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The author obviously hasn’t tried plugging a high dpi monitor in to a laptop if they don’t understand what’s wrong with X. Wayland solves so many of my problems

The author obviously hasn’t tried plugging a high dpi monitor in to a laptop if they don’t understand what’s wrong with X. Wayland solves so many of my problems and so far the only thing it breaks is screen capture in electron apps. And not even all electron apps. Discord has no problems.

enriquto 6y ago
> The author obviously hasn’t tried plugging a high dpi monitor in to a laptop if they don’t understand what’s wrong with X This is the only actual, honest, problem that I've ever seen about X. Still, it does not seem a really fundamental problem, it must surely be solvable from within X? Do we really need a full-rewrite of X, unstable, with new bugs and less functionalities? (many of us don't use "desktop" applications and it will break screen capture tools, and other things that are dear to us like xwit, xdotool and the like). Just for that silly mixed-resolution screen problem? I have observed this problem, but to me is a minor, mostly irrelevant nuisance. Losing xwit would be a major problem.
- canofbars 6y ago
  The problem has been crippling the Linux desktop for many years now and it still remains unsolved in X which must indicate that either it is not realistically possible or it is so much work that no one is willing to do it and likely never will. The transition to Wayland is largely finished now. Electron added support last year and eventually the last of the electron apps will update and everything will be done other than nvidia proprietary driver support. There are so many minor improvements from wayland that are less noticeable like the lack of screen tearing, the possibility of sandboxing apps.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    Wayland has existed since more than 10 years and it has still not been able to release a usable system. I'm not willing to lose things that I use everyday just because some idiots want to move their windows between screens and see that they don't change their apparent size. Seriously, this is not a crippling problem. You can easily change the size of one program once it is on the desired screen. What kind of savage keeps moving their windows through different screens?
    - canofbars 6y ago
      >Wayland has existed since more than 10 years and it has still not been able to release a usable system. Fedora has has it on by default for about 4 years now and its perfectly usable. I use it every day. The problem is much more serious than you are explaining. While using X, on my main monitor, UI and text becomes so small I can not even read it or click the icons. I'm not talking about the window size, but the UI and text size. With wayland the app can switch from 200% scale to 100% scale as it crosses the window border. On X you must pick either 100% or 200% and stick with it on all monitors.
      - Filligree 6y ago
        My display scalings aren't 100% and 200%, however. They're 125% and 160%. Can Wayland handle this? If not, what's it really solving?
        mtzet 6y ago
        > Can Wayland handle this? Yes.
    - adrusi 6y ago
      You think that having to close an application in order to move it to a different screen is no big deal, but you think that wayland is lacking critical features? Features more critical than being able to move windows freely? I really am curious what features you think wayland is lacking. I've been using wayland for years, both using Sway and Gnome, and the thing I've missed the most is xdotool, and perhaps there will be a standardization effort to replicate its functionality securely, but for now it's an understandable omission. Maybe it's not fair to say that X is broken for mixed-DPI configurations, since I have managed to get it working with X, but it was quite unreliable, whereas on wayland it just works, save for some incompatible electron apps.
