don't run random untrusted apps all the time. Whereas I do visit random untrusted websites all the time.

But Snap and Flatpak have an advanced permission system, designed so you _can_ run random applications that you don't trust.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#222

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

t_mahmood wrote: post #23
ryandrake wrote: post #7

I still don't know why I would want to use it. The benefits don't seem to outweigh the costs yet, and xorg is tried and true. So many Linux articles and forum posts about fixing problems with your desktop graphics start with "If you're using Wayland, go back to xorg, it'll probably fix the problem you're seeing." You don't always have to replace something that works with something that doesn't but is "modern." My gue…

I prefer Wayland, as I feel Wayland's performance is much smoother than Xorg. Though, I have no use for VRR, and I hate the slight lag that is introduced due to font scaling, so I do not use it either. But, I am stuck on Xorg only because of one app that I have to use to work. > My guess is that we'll only start seeing Wayland adoption when distributions start forcing it or making it a strong default, like what happe…

> But, I am stuck on Xorg only because of one app that I have to use to work.

Does XWayland help?

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#223

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

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.

And I stopped using sway on my Intel integrated graphics because it still crashes more than i3+Xorg. Maybe someday.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#224

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

edent wrote: post #11

I've been running Wayland on a Framework laptop and it just works. Droves my 4K external monitor, quickly switches to single screen, does fractional scaling well, runs all my apps without complaint. I had an old Chromebook which had Lubuntu on it - screen tearing was driving me crazy so I switched to Wayland and it is buttery smooth. No mean feat given the decrepit hardware. I'm sure someone will be along to tell me…

> I'm sure someone will be along to tell me that I'm wrong - but I've yet to experience any downsides, other than people telling me I'm wrong.

That's fine as long as it goes both ways. If Wayland works for you, great. Equally, for some of us it doesn't work.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#225

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

zeta0134 wrote: post #55

KDE Plasma switched to Wayland by default sometime last year, and so far the main issue I run into is that a few screen recording tools I like stopped working. (Mostly simplescreenrecorder, which seems to be entirely unmaintained at this point.) Other than some initial instability with accelerated rendering on my GPU, which was quickly addressed, it kinda just works. I mostly don't notice. Actually, GPU acceleration…

> KDE Plasma switched to Wayland by default sometime last year, and so far the main issue I run into is that a few screen recording tools I like stopped working. (Mostly simplescreenrecorder, which seems to be entirely unmaintained at this point.) Other than some initial instability with accelerated rendering on my GPU, which was quickly addressed, it kinda just works. I mostly don't notice.

FWIW, I have a KDE Wayland box and OBS works for screen recording. Slightly more complex than simplescreenrecorder, but not bad.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#226

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

sylware wrote: post #84
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.

OTOH, the enthusiasm for breaking legitimate features that people were using has not helped Wayland adoption.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#227

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

altern8 wrote: post #69

Might be a stupid question, but what's wrong with Xorg? I know that it wasn't originally conceived to do what it does today, but I've never had any problem using it, and when I tried Wayland I didn't notice any difference whatsoever. Is it just that it's a pain to write apps for it..?

> Is it just that it's a pain to write apps for it..?

Other way around: Maintaining Xorg itself is awful.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#229

Post by pshirshov »

michaelmrose wrote: post #215
pshirshov wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it supports it sure, the problem is that it doesn't work at all.

It does work and has worked for over a decade. You can configure scaling under settings in Cinnamon or plasma for instance or via environmental variables in a simple environment like i3wm. The post is from the Dev of i3wm an x11 window manager complaining among other things about how well his 8k monitor works under x11 and how poorly it works under Wayland. You can also consult the arch wiki article on high DPI which…

Yes, I know all that. Except it doesn't work. At all.

Ten years ago there were cursor clipping issues, cursor coordinates issues and crashes and I've been home-baking patches for that.

Also it was impossible for one X session to span across two GPUs. Dunno if that was improved.

Now it's bit better, but for sure your amdgpu will entertain you with little nice crashes when you run something heavy on a scaled display.

I'm not even talking about VRR, HDR and all that stuff.

Re: Can I start using Wayland in 2026?

#230

Post by thayne »

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…

Technically, X is also just a protocol. But there was just one main implementation of the server (X.org), and just a couple implementations of the client library (xlib and xcb).

There isn't any technical reason we couldn't have a single standardized library, at the abstraction level of wlroots.

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