5 ms·

Soon Wayland support is coming in Firefox 65 (works in beta/nightly already¹)! But have to wait until next month² for that. ¹ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show

by iod 8y ago

Soon Wayland support is coming in Firefox 65 (works in beta/nightly already¹)! But have to wait until next month² for that. ¹ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=635134 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=635134 ² https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar

jniedrauer 8y ago
You have no idea how excited I am for this. I use sway as my daily driver since it supports HiDPI so much better than i3, but the one caveat to that has been firefox and xwayland. Once this ships, sway will have nearly flawless HiDPI support.
- iod 8y ago
  Yea, I too love Sway and use it as my daily driver. I recommend you use the non-packaged version 65 or newer of Firefox, just need the GDK_BACKEND=wayland environment variable set. Only issue is due to the current state of Sway there are some drag-and-drop issues, but that's not a Firefox thing.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  I'm not. Wayland lacks a lot compared to X.[1] From the linked-to-post, it lacks: * Programmatic output configuration (xrandr, arandr, etc.) * CLI clipboard access (xsel, xclip) * Third party app launcher/window switcher (rofi, dmenu, albert, docky). * Clipboard managers (parcellite, klipper, Gpaste, clipman, etc.) * Third party screen shot/capture/share (shutter, OBS, ffmpeg, import, peek, scrot, VNC, etc.) * Color picker (gpick, gcolor3, kcolorchooser) * xdotool Lack of Wayland versions of these apps is a deal breakers for me, and I'm going to avoid Wayland until it gets them. [1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/85q78y/why_im_not_going_to_switch_to_wayland_yet/ https://old.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/85q78y/why_im_not_...
  - Leace 8y ago
    xclip works fine for me on wayland (Arch), the rest... yeah, colorpicker? doesn't work. Screenshot? Gnome tool works but grabbing an area has a weird tainted color.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    I'm happy someone is using it however, as that will encourage many shortcomings to be addressed.
    - sprash 8y ago
      In my experience X11 has zero shortcomings compared to Wayland. The code might be ancient and arcane at some points but the performance and features (hello "ssh -X") are actually far superior. Why do we need Wayland?
      - trulyrandom 8y ago
        I have never been able to get a tearing-free experience with X11, and I've tried everything to fix it. Meanwhile Wayland is butter smooth out of the box on the same hardware. Security is another obvious advantage of Wayland.
        pmoriarty 8y ago
        Just another data point: I've never experienced screen tearing in the decades that I've used X. Also, when I run X just for myself on my own laptop, what security issues do I have to worry about with X that I don't have to worry about with Wayland?
        trulyrandom 8y ago
        That's interesting, because I've had tearing issues with all major GPU brands (Intel, AMD and Nvidia), in particular when multiple monitors are involved. What's your setup like? With regards to security, the main issue is that X11 provides no isolation between applications, allowing them to listen to keystrokes and the clipboard at all times. With Wayland, only focused applications have this access.
        pmoriarty 8y ago
        "What's your setup like?" Currently I'm using an old, slow laptop, with a graphics card integrated in to the motherboard. Nothing special. But I don't do any demanding graphics processing on it. I just watch movies and use web browsers and a terminal. I don't play graphically intense games on it. "With regards to security, the main issue is that X11 provides no isolation between applications, allowing them to listen to keystrokes and the" I don't see why this should concern me or 90% of X users, because if any malware manages to run on our systems it'll already have full control over them without needing to resort to any kind of keystroke sniffing in X. I'm struggling to think of a scenario where malware's running on the same machine with access to a single X session, which doesn't already have full control over the account whose keystrokes they'd be presumably sniffing. They could just substitute their own malware versions of web browsers, shells, editors, or whatever other software the user uses and sniff keystrokes in there, without needing to touch X. Not that it hurts to have more isolation than you get in X, but I'd need a lot more convincing for me to give up the convenience I already enjoy with X. Can someone paint me a realistic, relatively common threat scenario where not having Wayland's isolation would actually present a serious security risk?