- vetinari 6y ago
  > Still, it does not seem a really fundamental problem, it must surely be solvable from within X? X gives you two options: set DPI per displays. The thing is, you cannot drag windows between displays, the app has destroy it, connect to another one and recreate it here. There's even no mechanism to detect multiple displays other that user setting up the DISPLAY env variable. Or you can do, as the Xorg does: use multiple screens on a single display. Here, the limitation is, that all screens have to have same DPI. Neither of those are acceptable for modern display server. > it will break screen capture tools, It is a good thing that they are broken, because what they do is snooping on windows that do not belong to them. Just like it is unacceptable to integrate user address book to your app by going through its internal files, it is unacceptable to screen grab by snooping windows of other apps. In both scenarios, your app must go through API, which puts the user in the control, whether the app is allowed to do that. Wayland enforces such protocol for screen grabbing and input handling; those app who do not bother... well, the train will leave the station without them. > other things that are dear to us like xwit, xdotool and the like Same as previous, but for input handling. > Just for that silly mixed-resolution screen problem? No, there are multiple problems. For another, surely you would like screen lock that doesn't flash your desktop on unlock? > I have observed this problem, but to me is a minor, mostly irrelevant nuisance. Losing xwit would be a major problem. See even here on HN, it is important for many. Just few days ago there was a discussion under article about i3 and how to drag it into hidpi world in 2021. On the other hand, the mainstream user doesn't even know why they would use xwit, even if they knew it exists.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > It is a good thing that they are broken, because what they do is snooping on windows that do not belong to them. Don't want to derail this discussion anymore, but this argument is nuts. If you are so concerned that programs that you run can spy on other programs that you run, how do you deal that the fact that all of these running programs have full read-write access to all files on your $HOME? EDIT: I agree that being able to run selected programs inside a sandbox would be a good thing (maybe even all programs). But attacking the problem of visible display before that of hidden files seems ridiculous. Moreso if it cripples copy paste, screen capture, and similar basic stuff (which to me are just like unix pipes: ways to make programs work together!)
- aacid 6y ago
  I believe if you want linux to be competitive as desktop OS you need to cater for the average user. I would wager that need for multidisplay support is much more common than need for xwit, no?
michaelmrose 6y ago
This is not the only challenge
Aardwolf 6y ago
What do you mean by high DPI monitor? I have a 32" 4K monitor, is that high DPI? It works perfectly in X for me. I don't see any screen tearing when moving a window fast across the entire screen either, if that was the concern. I also could set up large enough font sizes in cinnamon and browsers.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  The laptop part is important. Your laptop likely has a 1080p screen which needs to be at 100% scale while 4K monitors usually need to be at 200% scale. X does not allow this.
  - Liskni_si 6y ago
    X does allow this, but it needs cooperation from clients, which in practice means that Gtk and Qt need to implement it, and they decided to only implement this for Wayland (which also needs clients to implement this!) because for them, X is dead and not worth supporting. It's not a problem of X per se. It's a deliberate decision to not implement a feature for X.

