4 ms·

I'm not even a wayland developer and I get annoyed by all the posts about wayland not working, I've been running it for years and it Just Works(tm) for me aside

I'm not even a wayland developer and I get annoyed by all the posts about wayland not working, I've been running it for years and it Just Works(tm) for me aside from the occasional gotcha.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Which of course means that it must be good enough for everyone, because it works for you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mdiesel 6y ago
  No, but Wayland is not a bit of software you even think about until it goes wrong. That means the internet gets disproportionately filled with posts about Wayland not working, which presents the wrong image. When reading up on what desktop environment to use, it's hard to get a balanced view unless there are commenters like this, saying that running Wayland works.
  - turminal 6y ago
    > No, but Wayland is not a bit of software you even think about until it goes wrong. That means the internet gets disproportionately filled with posts about Wayland not working, which presents the wrong image. Kind of like reverse survivorship bias. The only wayland sessions that get attention on the internet arw the ones that don't work.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  The funny thing about your funny remark is that the inverse is used as primary anti-wayland argument. Oh no, a single thing doesn't work yet, the entire system must be fundamentally broke for everyone. Definitely not just a bug or feature someone hasn't gotten to yet, no no. If anyone wants to keep using X, they're free to step up and maintain it. So far no one has been willing.
  - bluefox 6y ago
    I don't understand the point about maintenance. Is Xorg maintained? If so, are the current maintainers handcuffed to it? I assume they aren't, so what's the problem? If Xorg is not maintained, again, what's the problem? Software is known to outlive its creators and maintainers. If there's a need, it will eventually get new maintainers. Software is not magic.
    - kevincox 6y ago
      X is barely maintained anymore. To a large extent all of the X developers are working on Wayland now. A lot of people have the impression that Wayland is some outside competitor to X but the truth is that the vast majority of the people who started Wayland are long-time X developers who know its flaws inside and out.
      - bluefox 6y ago
        Sure, I can understand people working on software X for a long time getting fed up with it and start working on software W. I can also understand that these people have strong opinions on why W is so much better. The only trouble is that others, who are possibly not developers of window systems, may not care, or may find that it breaks their software, or may not want to write software that depends on W and doesn't work on X. So what if Xorg is "barely maintained"? It works. Hell, as long as it works, it's likely better for it not to change. If there are issues, in the free software world we say "patches welcome". No developer should feel chained to a project.
        arghwhat 6y ago
        There are not enough developers to even create a new release or review contributor patches. The Wayland community contributes a fair share due to xwayland, and we get stuck on this quite often. And yeah, it'll need fixes. over time. It's big, complex, and interacts with device drivers that are very much in flux.
        6y ago
- jamienicol 6y ago
  "X11 works perfectly there was no need for Wayland"
vaylian 6y ago
As someone who has no experience with Wayland: What are the telltale signs that a problem is related to Wayland and not the application itself? I've gotten curious. I want to try Wayland in the near future. But it would be good to have an idea of what kind of issues I might encounter, so that I can change back to X11 in an emergency.
- kevincox 6y ago
  I don't think there is really much. Most of the bugs you will see stem from software having a different codepath for each. For example I know that drag and drop is a little buggy on Firefox under Wayland not because of the protocol, just a state management bug that they are trying to track down. (however Firefox still uses XWayland by default so it isn't really relevant anyways). But I suspect we are roughly around the point where the X codepaths, while more battle hardened, are probably starting to rot so the current state you are probably getting the sameish number of bugs under each (AKA applications are differently broken under both). If you are seeing a bug I guess just try the other one out and see if it reproduces, but I can't think of the last time I did that. The only thing that is a common issue is screen capturing not working. If you have PipeWire setup it will work for most applications but it is still quite new. So if something related to screen content grabbing is not working it could be a Wayland triggered bug.
  - vaylian 6y ago
    Thanks! I'll look up PipeWire.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  So far every single complaint I have seen about wayland is something that wayland actually supports but that a specific program hasn’t been updated to use yet.
happytoexplain 6y ago
This is confusing - "works for me" is a common joke. The point of that phrase is usually that it is not a good reason to minimize those for whom it does not work.

