4 ms·

X11 is not really a viable solution anymore. The API has some pretty major flaws that there are no plans to fix. Or rather, the plan to fix them has been to shi

by md8z 5y ago

X11 is not really a viable solution anymore. The API has some pretty major flaws that there are no plans to fix. Or rather, the plan to fix them has been to ship Wayland as the new API. It should continue to be backwards compatible because of XWayland. Also I don't believe X11 has any API for kinetic scrolling, that typically is implemented by the desktop environment so I'm confused as to what you mean. "I consider Wayland (and GNOME) a deliberate act of sabotage." KDE is actually fully behind Wayland as well. It's not something that GNOME is doing just to inconvenience you. https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland#Why_Plasma_needs_Wayland.3F https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland#Why_Plasma_needs_Wayl...

sprash 5y ago
> X11 is not really a viable solution anymore. These are very unsubstantiated claims. X11 works perfectly. Wayland on the other hand is not a viable solution at all at this point. You can't even take screenshots. > The API has some pretty major flaws that there are no plans to fix. Except for the 15bit coordinate limitation it has no major flaws and can be extended if needed. If anything has major flaws it is Wayland. As an exercise I recommend implementing a native screenshot application on Wayland and compare that experience with the X11 equivalent. The Wayland API is pure garbage. > KDE is actually fully behind Wayland as well. Maybe in words only. The Actual Wayland version of KDE has major bugs and people doing serious work always switch back to the X11 session where it works flawlessly. Besides that I don't think KDE is any good either.
- md8z 5y ago
  I'm using GNOME on Wayland and pressing the "Print Screen" key takes a screenshot so I'm not really sure what you're talking about, it would help if you could clarify. My experience developing screenshot/screencast/webcam applications on Wayland has been significantly better than it has been on X11. Using X11 APIs for those things is somewhat of a misuse and breaks in corner cases, as those APIs are only really safe to use by the window manager. Extending X11 is also a bad idea because that's just more things that have to get plumbed through Wayland/the X server/toolkits/libraries. Pipewire really makes it easy to use and convenient, you just use that and then you don't have to worry about messing with the lower levels of the stack. If you don't think KDE or GNOME are good then we have not much to talk about, there are no other viable open source desktop platforms on Linux. I certainly don't think they're free of flaws, but they are the best we've got.
  - sprash 5y ago
    > My experience developing screenshot/screencast/webcam applications on Wayland has been significantly better than it has been on X11. I don't believe a word. Even writing just a native hello world application shows the pure ugliness and massive amount of boiler plate required just to put a pixel on the screen. You can take your seat capability pointer and wl registry listener and shove it up your a*. The Wayland API is ugly shit. > If you don't think KDE or GNOME are good then we have not much to talk about Indeed. They are both part of the reason the Linux Desktop never took off.
    - md8z 5y ago
      "You can take your seat capability pointer and wl registry listener and shove it up your a*." Well it's not my API and this is also incredibly rude, please don't say these things to people online. You should not be using the low level Wayland API unless you're developing a toolkit, you will always have a rough experience with that. The only reason to use that is if you want to write all that boilerplate. I suggest developing using the GNOME and KDE libraries that they have for this, which handle the boilerplate for you. Seriously, the Wayland API is not meant for normal user-facing applications. The number of projects that actually need to worry about it is pretty small and it's limited to pretty much just compositors and toolkits and a few other glue libraries. Don't try to use it like it's the X11 API because they're not the same and you'll just run into trouble if you do that. "They are both part of the reason the Linux Desktop never took off." I agree with this to an extent but X11 is also part of that same problem. KDE and GNOME were originally X11 desktops (and still are). And if you don't care about this I'm very confused as to what you're doing with a Linux desktop, that seems like a recipe for pain.
      - sprash 5y ago
        > You should not be using the low level Wayland API unless you're developing a toolkit The main reason the Linux Desktop is shit is because the main toolkits gtk and qt are shit. Wayland makes it incredibly hard to write a toolkit hence it will make sure that the Linux Desktop stays shit.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > These are very unsubstantiated claims. X11 works perfectly. Wayland on the other hand is not a viable solution at all at this point. You can't even take screenshots. You either haven't used Wayland, or haven't used it lately. You can take screenshots just fine. I used to do it regularly with KDE's Spectacle, and now I use Flameshot. Screen sharing also works. > Maybe in words only. The Actual Wayland version of KDE has major bugs and people doing serious work always switch back to the X11 session where it works flawlessly. Besides that I don't think KDE is any good either. I use Plasma with Wayland to do my work and it's been a breeze, no pun intended.

