Advantages of Wayland over X11

[dos2unix]

From CoPilot.

Let’s explore the advantages of Wayland over X11 in the context of Linux:

1. Reduced Input Delay:
   • Wayland significantly reduces input delay. When you click or interact with something, it’s displayed almost instantly. This improvement makes graphical tasks like window resizing appear much smoother1.
2. Better Performance:
   • Wayland’s streamlined architecture results in better performance compared to X11. With fewer steps involved in the display process, it handles graphics more efficiently12.
3. Simplicity and Streamlined Codebase:
   • Wayland is designed to be simpler and easier to understand. It focuses on doing its job well without getting in the way of other programs. Its modern architecture makes maintenance and evolution more straightforward3.
4. Enhanced Security:
   • Wayland doesn’t allow applications to capture the content of other applications, enhancing privacy and security2.

In summary, Wayland offers improved performance, reduced input lag, and a cleaner design compared to X11. However, adoption has been slow due to the need for application modifications. If you’re looking for a more modern and secure windowing system, Wayland is worth considering

 

[osprey]

The numerous X window managers are however, beyond the ken of wayland.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Disadvantages:

1. Every DE and WM is doing their own implementation and there is no standardization.
2. There are features that aren't implemented or don't work yet.
3. Doesn't always work well with Nvidia gpu's.

 

[dos2unix]

I see Wayland now has support for FreeBSD.

[ANNOUNCE] wayland 1.23.0

 

[APTI]

I end up disabling wayland in favor of X11 on most devices because wayland support for much of the software is poor at best. In fact I have fixed many things simply by turning off wayland. What wayland seeks to do is great, but the implementation of it has been bad. Wayland is good but not ready for prime time and that has been for quite some time. I stay away from it when I can.

 

[Gloster]

I use Ubuntu 22.04, did use Wayland for 1 week, back to Xorg.
So much didn`t work, e.g. instead of xrandr I did expect there is something like wrandr, no it is not (gnome-randr.py does work), special settings for Avidemux are necessary, Simplescreenrecorder does not work anymore ... But also short cuts : File selected + Shift+del does not work anymore and ...
Also refer to this side, worth to read :
https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d1f2277

 

[JasKinasis]

I end up disabling wayland in favor of X11 on most devices because wayland support for much of the software is poor at best. In fact I have fixed many things simply by turning off wayland. What wayland seeks to do is great, but the implementation of it has been bad. Wayland is good but not ready for prime time and that has been for quite some time. I stay away from it when I can.

I’ve been saying this for years.
Wayland is still a long way from being ready to replace X11.

 

[Vektor]

Hi everybody

You might be interested in this from the KDE forum --

Wayland Vs X Benchmarking results (updated july 30)

(Update, July 30 - Now that the FPS cap has been fixed, I am shocked to note a more than 60% drop in performance in Wayland vs X11 using DXVK. Native OpenGL itself has seen a 15% reduction in performance in Wayland vs X. My previous results are invalid and I will have to run all the suites again...

discuss.kde.org

I hope for the best for Wayland.

Vektor

 

[Battledoge21]

You make good points, however, in practical use, I feel like X11 is still the way to go for most machines, despite it's age.

-While Wayland does get better performance under some circumstances, on low-end hardware and devices with NVIDIA GPUs/CPUs, X11 definitely performs better.

-Wayland has a lot of features that still need to be added, and a lot of bug fixes have to be made.

I've used it a lot, in fact I daily drove a Wayland system for around a year, but it's just a bit too buggy for my liking.

However, I do feel like a more refined, tested version of Wayland has a lot of potential, and that's something that it will get over time.

Of course, use whatever you feel inclined to use, the beauty of Linux is that your computer is in your control, which means you can do whatever you want with it!

 

[dos2unix]

I agree that Wayland doesn't support all the features in all the software that X11 currently does.

I disagree that X11 is always faster, some of my benchmarks show Wayland faster in some cases.

So then if X11 works better, why are most distro's moving to Wayland?

