4 ms·

I tried Wayland on 20.10 a few month ago and concluded it wasn't ready for daily use. The worst thing is that it would RANDOMLY cause Gnome to restart while clo

I tried Wayland on 20.10 a few month ago and concluded it wasn't ready for daily use. The worst thing is that it would RANDOMLY cause Gnome to restart while closing all my applications. Also the cursor was jumpy and laggy sometimes (especially when opening context menus). Is anyone aware if these issues still happen?

simion314 6y ago
>The worst thing is that it would RANDOMLY cause Gnome to restart while closing all my applications. Question: Is this a GNOME architecture issue? I hope KDE could avoid this issues, atm on Xorg I can restart the window manager and the desktop shell without losing any data.
- intergalplan 6y ago
  I don't have a firm answer, but considering how much Wayland pushes off on the compositor (seemingly everything, nothing is ever Wayland's fault or responsibility) I'd expect that the compositor (every desktop environment or WM also needs to be a compositor, now) crashing is identical to all of Xorg crashing, not just the DE or WM under Xorg crashing.
  - dyingkneepad 6y ago
    You are right. The compositor crashing is equivalent to X crashing: everything goes boom. In the X world, if gnome-session dies another one gets automatically started and you may not even realize what happened.
    - simion314 6y ago
      So KDE will have same issues ? I am wondering if they can architect it somehow where you put minimal code in the compositor and move the window management, and the complex effects (like zoom and animation) into a different process. If Linux would have decided to use Mir would have at least shared same "server" code and probably also get around this issues but is hard to promote quality when Gnome and RedHat has a different idea.
      - intergalplan 6y ago
        In fact, KDE might have entirely different issues that cause the same problems. The frustrating thing about Wayland's design is that every single WM/DE now gets to have its own, unique set of "crash the world" stability bugs.
        CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
        (I'm not denying that possibility, and I'm only one datapoint, but) In practice I have only ever seen one DE (GNOME) with these "crash the world" stability bugs, and they also happen on X, which makes me think the problems are not with Wayland.
        simion314 6y ago
        GNOME crashes a lot probably because of how people are forced to patch the DE with extensions or maybe even the bad quality of their code, but I have crashes of KWin or Plasma hangs sometimes on X , so KDE is not perfect and if I would use wayland on my NVIDIA system I would be hit with work losing crashes. KWin and Plasma are pretty complex so there will always be bugs , this is why I am wondering if there can be soem kind of refactoring to a safer architecture.
  - Quekid5 6y ago
    > (seemingly everything, nothing is ever Wayland's fault or responsibility) That's because there is no such thing as "wayland" actually running on your machine -- it's simply a protocol for compositors and applications to talk to each other.
    - intergalplan 6y ago
      > That's because there is no such thing as "wayland" actually running on your machine -- it's simply a protocol for compositors and applications to talk to each other. "Wayland" is also an implementation. The protocol and implementation share a name. By the look of things, Gnome does indeed require it (that is, various "libwayland" packages) on Ubuntu.
      - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
