Advantages of Wayland over X11

[APTI]

I am sorry, I did only reflect this reply by ATPI :
"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."
It compares SW-Developement against a person, and it is not sarcasm.

I think the mod is making a point that you need to stop. You took a light hearted comical response and nit picked it, and made an unnecessary issue out of it. and you are continuing to do so. Let it go. I will make no further responses to you on this subject

 

[APTI]

that sounds very appealing, but why is X11 still the dominant windowing server even though it's decades old?

i generally find software debates in general, in the linux community, to be based on false dichotomies that don't serve a practical purpose. The best answer would most likely be something like:

"Well, in situation a, X11 is better, but in situation b, wayland is better"

to me, it's structurally the same as the anti-systemd argument: yeah, it's an issue in the sense that it attaches itself to every process at startup, but where's the real problem? Every linux issue i have had had NOTHING to do with systemd.

also, and these are programming language debacles, but they appear to be just as strange: i read somewhere that goto labels in C are bad...for those of you who don't understand, this is how they work:

paradise_island:
    int come_to_paradise_island;
   
...

if(something is true or false)
    goto paradise_island;

so, all programming languages are linear: the computer just reads the code from start to finish, BUT goto labels give you a way to go back to something or go towards something based on whatever happens. And the reasoning that "they are bad" is that they are inherently confusing and disrupt the linear flow of the program. However, I recently realized that in some situations they can actually reduce the amount of code in general, which for programmers, makes it less confusing...it 's not like "goto" is cryptic at all, or at least any more so than "if", "for", "while",....if you need further validation, here's an entire page worth of arguments as to why goto is not evil:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions...es-for-goto-in-a-language-that-supports-loops

and also, there's been this debate about whether Rust is superior to C because of "memory safety" because the white house said C is bad and programmers should change things over to Rust. However, C programming has been around since 1967, and it is still widely used in all sorts of applications: for example, the linux kernel developers found that Rust is better than C in certain situations, but the amount of C code they replaced in the process was laughably small. So, as a novice who knows that C memory allocation is a pain in butt and has no Rust experience, has led me to conclude that maybe...

the liberal use of memory management is also a disadvantage...but currently, you just can't do the same stuff with Rust, and Rust also has it's own security issues...

i mean, i really don't know the total depths of these things, but this is what i have gleaned: which is better just depends circumstance and preference. I'm not even going to go into the emacs vs. vim debate, the arguments probably are even more silly even though my preference is obvious (and yes i have messed around with emacs some and seems weird).

my issues with wayland (which I do run on many systems) is that many software packages do not work in wayland. That is the issue. I have also found if a system has video issues, dropping back to X11 almost always solves the issue. I would love wayland to be better. I am not against it. I am for it but it is as I said just not ready for prime time.
So as you said, it is very situation dependent and I seem to run into the situation often. My shop works with linux alot and we also develop linux software. Problems with wayland seem random to be honest. To us the programming is the same for x11 or wayland, it is the language developers that have to deal with that and from what I hear it is not easy.
In short I support waylands objective but say they are far from accomplishing that objective. The project is taking far longer than I would expect. I am not a core developer so not sure what is holding it back.

 

[Alexzee]

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

Agreed:-
Wayland does not work on any of my Linux installations.
Simply put it brings the DE to a grinding halt.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I've heard the recent 555 driver updates with new gpu's have give most people a lot better Wayland experience.

NVIDIA 555.58 Stable Linux Driver Brings Wayland Explicit Sync, GSP Firmware Default - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[CaffeineAddict]

What an amazing video!

Now I can't wait to install the 555 driver and xwayland 24.1 from backports only to test this.
The only question is, should I install opensource driver or proprietary? open source is declared to be testing and not production ready.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Now I can't wait to install the 555 driver and xwayland 24.1 from backports only to test this $hit out.
The only question is, should I install opensource driver or proprietary? open source is declared to be testing and not production ready.

