6 ms·

So what's Wayland? I can't be the only one who is frustrated when they click on a HN link hoping to learn more about something, and instead I'm presented with

by Veuxdo 5y ago

So what's Wayland? I can't be the only one who is frustrated when they click on a HN link hoping to learn more about something, and instead I'm presented with a list of folders and files.

nixpulvis 5y ago
Basically X11 2.0 in effect. Though I'm sure someone can point out substantial ways they are different, e.g. the new compositor model. Things are supposed to be a bit more secure and extensible, and it's mature enough now that I've been using it for my daily life with little to no problems for a couple years. Read this for a better description: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ https://wayland.freedesktop.org/
tdfirth 5y ago
It's an alternative to the X window system: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ Appreciate where you're coming from re the detail. It can be hard to know where to draw the line when explaining projects and it depends on the target audience etc. In this case, I would say it's ok that they don't explain what Wayland is on the project page. Wayland has pretty widespread adoption now and I reckon the vast majority of people that might be interested in projects like tiling window managers for linux will have heard of it (and that has probably been true for quite some time now, Wayland has been around for over a decade). If you're keen to dig into it more, another popular project in the space is sway https://swaywm.org/ https://swaywm.org/.
sandreas 5y ago
Wayland is a protocol - not an implementation. It tries to minify latency by merging together some of the components X11 had and tries to do this in a slim and faster way eliminating "design flaws". The implementation of the protocol may differ, but I know for example MUTTER, that is used in GNOME (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter) This article has nice and not too complex visualisations and explanations: https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/ https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/
- sprash 5y ago
  > It tries to minify latency Quiet the opposite. Tearfree rendering, forced vsync and the completely opaque way of interacting with graphics memory in order to fulfill the "every frame is perfect" philosophy means Wayland is optimized for all kinds of things (mainly to give involved consulting firms some lucrative gigs) but certainly not latency.
  - sandreas 5y ago
    Could you give more details on that? This sounds like Wayland is not your favourite...
    - sprash 5y ago
      I discussed this in past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940
      - sandreas 5y ago
        Thank you. This is something I will definetely investigate further :-)
  - Seirdy 5y ago
    It's more nuanced than that. If your goal is to have a desktop without screen tearing, you will beed a compositor. Wayland will do better at minifying latency than an X11 compositor due to having better frame scheduling. This is especially pronounced on very low-end ARM devices like the Pinebook that experience lag on DWM but are incredibly snappy under Sway. If you are fine with visual glitches like screen tearing due to e.g. a lack of vsync then X might have less latency.
    - sprash 5y ago
      > If you are fine with visual glitches There are cases where tearing is extremely distracting, like playing videos or scrolling in the browser. There are cases where tearing will not be noticed at all but low latency might be beneficial, e.g. when you only have small areas of the screen that are updated, like moving the mouse cursor or editing text. And there are cases where it is a user preference, e.g. Games (Many people play competitive FPS Games without vsync whereas scrolling without vsync in strategy games will be very distracting). The point is to give the user a choice when there is a trade-off. The trade-off here is vsync vs. low latency. Wayland makes the choice for you. On X11 each application can do what makes sense for that particular use case and on top of that the compositor can be turned off, on or even be replaced at runtime without affecting running programs. X11 is superior technology in every way if you ask me.
oauea 5y ago
Scroll down past the files to the readme. It's not unusual for github links to be posted on HN.
sprash 5y ago
It is a failed attempt to replace X11. The fact that it is more than 10 years in development and Screenshot tools designed for kWin or GNOME won't work on this compositor because there is no standardized API to do such an essential thing should show you how much of a utterly massive failure it is.
- jrm4 5y ago
  Hear Hear. I ask this like every Wayland thread, but what is the point? I keep hearing all these theoretical answers of things that are broken or could be improved -- but I'm a 20 plus year Linux user who has zero trouble doing work, playing games, including using a setup that uses a 4K monitor; with little or no modifications to standard installs of popular distros.
cp9 5y ago
It’s much much much more secure. Unfortunately that broke screenshotting/screen sharing programs. So, each compositor has to have their own now. But in general better performance and ideally you won’t even notice anything is different
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  > So, each compositor has to have their own now. Not really. There are common APIs called XDG Portals, so all you need is a compositor-specific portal implementation which is transparent for applications.