        (I'm not the one who downvoted you, so have an upvote, but) I think they renamed their reference implementation to "Weston" to differentiate it from the Wayland spec/interface. Gnome implements its own, as does KDE, as does Sway. But I'm a simple person, and in my eyes even bare Weston is "good enough" in that "startx" sort of way...
        intergalplan 6y ago
        They have a compositor named Weston, yes, but then what is libwayland, on which Gnome (and others) depend? Wikipedia: > Wayland is a communication protocol that specifies the communication between a display server and its clients, as well as a C library implementation of that protocol. That's the C library also named Wayland and made by the people guiding the Wayland spec on which Gnome depends, no? Or are there three things going by the name Wayland, one of them not actually associated with the Wayland project?
        Quekid5 6y ago
        They could have perhaps done better to differentiate All The Things, but libwayland is just a C implementation of speaking the Wayland protocol...? AFAIUI, e.g. KDE doesn't actually use any of that. (I could be wrong, I honestly don't care that much about the minutiae.)
- CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
  > Is this a GNOME architecture issue? Yes. And always has been since like forever ago. I'm all for choice and diversity, but I've personally never understood all the love and excitement and attention that GNOME has gotten ever since Canonical got behind it and dropped Unity. I'm certainly not it's target audience - running XFCE, LXDE/LXQT, and i3/Sway over the years - but it really gobsmacks me to hear the cheerleading over what seem like really basic fixes, like "now the single-threaded shell crashes to login less often! Horray!"
  - intergalplan 6y ago
    What's surprised me about modern Gnome is how much heavier and worse-performing it is than... KDE. What a reversal compared with the Gnome2 days.
    - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
      Agreed - I should clarify that my Gnome gripes are mainly about how they failed to "get it right" with Gnome3. I don't really have any specific criticism of the old Gnome2 - Both it and KDE were too heavy for me in those days.
      - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
        One of the best things about Linux desktop for me is that fortunately we're not forced to use Gnome3. Actually Gnome2 wasn't that bad and I'm very happy it was revived as Mate. I assume most people run Gnome3 because it was the default DE in their distro, but honestly, they should do themselves a favor and at least test some popular alternatives.
- cmm 6y ago
  Yes. Someone decided that having one process be the display server (which in the x11 world is separate) and the desktop shell, and have said desktop shell be able to run basically arbitrary js code, is going to work well. And it mostly does, as long as you are foregoing the js extensibility part; otherwise (at least in my personal experience) it's a complete disaster.
e12e 6y ago
I haven't really tried 20.10 or 21.04 - but have been running Wayland on 20.04 for at 6 months (I've run 20.04 a year, not sure when I switched to Wayland). Lenovo latitude laptop with Intel graphics, two external screens, one HD, one 2k with fractional scaling. Works well. Gnome desktop.
vardump 6y ago
Regarding jumpy mouse, try it with an another one. I suspect some higher end or gaming mice work badly with Ubuntu for some reason. Very jerky motion and missed button presses. Cheap basic mice seemed to work well.
- pawelduda 6y ago
  I actually do have a gaming mouse I really like using. Not sure if I want to downgrade for that. It has to be Gnome issue, I've used Sway (Wayland) where everything was super smooth.

