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Why should a Linux user care whether the display uses X11 or Wayland? Is there a summary somewhere that explains why, or if, it would benefit me to put any eff

Why should a Linux user care whether the display uses X11 or Wayland? Is there a summary somewhere that explains why, or if, it would benefit me to put any effort into switching?

nsajko 5y ago
Wayland is the new option, that surprisingly (since X is quite ugly) manages to have a much worse design than X. Wayland (as a consequence of its design) isn't really a single option, rather each DE and WM does it's own implementation of lots of stuff, with different interfaces. So please don't use it as you would be supporting fragmentation and death of the Linux desktop.
- kaba0 5y ago
  > Wayland is the new option, that surprisingly (since X is quite ugly) manages to have a much worse design than X. Citation needed. And no, it doesn’t support fragmentation - it is a protocol with multiple implementations - which is a good thing! It means that noone will code against the implementation, but the protocol. (And in practice, there are very few non-standard extensions that supposed to be cross-platform. Those are mostly for DE-specific functions)
  - nsajko 5y ago
    TBH I remember your other comments about Wayland across many threads, and most of them have a quality of being confused in such a manner as to provoke long answers and derail the discussion. > a protocol with multiple implementations - which is a good thing The protocol is severely lacking in features. This means the "compositors" end up doing most stuff independently of Wayland, in mutually incompatible way of course. Thus the fragmentation of the Linux desktop: Gnome vs KDE vs wlroots, etc.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Am I more of a troll than the other low-effort comments claiming false things like “wayland manages to have worse design than X (without any concrete example)”, or that it causes fragmentation in desktop when fragmentation has always been a thing? Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm.
      - ttybird2 5y ago
        "Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm." ? I never had such an issue.
      - nsajko 5y ago
        Sorry for calling you a troll. That wasn't fair to you, and also isn't good for the discussion. > fragmentation No, Wayland introduces new sources of fragmentation that did not exist before. Imagine trying to write a screenshotting program, or an xdotool replacement. > Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm. Not sure what you're trying to say.
        kaba0 5y ago
        X11’s desktop tooling heavily relies on dbus for many features. Eg. accessibility is implemented with dbus, which may not be supported by niche window managers. With wayland, now we have a good way to extend the protocol (while it was basically impossible with X due to its age). Of course the dbus-related fragmentation is still here, because not every feature maps cleanly to “it is a display-related feature” that should go into wayland, or “it requires general IPC” and should go into dbus. But unfortunately due to the bazaar style of development, fragmentation will always be a central part of linux, which is both good and bad.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
X11 is an ancient protocol originally developed for network use (with many graphical terminals connected to one server), it's mature in terms of features but has some inherent security issues. Apps can easily monitor your entire and there's no easy way to block that. It's also more prone to tearing. It was never intended to be frame-perfect in terms of timing. It supports network transparency which is great because you can start remote GUI programs over an SSH session. Wayland addresses some performance and security issues of X11 but still lacks some features. Apps need to be developed specifically for it (though dual stack is possible) which hinders adoption also. For example screen recording is often an issue. This is partly due to security but also because of it not being recognised as a major usecase from the start. Also, drivers are more of an issue with Wayland. Wayland doesn't have network transparency which I miss a lot. Personally I still use X11 :)
boudin 5y ago
The benefits of Wayland are: - Much better graphical stack (no more tearing, weird graphical glitches, fractional scaling support without blurring for Wayland native apps) - Much improved security (on x11, any app has access to all your input, your clipboard and everything that is displayed, all the time), on Wayland an app only know about it's own buffer, its own clipboard and has input access when focused). Not a plus or downside but interesting thing is that the ecosystem growing around Wayland is harmonizing the desktop environments (finally!)like pipewire now replacing pulse-audio, jack and alsa together or xdg-desktop portal allowing to use the file picker of your environment rather than the one from the library an app is built with (for example, kwrite on gnome would use the gnome file picker). The downsides of Wayland are: - A few apps are not playing nicely, like Zoom - Nvidia support is finally getting better, but from what I can read it's not totally smooth yet. - KDE is more stable on X11 than Wayland from what I read. but they are focusing on Wayland this year. - It changed a LOT recently, more conservative distro based on LTS or releases that are a few major version behind like Debian will carry issues that have been fixed since. - Some tools relying on x11 specific functionalities might not work, it can be necessary to spend a bit of time to find some alternatives. The way I see it, if your distribution default to x11, stick with it. If it isn't, it's worth a try