  - iod 8y ago
    Those things are mostly compositor specific and not specifically a Wayland issue. For example with Sway: * Programmatic output configuration swaymsg -t get_outputs # get displays swaymsg output DP-1 pos 0 0 res 1920x1080 # set displays * CLI clipboard access swaymsg -t get_clipboard * Third party app launcher/window switcher I use gnome-panel with Xwayland, but better than nothing * Third party screen shot/capture/share https://github.com/foss-project/green-recorder https://github.com/foss-project/green-recorder * Color picker (gpick, gcolor3, kcolorchooser) Sorry, no options here yet, but it can be done * xdotool swaymsg [title="Top Panel"] floating enable, resize set width 2560 px height 32 px, move position 0 -38
    - gpm 8y ago
      No, it's fundamentally a wayland issue. Window managers can implement their own extra protocols of course, but instead of X11 where everything was standardized and window managers didn't even have to think about it, there is no standard and window managers have to rewrite all the code for it themselves.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > No, it's fundamentally a wayland issue. It's not an "issue". It's a design decision. As another example, Linux doesn't have just one desktop environment, like Windows or MacOS, would you say that's an "issue", even if it's a deliberate decision?
    - pmoriarty 8y ago
      As OP in the thread I linked to above says: "GNOME and KDE have dbus APIs for some (but not all) of these things, and sway has its own IPC, and other compositors probably have similar solutions. However, they all use different mechanisms, which means that if you are writing say, screenshot application you either have to write a different backend for every compositor, or choose just one or two to support. "Something all of these types of applications have in common is they need to be able to inspect and/or modify state from other applications or the compositor itself. Which wayland's security model normally prevents. I think a major gap in wayland, is having a way for an application to run with escalated permissions so it can have access to other applications. Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas on what that would look like." and then, later in the thread: "for simple things using the compositor's screen shot tool is fine. But what if I don't like the screenshot tool for my compositor of choice? My experience with the GNOME screenshot tool (granted this was pre-wayland) was that it wasn't as good as, say, shutter, which has a lot of options, let's you easily crop and edit the screenshot from inside the screenshot tool etc. And then swaygrab doesn't even (currently) have an option to capture a rectangular region." The entire thread linked to above is worth reading. My own takeaway is that Wayland is just way too immature to compete with X for my power-user use cases. It might be ok for users with simple needs.
  - mythmon_ 8y ago
    Luckily, Firefox supporting Wayland doesn't hurt you at all. I'm also very excited about Firefox supporting Wayland. It isn't dropping support for X11.
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    If thats what wayland is lacking then its ready to use for me and the majority of users.
- rbjorklin 8y ago
  This has actually worked decently well in Fedora for awhile now by doing: `export GDK_BACKEND=wayland` before starting Firefox.
  - iod 8y ago
    Yea that was for Fedora-specific builds, in 65 it's now enabled for the general Linux release on their site.
- floatboth 8y ago
  It's still a bit buggy, but I use Firefox on Wayland as my daily driver already. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1512416 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1512416 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509740 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509740