by Veuxdo 5y ago

So what's Wayland? I can't be the only one who is frustrated when they click on a HN link hoping to learn more about something, and instead I'm presented with a list of folders and files.

nixpulvis 5y ago

Basically X11 2.0 in effect. Though I'm sure someone can point out substantial ways they are different, e.g. the new compositor model. Things are supposed to be a bit more secure and extensible, and it's mature enough now that I've been using it for my daily life with little to no problems for a couple years. Read this for a better description: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ https://wayland.freedesktop.org/

tdfirth 5y ago

It's an alternative to the X window system: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ https://wayland.freedesktop.org/ Appreciate where you're coming from re the detail. It can be hard to know where to draw the line when explaining projects and it depends on the target audience etc. In this case, I would say it's ok that they don't explain what Wayland is on the project page. Wayland has pretty widespread adoption now and I reckon the vast majority of people that might be interested in projects like tiling window managers for linux will have heard of it (and that has probably been true for quite some time now, Wayland has been around for over a decade). If you're keen to dig into it more, another popular project in the space is sway https://swaywm.org/ https://swaywm.org/.

sandreas 5y ago

Wayland is a protocol - not an implementation. It tries to minify latency by merging together some of the components X11 had and tries to do this in a slim and faster way eliminating "design flaws". The implementation of the protocol may differ, but I know for example MUTTER, that is used in GNOME (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter) This article has nice and not too complex visualisations and explanations: https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/ https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/

sprash 5y ago
> It tries to minify latency Quiet the opposite. Tearfree rendering, forced vsync and the completely opaque way of interacting with graphics memory in order to fulfill the "every frame is perfect" philosophy means Wayland is optimized for all kinds of things (mainly to give involved consulting firms some lucrative gigs) but certainly not latency.
- sandreas 5y ago
  Could you give more details on that? This sounds like Wayland is not your favourite...
  - sprash 5y ago
    I discussed this in past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940
    - sandreas 5y ago
      Thank you. This is something I will definetely investigate further :-)
- Seirdy 5y ago
  It's more nuanced than that. If your goal is to have a desktop without screen tearing, you will beed a compositor. Wayland will do better at minifying latency than an X11 compositor due to having better frame scheduling. This is especially pronounced on very low-end ARM devices like the Pinebook that experience lag on DWM but are incredibly snappy under Sway. If you are fine with visual glitches like screen tearing due to e.g. a lack of vsync then X might have less latency.
  - sprash 5y ago
    > If you are fine with visual glitches There are cases where tearing is extremely distracting, like playing videos or scrolling in the browser. There are cases where tearing will not be noticed at all but low latency might be beneficial, e.g. when you only have small areas of the screen that are updated, like moving the mouse cursor or editing text. And there are cases where it is a user preference, e.g. Games (Many people play competitive FPS Games without vsync whereas scrolling without vsync in strategy games will be very distracting). The point is to give the user a choice when there is a trade-off. The trade-off here is vsync vs. low latency. Wayland makes the choice for you. On X11 each application can do what makes sense for that particular use case and on top of that the compositor can be turned off, on or even be replaced at runtime without affecting running programs. X11 is superior technology in every way if you ask me.

oauea 5y ago

Scroll down past the files to the readme. It's not unusual for github links to be posted on HN.

sprash 5y ago

It is a failed attempt to replace X11. The fact that it is more than 10 years in development and Screenshot tools designed for kWin or GNOME won't work on this compositor because there is no standardized API to do such an essential thing should show you how much of a utterly massive failure it is.

jrm4 5y ago
Hear Hear. I ask this like every Wayland thread, but what is the point? I keep hearing all these theoretical answers of things that are broken or could be improved -- but I'm a 20 plus year Linux user who has zero trouble doing work, playing games, including using a setup that uses a 4K monitor; with little or no modifications to standard installs of popular distros.

cp9 5y ago

It’s much much much more secure. Unfortunately that broke screenshotting/screen sharing programs. So, each compositor has to have their own now. But in general better performance and ideally you won’t even notice anything is different

seba_dos1 5y ago
> So, each compositor has to have their own now. Not really. There are common APIs called XDG Portals, so all you need is a compositor-specific portal implementation which is transparent for applications.