Why should a Linux user care whether the display uses X11 or Wayland? Is there a summary somewhere that explains why, or if, it would benefit me to put any effort into switching?

nsajko 5y ago

Wayland is the new option, that surprisingly (since X is quite ugly) manages to have a much worse design than X. Wayland (as a consequence of its design) isn't really a single option, rather each DE and WM does it's own implementation of lots of stuff, with different interfaces. So please don't use it as you would be supporting fragmentation and death of the Linux desktop.

kaba0 5y ago
> Wayland is the new option, that surprisingly (since X is quite ugly) manages to have a much worse design than X. Citation needed. And no, it doesn’t support fragmentation - it is a protocol with multiple implementations - which is a good thing! It means that noone will code against the implementation, but the protocol. (And in practice, there are very few non-standard extensions that supposed to be cross-platform. Those are mostly for DE-specific functions)
- nsajko 5y ago
  TBH I remember your other comments about Wayland across many threads, and most of them have a quality of being confused in such a manner as to provoke long answers and derail the discussion. > a protocol with multiple implementations - which is a good thing The protocol is severely lacking in features. This means the "compositors" end up doing most stuff independently of Wayland, in mutually incompatible way of course. Thus the fragmentation of the Linux desktop: Gnome vs KDE vs wlroots, etc.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Am I more of a troll than the other low-effort comments claiming false things like “wayland manages to have worse design than X (without any concrete example)”, or that it causes fragmentation in desktop when fragmentation has always been a thing? Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm.
    - ttybird2 5y ago
      "Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm." ? I never had such an issue.
    - nsajko 5y ago
      Sorry for calling you a troll. That wasn't fair to you, and also isn't good for the discussion. > fragmentation No, Wayland introduces new sources of fragmentation that did not exist before. Imagine trying to write a screenshotting program, or an xdotool replacement. > Good luck using anything dbus-related thing under a minimal wm like dwm. Not sure what you're trying to say.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        X11’s desktop tooling heavily relies on dbus for many features. Eg. accessibility is implemented with dbus, which may not be supported by niche window managers. With wayland, now we have a good way to extend the protocol (while it was basically impossible with X due to its age). Of course the dbus-related fragmentation is still here, because not every feature maps cleanly to “it is a display-related feature” that should go into wayland, or “it requires general IPC” and should go into dbus. But unfortunately due to the bazaar style of development, fragmentation will always be a central part of linux, which is both good and bad.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

X11 is an ancient protocol originally developed for network use (with many graphical terminals connected to one server), it's mature in terms of features but has some inherent security issues. Apps can easily monitor your entire and there's no easy way to block that. It's also more prone to tearing. It was never intended to be frame-perfect in terms of timing. It supports network transparency which is great because you can start remote GUI programs over an SSH session. Wayland addresses some performance and security issues of X11 but still lacks some features. Apps need to be developed specifically for it (though dual stack is possible) which hinders adoption also. For example screen recording is often an issue. This is partly due to security but also because of it not being recognised as a major usecase from the start. Also, drivers are more of an issue with Wayland. Wayland doesn't have network transparency which I miss a lot. Personally I still use X11 :)

boudin 5y ago

The benefits of Wayland are: - Much better graphical stack (no more tearing, weird graphical glitches, fractional scaling support without blurring for Wayland native apps) - Much improved security (on x11, any app has access to all your input, your clipboard and everything that is displayed, all the time), on Wayland an app only know about it's own buffer, its own clipboard and has input access when focused). Not a plus or downside but interesting thing is that the ecosystem growing around Wayland is harmonizing the desktop environments (finally!)like pipewire now replacing pulse-audio, jack and alsa together or xdg-desktop portal allowing to use the file picker of your environment rather than the one from the library an app is built with (for example, kwrite on gnome would use the gnome file picker). The downsides of Wayland are: - A few apps are not playing nicely, like Zoom - Nvidia support is finally getting better, but from what I can read it's not totally smooth yet. - KDE is more stable on X11 than Wayland from what I read. but they are focusing on Wayland this year. - It changed a LOT recently, more conservative distro based on LTS or releases that are a few major version behind like Debian will carry issues that have been fixed since. - Some tools relying on x11 specific functionalities might not work, it can be necessary to spend a bit of time to find some alternatives. The way I see it, if your distribution default to x11, stick with it. If it isn't, it's worth a try