enriquto 6y ago

> The author obviously hasn’t tried plugging a high dpi monitor in to a laptop if they don’t understand what’s wrong with X This is the only actual, honest, problem that I've ever seen about X. Still, it does not seem a really fundamental problem, it must surely be solvable from within X? Do we really need a full-rewrite of X, unstable, with new bugs and less functionalities? (many of us don't use "desktop" applications and it will break screen capture tools, and other things that are dear to us like xwit, xdotool and the like). Just for that silly mixed-resolution screen problem? I have observed this problem, but to me is a minor, mostly irrelevant nuisance. Losing xwit would be a major problem.

canofbars 6y ago
The problem has been crippling the Linux desktop for many years now and it still remains unsolved in X which must indicate that either it is not realistically possible or it is so much work that no one is willing to do it and likely never will. The transition to Wayland is largely finished now. Electron added support last year and eventually the last of the electron apps will update and everything will be done other than nvidia proprietary driver support. There are so many minor improvements from wayland that are less noticeable like the lack of screen tearing, the possibility of sandboxing apps.
- enriquto 6y ago
  Wayland has existed since more than 10 years and it has still not been able to release a usable system. I'm not willing to lose things that I use everyday just because some idiots want to move their windows between screens and see that they don't change their apparent size. Seriously, this is not a crippling problem. You can easily change the size of one program once it is on the desired screen. What kind of savage keeps moving their windows through different screens?
  - canofbars 6y ago
    >Wayland has existed since more than 10 years and it has still not been able to release a usable system. Fedora has has it on by default for about 4 years now and its perfectly usable. I use it every day. The problem is much more serious than you are explaining. While using X, on my main monitor, UI and text becomes so small I can not even read it or click the icons. I'm not talking about the window size, but the UI and text size. With wayland the app can switch from 200% scale to 100% scale as it crosses the window border. On X you must pick either 100% or 200% and stick with it on all monitors.
    - Filligree 6y ago
      My display scalings aren't 100% and 200%, however. They're 125% and 160%. Can Wayland handle this? If not, what's it really solving?
      - mtzet 6y ago
        > Can Wayland handle this? Yes.
  - adrusi 6y ago
    You think that having to close an application in order to move it to a different screen is no big deal, but you think that wayland is lacking critical features? Features more critical than being able to move windows freely? I really am curious what features you think wayland is lacking. I've been using wayland for years, both using Sway and Gnome, and the thing I've missed the most is xdotool, and perhaps there will be a standardization effort to replicate its functionality securely, but for now it's an understandable omission. Maybe it's not fair to say that X is broken for mixed-DPI configurations, since I have managed to get it working with X, but it was quite unreliable, whereas on wayland it just works, save for some incompatible electron apps.
vetinari 6y ago
> Still, it does not seem a really fundamental problem, it must surely be solvable from within X? X gives you two options: set DPI per displays. The thing is, you cannot drag windows between displays, the app has destroy it, connect to another one and recreate it here. There's even no mechanism to detect multiple displays other that user setting up the DISPLAY env variable. Or you can do, as the Xorg does: use multiple screens on a single display. Here, the limitation is, that all screens have to have same DPI. Neither of those are acceptable for modern display server. > it will break screen capture tools, It is a good thing that they are broken, because what they do is snooping on windows that do not belong to them. Just like it is unacceptable to integrate user address book to your app by going through its internal files, it is unacceptable to screen grab by snooping windows of other apps. In both scenarios, your app must go through API, which puts the user in the control, whether the app is allowed to do that. Wayland enforces such protocol for screen grabbing and input handling; those app who do not bother... well, the train will leave the station without them. > other things that are dear to us like xwit, xdotool and the like Same as previous, but for input handling. > Just for that silly mixed-resolution screen problem? No, there are multiple problems. For another, surely you would like screen lock that doesn't flash your desktop on unlock? > I have observed this problem, but to me is a minor, mostly irrelevant nuisance. Losing xwit would be a major problem. See even here on HN, it is important for many. Just few days ago there was a discussion under article about i3 and how to drag it into hidpi world in 2021. On the other hand, the mainstream user doesn't even know why they would use xwit, even if they knew it exists.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > It is a good thing that they are broken, because what they do is snooping on windows that do not belong to them. Don't want to derail this discussion anymore, but this argument is nuts. If you are so concerned that programs that you run can spy on other programs that you run, how do you deal that the fact that all of these running programs have full read-write access to all files on your $HOME? EDIT: I agree that being able to run selected programs inside a sandbox would be a good thing (maybe even all programs). But attacking the problem of visible display before that of hidden files seems ridiculous. Moreso if it cripples copy paste, screen capture, and similar basic stuff (which to me are just like unix pipes: ways to make programs work together!)
aacid 6y ago
I believe if you want linux to be competitive as desktop OS you need to cater for the average user. I would wager that need for multidisplay support is much more common than need for xwit, no?

michaelmrose 6y ago

This is not the only challenge

Aardwolf 6y ago

What do you mean by high DPI monitor? I have a 32" 4K monitor, is that high DPI? It works perfectly in X for me. I don't see any screen tearing when moving a window fast across the entire screen either, if that was the concern. I also could set up large enough font sizes in cinnamon and browsers.

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
The laptop part is important. Your laptop likely has a 1080p screen which needs to be at 100% scale while 4K monitors usually need to be at 200% scale. X does not allow this.
- Liskni_si 6y ago
  X does allow this, but it needs cooperation from clients, which in practice means that Gtk and Qt need to implement it, and they decided to only implement this for Wayland (which also needs clients to implement this!) because for them, X is dead and not worth supporting. It's not a problem of X per se. It's a deliberate decision to not implement a feature for X.