That Youtuber uses the open Nvidia driver, but why don't you just try both?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

That Youtuber uses the open Nvidia driver, but why don't you just try both?

Good to know, I'll try them both and see if there is any difference.

btw. I found a forum post about driver versions here:

Current graphics driver releases

Current releases Current production branch release: 550.107.02 (x86_64) Current new feature branch release: 560.35.03 (x86_64) Current beta release: 560.31.02 (x86_64) Legacy releases 470.239.06 (x86_64) - GKxxx “Kepler” GPUs 390.157 (x86 / x86_64 / ARM) - GF1xx “Fermi” GPUs (*) 340.108...

forums.developer.nvidia.com

I'm currently using production driver 550 because I was silly and went after release date and forgot about another thread where you said a probable reason for version number and release date is due to development branches from your link here:

Download The Latest Official NVIDIA Drivers

Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.

www.nvidia.com

So now I'm certain that 555 is from feature branch and should be used instead on Linux, your help doubled! thanks mate

 

[f33dm3bits]

What an amazing video!

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I spent 7h to reformat my 1TB external HDD and now need another 5h to copy over data for backup before trying out Wayland again with the new setup, but as soon as this is done I'll post back the results!

 

[Alexzee]

Gimp under Wayland would not work/launch for me under Wayland in Debian 12.

Could this be a hardware issue?

 

[kc1di]

Gimp is launching fine on my Debian 12 Wayland KDE session. Works good here so not sure what you maybe facing.

 

[Alexzee]

Gimp is launching fine on my Debian 12 Wayland KDE session. Works good here so not sure what you maybe facing.

Had Debian 12 Cinnamon installed and wouldn't work at all under Wayland.
The DE locked up every time I'd switch from X11 to Wayland.

Installed Debian 12 Mate and I have to check once booted into that install.
If under Wayland works I'll let you know.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Every linux issue i have had had NOTHING to do with systemd.

Me neither. Hmm....now, I wonder if that might have summat to do with the fact that we don't actually USE systemd..?

Mike.

 

[dos2unix]

Gimp under Wayland would not work/launch for me under Wayland in Debian 12.

Honestly, I never have any problems with Wayland, GIMP runs great.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

before trying out Wayland again with the new setup, but as soon as this is done I'll post back the results!

Installed 555 proprietary driver but unfortunately I could not install xwayland 24.1 which is suggested in the video.
xwayland 24.1 is not present in Debian backports but it exists in Debian testing (trixie).

I tried creating a backport myself but this sadly resulted in build errors due to missing packages, to fix this build error I'd need to build a few of other backports as well.

Currently with only 555 driver I can't even log-in to Wayland session, it brings me back to log-in screen as soon as trying to log-in.

I think I'll just wait until xwayland 24.1 becomes available in backports.
Other than Wayland everything works fine, all games run fine so it's not a big deal.

 

[Alexzee]

View attachment 21467

Honestly, I never have any problems with Wayland, GIMP runs great.

I see your running Fedora. Maybe I could try that and see how Wayland behaves.
Another thought: maybe the AMD Ryzen on that desktop is conflicting with Wayland?

 

[dos2unix]

I see your running Fedora. Maybe I could try that and see how Wayland behaves.
Another thought: maybe the AMD Ryzen on that desktop is conflicting with Wayland?

The system above is running a Ryzen CPU. In fact, both of my main computers are Ryzen systems.
But I have intel systems too, and I haven't noticed any big difference as far as Linux goes.
Wayland also runs on an Intel laptop I have.

 

[Alexzee]

The system above is running a Ryzen CPU. In fact, both of my main computers are Ryzen systems.
But I have intel systems too, and I haven't noticed any big difference as far as Linux goes.
Wayland also runs on an Intel laptop I have.