Two things... complexity, X11 requires many libraries to be installed, xcb, xrender, xlb, xpyinfo, xev, xmessage, xkill, xprop, xwinfo, keysym, and others. Wayland is more monolithic.

The other thing is petty differences amongst developers. Some developers want to add features to X11 to support new hardware features, make it more secure, faster, and more up to date. Others do not, some of these packages have not been updated in years. Unfortunately, my package depends on your libraries, so I can't update because you won't update your library to support this feature.

In some cases, this is borderline ridiculous, and feuds have been going on for years. In my opinion, this is what is hurting X11
and why distro's are moving away from it.

 

[f33dm3bits]

The other thing is petty differences amongst developers. Some developers want to add features to X11 to support new hardware features, make it more secure, faster, and more up to date.

I've also read in places that with the current code base X11 is so complex that that's hard to add features because of the code base not being modular so then it's hard to debug if something old or new breaks.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

some of these packages have not been updated in years. Unfortunately, my package depends on your libraries, so I can't update because you won't update your library to support this feature.

A term in development world for this is called "technical debt" or "code debt"

Technical debt - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Gloster]

When will Wayland become the default on Ubuntu? (Wayland (last modified 2017-10-31 20:24:59 by localhost), refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland
Now Ubuntu 22.04 - Gnome Wayland -> Nautilus (default file manager)
File -> context menu -> finally delete (Shortcut : shift + delete). Shortcut does not work.
Does this mean a "technical debt" or "code debt" ?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

When will Wayland become the default on Ubuntu? (Wayland (last modified 2017-10-31 20:24:59 by localhost), refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland
Now Ubuntu 22.04 - Gnome Wayland -> Nautilus (default file manager)
File -> context menu -> finally delete (Shortcut : shift + delete). Shortcut does not work.
Does this mean a "technical debt" or "code debt" ?

Technical debt refers to depending on outdated code or libraries which somebody has to upgrade (pay the debt) otherwise "interests" will ruin your project.

This is applicable to X11 not Wayland.

 

[Gloster]

Let us find a term for Wayland :
Since 7 years it is not possible to delete a file via shortcut : shift + delete (it is a standard linux shortcut) if you use Ubuntu + wayland.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Let us find a term for Wayland :
Since 7 years it is not possible to delete a file via shortcut : shift + delete (it is a standard linux shortcut) if you use Ubuntu + wayland.

I think you should create a thread if you have a problem, but in short if you're using Nvidia driver you need to enable drm modeset, see:

Understanding nvidia-drm.modeset=1 (NVIDIA Linux driver modesetting)

(Talking about x86 here, keep in mind other arches exist) The console/VT is still the old linux framebuffer console (fbcon) https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/fb/fbcon.html which runs on a simple framebuffer device (fbdev). The fbdev would usually be provided by the bios’ vga or efi...

forums.developer.nvidia.com

Plasma/Wayland/Nvidia - KDE Community Wiki

community.kde.org

If not working know that Wayland is beta if you ask me, not really stable.

 

[Vektor]

Hi everybody

Is there a Wayland forum?

I did a wikipedia search and found

Wayland

but I saw no sign of a regular forum.

It seems the same questions are being asked on many different distro forums. Also this forum and others like Stack Exchange and KDE Discuss are flooded with the same types of questions. Is there not one place for everyone to come together?

Vektor

 

[Gloster]

My comment only in respect to my tests, one week ago. What can I do, if Ubuntu 24.04 does not support X11 anymore.
Obviously it does, therefore, back to X11 and as long as possible.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Obviously it does, therefore, back to X11 and as long as possible.

That's the way to go, I'm not switching to Wayland until it's fully complete and stable.

 

[APTI]

That's the way to go, I'm not switching to Wayland until it's fully complete and stable.

somehow I do not think wayland will ever meet your rigid requirements. complete and stable? you sure are holding them to one amazingly high standard there aren't you. Hope the sarcasm was understood. I'd be happy with stable if they can ever get there.