by iod 8y ago

jniedrauer 8y ago

You have no idea how excited I am for this. I use sway as my daily driver since it supports HiDPI so much better than i3, but the one caveat to that has been firefox and xwayland. Once this ships, sway will have nearly flawless HiDPI support.

iod 8y ago
Yea, I too love Sway and use it as my daily driver. I recommend you use the non-packaged version 65 or newer of Firefox, just need the GDK_BACKEND=wayland environment variable set. Only issue is due to the current state of Sway there are some drag-and-drop issues, but that's not a Firefox thing.
pmoriarty 8y ago
I'm not. Wayland lacks a lot compared to X.[1] From the linked-to-post, it lacks: * Programmatic output configuration (xrandr, arandr, etc.) * CLI clipboard access (xsel, xclip) * Third party app launcher/window switcher (rofi, dmenu, albert, docky). * Clipboard managers (parcellite, klipper, Gpaste, clipman, etc.) * Third party screen shot/capture/share (shutter, OBS, ffmpeg, import, peek, scrot, VNC, etc.) * Color picker (gpick, gcolor3, kcolorchooser) * xdotool Lack of Wayland versions of these apps is a deal breakers for me, and I'm going to avoid Wayland until it gets them. [1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/85q78y/why_im_not_going_to_switch_to_wayland_yet/ https://old.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/85q78y/why_im_not_...
- Leace 8y ago
  xclip works fine for me on wayland (Arch), the rest... yeah, colorpicker? doesn't work. Screenshot? Gnome tool works but grabbing an area has a weird tainted color.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  I'm happy someone is using it however, as that will encourage many shortcomings to be addressed.
  - sprash 8y ago
    In my experience X11 has zero shortcomings compared to Wayland. The code might be ancient and arcane at some points but the performance and features (hello "ssh -X") are actually far superior. Why do we need Wayland?
    - trulyrandom 8y ago
      I have never been able to get a tearing-free experience with X11, and I've tried everything to fix it. Meanwhile Wayland is butter smooth out of the box on the same hardware. Security is another obvious advantage of Wayland.
      - pmoriarty 8y ago
        Just another data point: I've never experienced screen tearing in the decades that I've used X. Also, when I run X just for myself on my own laptop, what security issues do I have to worry about with X that I don't have to worry about with Wayland?
        trulyrandom 8y ago
        That's interesting, because I've had tearing issues with all major GPU brands (Intel, AMD and Nvidia), in particular when multiple monitors are involved. What's your setup like? With regards to security, the main issue is that X11 provides no isolation between applications, allowing them to listen to keystrokes and the clipboard at all times. With Wayland, only focused applications have this access.
        pmoriarty 8y ago
        "What's your setup like?" Currently I'm using an old, slow laptop, with a graphics card integrated in to the motherboard. Nothing special. But I don't do any demanding graphics processing on it. I just watch movies and use web browsers and a terminal. I don't play graphically intense games on it. "With regards to security, the main issue is that X11 provides no isolation between applications, allowing them to listen to keystrokes and the" I don't see why this should concern me or 90% of X users, because if any malware manages to run on our systems it'll already have full control over them without needing to resort to any kind of keystroke sniffing in X. I'm struggling to think of a scenario where malware's running on the same machine with access to a single X session, which doesn't already have full control over the account whose keystrokes they'd be presumably sniffing. They could just substitute their own malware versions of web browsers, shells, editors, or whatever other software the user uses and sniff keystrokes in there, without needing to touch X. Not that it hurts to have more isolation than you get in X, but I'd need a lot more convincing for me to give up the convenience I already enjoy with X. Can someone paint me a realistic, relatively common threat scenario where not having Wayland's isolation would actually present a serious security risk?
- iod 8y ago
  Those things are mostly compositor specific and not specifically a Wayland issue. For example with Sway: * Programmatic output configuration swaymsg -t get_outputs # get displays swaymsg output DP-1 pos 0 0 res 1920x1080 # set displays * CLI clipboard access swaymsg -t get_clipboard * Third party app launcher/window switcher I use gnome-panel with Xwayland, but better than nothing * Third party screen shot/capture/share https://github.com/foss-project/green-recorder https://github.com/foss-project/green-recorder * Color picker (gpick, gcolor3, kcolorchooser) Sorry, no options here yet, but it can be done * xdotool swaymsg [title="Top Panel"] floating enable, resize set width 2560 px height 32 px, move position 0 -38
  - gpm 8y ago
    No, it's fundamentally a wayland issue. Window managers can implement their own extra protocols of course, but instead of X11 where everything was standardized and window managers didn't even have to think about it, there is no standard and window managers have to rewrite all the code for it themselves.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      > No, it's fundamentally a wayland issue. It's not an "issue". It's a design decision. As another example, Linux doesn't have just one desktop environment, like Windows or MacOS, would you say that's an "issue", even if it's a deliberate decision?
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    As OP in the thread I linked to above says: "GNOME and KDE have dbus APIs for some (but not all) of these things, and sway has its own IPC, and other compositors probably have similar solutions. However, they all use different mechanisms, which means that if you are writing say, screenshot application you either have to write a different backend for every compositor, or choose just one or two to support. "Something all of these types of applications have in common is they need to be able to inspect and/or modify state from other applications or the compositor itself. Which wayland's security model normally prevents. I think a major gap in wayland, is having a way for an application to run with escalated permissions so it can have access to other applications. Unfortunately, I don't have any great ideas on what that would look like." and then, later in the thread: "for simple things using the compositor's screen shot tool is fine. But what if I don't like the screenshot tool for my compositor of choice? My experience with the GNOME screenshot tool (granted this was pre-wayland) was that it wasn't as good as, say, shutter, which has a lot of options, let's you easily crop and edit the screenshot from inside the screenshot tool etc. And then swaygrab doesn't even (currently) have an option to capture a rectangular region." The entire thread linked to above is worth reading. My own takeaway is that Wayland is just way too immature to compete with X for my power-user use cases. It might be ok for users with simple needs.
- mythmon_ 8y ago
  Luckily, Firefox supporting Wayland doesn't hurt you at all. I'm also very excited about Firefox supporting Wayland. It isn't dropping support for X11.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  If thats what wayland is lacking then its ready to use for me and the majority of users.
rbjorklin 8y ago
This has actually worked decently well in Fedora for awhile now by doing: `export GDK_BACKEND=wayland` before starting Firefox.
- iod 8y ago
  Yea that was for Fedora-specific builds, in 65 it's now enabled for the general Linux release on their site.
floatboth 8y ago
It's still a bit buggy, but I use Firefox on Wayland as my daily driver already. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1512416 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1512416 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509740 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509740