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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?

#311

Post by happymellon »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #276
happymellon wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a lot of distros that have xlibre packages for something that ostensibly doesn't compile. No one says xlibre doesn't compile, but good attempt at a distraction. Have you considered invading a country as an alternative way to distract from terrible views?

> No one says xlibre doesn't compile >> A guy decided that after getting all his patches rejected because they cause tests to fail, doesn't compile, etc. that the problem is everyone else and decided to fork XOrg. Emphasis mine, words yours.

Yeah, some submitted patches failed to compile. Others compiled and failed tests.

Not the same as XLibre doesn't compile.

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

#312

Post by athrowaway3z »

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…

> > I also don't care for the "security" argument when parts of the core reference implementation are written in a memory-unsafe language.

> Doesn't sound like a super informed way to look at security (not even mentioning that Wayland was started in 2008, and Rust was not a thing). One can also say that "as long as you run X11, there is no need to think about security because X11 just defeats it all".

I think the argument is not that X11 defeats it all - but that for 99.9999% of users its security theater when deployed in the real world. Most commonly, as long as processes can read each other's memory/configuration/etc.

I'm sure there is a use-case for untrusted sharing of Wayland enabled GPU rendering or something - though AFAIK none of the enterprise remote desktop use it, and they have the resources to implement it themselves anyway.

I've been running Wayland for two years now. I still hit weird bugs with desktop sharing / obs tinkering; It's just not a critical use for me.

So it's fair to question the design wisdom of adding the complexity and UX pain points if it seems to be worth so little.

But maybe i'm overlooking some large group of people dependent on Wayland security boundaries?

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

#313

Post by pacifika »

c0balt wrote: post #117
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).

Same here, there are some pain points with swaywm (notably screen sharing is only per display, DisplayLink support and screen mirroring is a pain). Most of these points however are IME a worthwhile tradeoff. Sway has also been astoundingly stable (compared to gnome or KDE)

> I can't remember the last time I had an issue

Depending on your workflows the comment just described three issues

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

#314

Post by dadoum »

Wayland is a protocol so it doesn't exactly is at the same place as X11.

That being said, I think that they are ignoring the most important element of Wayland that may be kinda the cause of its gripes: Wayland is better designed and focuses on doing window management, aka, allowing applications to display their windows.

It is not trying to be a general IPC protocol, it is not a permission system, it is not a video framework, it is not an accessibility framework; just a protocol for apps to create windows and set their properties.

And at window management, it tries really hard to be better. For example presenting a window (getting it on top of the others) is an action requiring a token now, meaning that the compositor now gets tools to identify wrong presentation attempts. It handles the case of window-docking on the window management side, which allows more flexibility about how to handle it on the compositor side.

Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect (for example I don't like the assumption in the API that there should be at most one seat, and that it would have at most one pointer), but it really tries to be better, it is not a waste of time imo.

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

#315

Post by flohofwoe »

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…

The main problem of Wayland is fragmentation, technical problems could be solved by throwing work at it, but not as long as Wayland is "just a protocol". Designing it as a protocol (and with optional extensions on top!), instead of a traditional centralized implementation was a pretty stupid decision (and not just in hindsight).

Instead of bundling forces to improve a single implementation like it was the case with X11, now everybody and their mother writes their own incomplete implementation of the Wayland protocol, and badly. I don't understand how anybody thinks that this mess is a good thing. At least for X11 on Linux there was a single implementation that contributors could focus on, now the bugs are spread over dozens of projects. If I'd like to sabotage the entire desktop-Linux idea, this is exactly how I would do it ;(

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

#316

Post by flohofwoe »

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.

Running fullscreen games on a single fixed hardware configuration isn't exactly 'stress-testing', it just tells you that a single code path works.

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

#317

Post by mid-kid »

twothreeone wrote: post #194
ewoodrich wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I sold myself a delusion about the Linux distro I casually tried but I've been jumping on and off Linux for 20 years at this point and didn't get the memo it was outdated until later on. The significant change here was being able to daily drive it on my laptop instead of living in a VM or secondary dual boot. In the past Ubuntu was always my go-to but the snap thing was irritating, and I'd always used some k…

That's basically what I heard ten years ago from individuals (and even universities) for why they switched to Mint.. but even now, if you ask Perplexity for a "debian-based distro thats not ubuntu" Mint is the second option.

What other options are there?

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

#318

Post by iknowstuff »

wildredkraut wrote: post #82
iknowstuff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow what a showstopper!

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.

Nah that’s irrelevant. The year of the GNU/linux desktop won’t materialize because it’s not a platform for apps, it’s balkanized, has no backward compat save for win32, and flatpak/snap are awful clutches. ChromeOS and Android will eat its lunch.

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

#319

Post by a2128 » 

    OBS can't screen record (it segfaults instead), I can't copy-paste, and I can't see window previews unless everything implements a specific extension to the core protocol.
I can't take articles like this seriously when they so confidently make such statements that so directly conflict with reality. I use Wayland exclusively everyday and I screen record with OBS on both KDE and GNOME on multiple machines with no issues, my KDE shows window previews, and copy pasting works fine. Maybe the author's problems aren't Wayland issues?

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

#320

Post by palata »

tliltocatl wrote: post #238
bigyabai wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Games isn't exactly the best stress test for a windowing system. Most (if not all) run in full-screen mode and don't really use it much after the launch. And that's not what desktop computing is about. You want to run multiple programs, you want them to integrate with each other. But games don't need any of this.

There is a "Desktop mode" that I, at least, use more than the handheld mode. Not sure if it's running Wayland though.
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