by md8z 5y ago

sprash 5y ago

> X11 is not really a viable solution anymore. These are very unsubstantiated claims. X11 works perfectly. Wayland on the other hand is not a viable solution at all at this point. You can't even take screenshots. > The API has some pretty major flaws that there are no plans to fix. Except for the 15bit coordinate limitation it has no major flaws and can be extended if needed. If anything has major flaws it is Wayland. As an exercise I recommend implementing a native screenshot application on Wayland and compare that experience with the X11 equivalent. The Wayland API is pure garbage. > KDE is actually fully behind Wayland as well. Maybe in words only. The Actual Wayland version of KDE has major bugs and people doing serious work always switch back to the X11 session where it works flawlessly. Besides that I don't think KDE is any good either.

md8z 5y ago
I'm using GNOME on Wayland and pressing the "Print Screen" key takes a screenshot so I'm not really sure what you're talking about, it would help if you could clarify. My experience developing screenshot/screencast/webcam applications on Wayland has been significantly better than it has been on X11. Using X11 APIs for those things is somewhat of a misuse and breaks in corner cases, as those APIs are only really safe to use by the window manager. Extending X11 is also a bad idea because that's just more things that have to get plumbed through Wayland/the X server/toolkits/libraries. Pipewire really makes it easy to use and convenient, you just use that and then you don't have to worry about messing with the lower levels of the stack. If you don't think KDE or GNOME are good then we have not much to talk about, there are no other viable open source desktop platforms on Linux. I certainly don't think they're free of flaws, but they are the best we've got.
- sprash 5y ago
  > My experience developing screenshot/screencast/webcam applications on Wayland has been significantly better than it has been on X11. I don't believe a word. Even writing just a native hello world application shows the pure ugliness and massive amount of boiler plate required just to put a pixel on the screen. You can take your seat capability pointer and wl registry listener and shove it up your a*. The Wayland API is ugly shit. > If you don't think KDE or GNOME are good then we have not much to talk about Indeed. They are both part of the reason the Linux Desktop never took off.
  - md8z 5y ago
    "You can take your seat capability pointer and wl registry listener and shove it up your a*." Well it's not my API and this is also incredibly rude, please don't say these things to people online. You should not be using the low level Wayland API unless you're developing a toolkit, you will always have a rough experience with that. The only reason to use that is if you want to write all that boilerplate. I suggest developing using the GNOME and KDE libraries that they have for this, which handle the boilerplate for you. Seriously, the Wayland API is not meant for normal user-facing applications. The number of projects that actually need to worry about it is pretty small and it's limited to pretty much just compositors and toolkits and a few other glue libraries. Don't try to use it like it's the X11 API because they're not the same and you'll just run into trouble if you do that. "They are both part of the reason the Linux Desktop never took off." I agree with this to an extent but X11 is also part of that same problem. KDE and GNOME were originally X11 desktops (and still are). And if you don't care about this I'm very confused as to what you're doing with a Linux desktop, that seems like a recipe for pain.
    - sprash 5y ago
      > You should not be using the low level Wayland API unless you're developing a toolkit The main reason the Linux Desktop is shit is because the main toolkits gtk and qt are shit. Wayland makes it incredibly hard to write a toolkit hence it will make sure that the Linux Desktop stays shit.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> These are very unsubstantiated claims. X11 works perfectly. Wayland on the other hand is not a viable solution at all at this point. You can't even take screenshots. You either haven't used Wayland, or haven't used it lately. You can take screenshots just fine. I used to do it regularly with KDE's Spectacle, and now I use Flameshot. Screen sharing also works. > Maybe in words only. The Actual Wayland version of KDE has major bugs and people doing serious work always switch back to the X11 session where it works flawlessly. Besides that I don't think KDE is any good either. I use Plasma with Wayland to do my work and it's been a breeze, no pun intended.