Thanks-
It doesn't look like Wayland is installed on this Debian 12 Mate install.
I installed a AMD Ryzen 3600X 6 core CPU during the build about 4 years ago.

env | grep -E -i 'x11|xorg|wayland'
CLUTTER_BACKEND=x11,*
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11

debian-box:~$ dpkg -L wayland
dpkg-query: package 'wayland' is not installed
Use dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list archive files contents

Will Wayland completely replace X11?

 

[wendy-lebaron]

It doesn't look like Wayland is installed on this Debian 12 Mate install.

it might be better to try again with cinnamon desktop, but with linux mint since their developers are taking the trouble trying to get it to work with wayland. but this is what i've read on distrowatch.

if i'm not mistaken mate is an older technology, what gnome was before it became "the" gnome. the solus project had dropped it in favor of xfce. i don't know if there is a promise to make xfce work with wayland there. otherwise they offer gnome, budgie (related to gnome) and kde. garuda linux dropped mate also, maybe for the same reason.

i have debian mate "bookworm" on a 13-year-old hp laptop. take it from me. wayland is a complication i don't need. even if i could afford a new p.c.

sometime last year i looked at manjaro with gnome, and with wayland session. it was too slow on my computer so i gave up. on another distribution, i think endeavouros with gnome 43, i went with wayland session. it sucked because gnome applications like file roller didn't work together with non-gnome applications like thunar. i sought a solution on their forum which was to switch to x11 session.

i don't prefer mate as much as i used to. actually have more kde. finally tried mx linux "libretto" with kde, and antix "arditi" with fluxbox. the latter surprised me with really small memory consumption. but i have to install some things on it like pulseaudio, i don't like the weak bass sound. also have ubuntu studio "noble numbat" and glad i could still choose x11 session for kde plasma 5.27. i have this on a different portable computer with disk-chip. sorry for off topic. but saying more about not really needing wayland in these cases.

i almost forgot to add that some of us are being forced to take up mobile means for internet. which makes "x11 versus wayland" largely unimportant.

 

[dos2unix]

Will Wayland completely replace X11?

That seems to be the plan, at least for some distros.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 plans for Wayland and Xorg server

We’ve decided to remove Xorg server and other X servers (except Xwayland) from RHEL 10 and the following releases. Xwayland should be able to handle most X11 clients that won’t immediately be ported to Wayland, and if needed, our customers will be able to stay on RHEL 9 for its full life cycle...

www.redhat.com

Fedora Plans to Drop X11 Support in Plasma 6 Completely

The Fedora KDE Plasma spin will boldly move to go all-in on Wayland, dropping X11 when Plasma 6 comes out. Here's why.

linuxiac.com

Gnome Developers in Discussion to End Support f... » Linux Magazine

In a move that should surprise no one, the team behind the GNOME desktop environment is hinting at removing support for X.Org so they can focus on...

www.linux-magazine.com

Red Hat Migrates RHEL from Xorg to Wayland » Linux Magazine

If you've been wondering when Xorg will finally be a thing of the past, wonder no more, as Red Hat has made it clear.

www.linux-magazine.com

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-enable-disable-wayland-on-ubuntu-22-04-desktop#:~:text=By%20default%2C%20Ubuntu%E2%80%99s%20desktop%20environment%20runs%20on%20Wayland%2C,possible%20to%20switch%20to%20the%20Xorg%20display%20server.

It's already the default for Ubuntu and Fedora, also the default for the latest version of Debian.

Once Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Redhat come together on an idea ( that doesn't happen very often ),
it seems like the Linux community as a whole generally follows suite. ( NetworkManager, systemd, pipewire, etc... )

But not always on everything, there are still some distro's still holding on to sysV int.
No doubt a few distro's will still hang onto Xorg/X11 for a while longer.

Xlib and Xcb, ( the two main libraries of Xorg/X11 ) are no longer being actively developed for Linux.
( However they are for BSD )

https://github.com/Airblader/xcb-util-xrm

xorg / lib / libX11 · GitLab

Core X11 protocol client library (aka "Xlib")

gitlab.freedesktop.org