I'm not even a wayland developer and I get annoyed by all the posts about wayland not working, I've been running it for years and it Just Works(tm) for me aside from the occasional gotcha.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

Which of course means that it must be good enough for everyone, because it works for you.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mdiesel 6y ago
No, but Wayland is not a bit of software you even think about until it goes wrong. That means the internet gets disproportionately filled with posts about Wayland not working, which presents the wrong image. When reading up on what desktop environment to use, it's hard to get a balanced view unless there are commenters like this, saying that running Wayland works.
- turminal 6y ago
  > No, but Wayland is not a bit of software you even think about until it goes wrong. That means the internet gets disproportionately filled with posts about Wayland not working, which presents the wrong image. Kind of like reverse survivorship bias. The only wayland sessions that get attention on the internet arw the ones that don't work.
arghwhat 6y ago
The funny thing about your funny remark is that the inverse is used as primary anti-wayland argument. Oh no, a single thing doesn't work yet, the entire system must be fundamentally broke for everyone. Definitely not just a bug or feature someone hasn't gotten to yet, no no. If anyone wants to keep using X, they're free to step up and maintain it. So far no one has been willing.
- bluefox 6y ago
  I don't understand the point about maintenance. Is Xorg maintained? If so, are the current maintainers handcuffed to it? I assume they aren't, so what's the problem? If Xorg is not maintained, again, what's the problem? Software is known to outlive its creators and maintainers. If there's a need, it will eventually get new maintainers. Software is not magic.
  - kevincox 6y ago
    X is barely maintained anymore. To a large extent all of the X developers are working on Wayland now. A lot of people have the impression that Wayland is some outside competitor to X but the truth is that the vast majority of the people who started Wayland are long-time X developers who know its flaws inside and out.
    - bluefox 6y ago
      Sure, I can understand people working on software X for a long time getting fed up with it and start working on software W. I can also understand that these people have strong opinions on why W is so much better. The only trouble is that others, who are possibly not developers of window systems, may not care, or may find that it breaks their software, or may not want to write software that depends on W and doesn't work on X. So what if Xorg is "barely maintained"? It works. Hell, as long as it works, it's likely better for it not to change. If there are issues, in the free software world we say "patches welcome". No developer should feel chained to a project.
      - arghwhat 6y ago
        There are not enough developers to even create a new release or review contributor patches. The Wayland community contributes a fair share due to xwayland, and we get stuck on this quite often. And yeah, it'll need fixes. over time. It's big, complex, and interacts with device drivers that are very much in flux.
        6y ago
jamienicol 6y ago
"X11 works perfectly there was no need for Wayland"

vaylian 6y ago

As someone who has no experience with Wayland: What are the telltale signs that a problem is related to Wayland and not the application itself? I've gotten curious. I want to try Wayland in the near future. But it would be good to have an idea of what kind of issues I might encounter, so that I can change back to X11 in an emergency.

kevincox 6y ago
I don't think there is really much. Most of the bugs you will see stem from software having a different codepath for each. For example I know that drag and drop is a little buggy on Firefox under Wayland not because of the protocol, just a state management bug that they are trying to track down. (however Firefox still uses XWayland by default so it isn't really relevant anyways). But I suspect we are roughly around the point where the X codepaths, while more battle hardened, are probably starting to rot so the current state you are probably getting the sameish number of bugs under each (AKA applications are differently broken under both). If you are seeing a bug I guess just try the other one out and see if it reproduces, but I can't think of the last time I did that. The only thing that is a common issue is screen capturing not working. If you have PipeWire setup it will work for most applications but it is still quite new. So if something related to screen content grabbing is not working it could be a Wayland triggered bug.
- vaylian 6y ago
  Thanks! I'll look up PipeWire.
PurpleFoxy 6y ago
So far every single complaint I have seen about wayland is something that wayland actually supports but that a specific program hasn’t been updated to use yet.

happytoexplain 6y ago

This is confusing - "works for me" is a common joke. The point of that phrase is usually that it is not a good reason to minimize those for whom it does not work.