simion314 6y ago

>The worst thing is that it would RANDOMLY cause Gnome to restart while closing all my applications. Question: Is this a GNOME architecture issue? I hope KDE could avoid this issues, atm on Xorg I can restart the window manager and the desktop shell without losing any data.

intergalplan 6y ago
I don't have a firm answer, but considering how much Wayland pushes off on the compositor (seemingly everything, nothing is ever Wayland's fault or responsibility) I'd expect that the compositor (every desktop environment or WM also needs to be a compositor, now) crashing is identical to all of Xorg crashing, not just the DE or WM under Xorg crashing.
- dyingkneepad 6y ago
  You are right. The compositor crashing is equivalent to X crashing: everything goes boom. In the X world, if gnome-session dies another one gets automatically started and you may not even realize what happened.
  - simion314 6y ago
    So KDE will have same issues ? I am wondering if they can architect it somehow where you put minimal code in the compositor and move the window management, and the complex effects (like zoom and animation) into a different process. If Linux would have decided to use Mir would have at least shared same "server" code and probably also get around this issues but is hard to promote quality when Gnome and RedHat has a different idea.
    - intergalplan 6y ago
      In fact, KDE might have entirely different issues that cause the same problems. The frustrating thing about Wayland's design is that every single WM/DE now gets to have its own, unique set of "crash the world" stability bugs.
      - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
        (I'm not denying that possibility, and I'm only one datapoint, but) In practice I have only ever seen one DE (GNOME) with these "crash the world" stability bugs, and they also happen on X, which makes me think the problems are not with Wayland.
        simion314 6y ago
        GNOME crashes a lot probably because of how people are forced to patch the DE with extensions or maybe even the bad quality of their code, but I have crashes of KWin or Plasma hangs sometimes on X , so KDE is not perfect and if I would use wayland on my NVIDIA system I would be hit with work losing crashes. KWin and Plasma are pretty complex so there will always be bugs , this is why I am wondering if there can be soem kind of refactoring to a safer architecture.
- Quekid5 6y ago
  > (seemingly everything, nothing is ever Wayland's fault or responsibility) That's because there is no such thing as "wayland" actually running on your machine -- it's simply a protocol for compositors and applications to talk to each other.
  - intergalplan 6y ago
    > That's because there is no such thing as "wayland" actually running on your machine -- it's simply a protocol for compositors and applications to talk to each other. "Wayland" is also an implementation. The protocol and implementation share a name. By the look of things, Gnome does indeed require it (that is, various "libwayland" packages) on Ubuntu.
    - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
      (I'm not the one who downvoted you, so have an upvote, but) I think they renamed their reference implementation to "Weston" to differentiate it from the Wayland spec/interface. Gnome implements its own, as does KDE, as does Sway. But I'm a simple person, and in my eyes even bare Weston is "good enough" in that "startx" sort of way...
      - intergalplan 6y ago
        They have a compositor named Weston, yes, but then what is libwayland, on which Gnome (and others) depend? Wikipedia: > Wayland is a communication protocol that specifies the communication between a display server and its clients, as well as a C library implementation of that protocol. That's the C library also named Wayland and made by the people guiding the Wayland spec on which Gnome depends, no? Or are there three things going by the name Wayland, one of them not actually associated with the Wayland project?
        Quekid5 6y ago
        They could have perhaps done better to differentiate All The Things, but libwayland is just a C implementation of speaking the Wayland protocol...? AFAIUI, e.g. KDE doesn't actually use any of that. (I could be wrong, I honestly don't care that much about the minutiae.)
CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
> Is this a GNOME architecture issue? Yes. And always has been since like forever ago. I'm all for choice and diversity, but I've personally never understood all the love and excitement and attention that GNOME has gotten ever since Canonical got behind it and dropped Unity. I'm certainly not it's target audience - running XFCE, LXDE/LXQT, and i3/Sway over the years - but it really gobsmacks me to hear the cheerleading over what seem like really basic fixes, like "now the single-threaded shell crashes to login less often! Horray!"
- intergalplan 6y ago
  What's surprised me about modern Gnome is how much heavier and worse-performing it is than... KDE. What a reversal compared with the Gnome2 days.
  - CrazyPyroLinux 6y ago
    Agreed - I should clarify that my Gnome gripes are mainly about how they failed to "get it right" with Gnome3. I don't really have any specific criticism of the old Gnome2 - Both it and KDE were too heavy for me in those days.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
      One of the best things about Linux desktop for me is that fortunately we're not forced to use Gnome3. Actually Gnome2 wasn't that bad and I'm very happy it was revived as Mate. I assume most people run Gnome3 because it was the default DE in their distro, but honestly, they should do themselves a favor and at least test some popular alternatives.
cmm 6y ago
Yes. Someone decided that having one process be the display server (which in the x11 world is separate) and the desktop shell, and have said desktop shell be able to run basically arbitrary js code, is going to work well. And it mostly does, as long as you are foregoing the js extensibility part; otherwise (at least in my personal experience) it's a complete disaster.

e12e 6y ago

I haven't really tried 20.10 or 21.04 - but have been running Wayland on 20.04 for at 6 months (I've run 20.04 a year, not sure when I switched to Wayland). Lenovo latitude laptop with Intel graphics, two external screens, one HD, one 2k with fractional scaling. Works well. Gnome desktop.

vardump 6y ago

Regarding jumpy mouse, try it with an another one. I suspect some higher end or gaming mice work badly with Ubuntu for some reason. Very jerky motion and missed button presses. Cheap basic mice seemed to work well.

pawelduda 6y ago
I actually do have a gaming mouse I really like using. Not sure if I want to downgrade for that. It has to be Gnome issue, I've used Sway (Wayland) where everything was super smooth.