5 ms·

I'd like to use Wayland, but it's not stable enough. I've lost count of the number of times I've lost work due to a segfault and then being logged out. And lots

I'd like to use Wayland, but it's not stable enough. I've lost count of the number of times I've lost work due to a segfault and then being logged out. And lots of applications still don't support it for screensharing (looking at you slack). My bug in particular seems to be related with thunderbolt or USB c connected monitors. A disconnect will prompt a segfault. I'd like to contribute with a proper bug report and I probably would if I hadn't had everything working with gnome+X. But now I just can't motivate spending time on it over other things in my life. Hope they have telemetry for segfaults at least.

robert_foss 5y ago
Wayland is just a protocol. The desktop environment or application is likely your actual problem.
- sprash 5y ago
  Yes a protocol that has no standardized way to share screen content. And as such it is completely usless for todays workflow which is dominated by video call meetings.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Then how come I use both teams and zoom just fine under wayland? Pipewire support is there for a long time now.
    - sprash 5y ago
      > long time Considering the age of Wayland it's not that long. Besides that, Pipewire is not part of the Wayland protocol. This means external protocols now have to jump in fixing the deficiencies of Wayland.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        No, it means that a problem best solved elsewhere is solved.. elsewhere. Screen sharing is streaming, where audio is also relevant and the two have to be synced. It would be plain incorrect to solve the two thing separately.
        sprash 5y ago
        The composited image of the desktop is only available to the compositor. Hence it needs to be solved at the compositor. Since Wayland is essentially nothing more than a multiprocess negotiation protocol for video memory access it is exactly the right place where it should be solved.
        kaba0 5y ago
        But at the end pipewire does get the output from the compositor, doesn’t it? Not specifying a general API can be a good and a bad thing — see eg. the linux kernel’s stance on driver interfaces.
- notemaker 5y ago
  Yes, I was a bit imprecise. It is Gnome's Wayland support that is too unstable. Given the thread topic, I didn't think to be explicit :)
- ______-_-______ 5y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wayland, the protocol, doesn't support restarting and reconnecting to running apps. That means any little bug and you lose your entire session. X11 does support this, even Windows supports it (win+ctrl+shift+b). I wish wayland had a way to make things robust in the face of bugs, because bugs are inevitable.
numlock86 5y ago
> And lots of applications still don't support it for screensharing (looking at you slack). Good point. This is the only issue keeping me from using Wayland, because OBS just won't work with it yet.
- filmor 5y ago
  Native wayland support through pipewire landed in OBS last September: https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-27-released https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-27-released
- fsh 5y ago
  What exactly is the issue? OBS (currently version 27.2.3) works perfectly fine on my machine using Gnome Wayland.
  - numlock86 5y ago
    The issue is that capturing the screen puts OBS on ~40% CPU utilization. I wouldn't call that "perfectly fine" nor is that even an option to be considered for me.
- blihp 5y ago
  It absolutely works with Wayland... I just recorded a screencast yesterday with OBS on Wayland. The only thing that changes is you have to explicitly grant OBS rights to your display/window when it starts.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
1_player 5y ago
I haven't got a single Wayland seg fault since I moved back to Linux in October 2021. Not one.
- notemaker 5y ago
  I imagine this is very dependent on your hardware. In my case, I'm using a Lenovo P1 (gen 3). To be honest, I could have survived the segfault thing if I could predict when they would occur. But coupled with the fact that my laptop draws >100W at peak and that my monitors only supply ~70W or so over thunderbolt, my laptop disconnects the peripherals attached over thunderbolt on power peaks. When this happens, Gnome segfaults and I lose whatever I was doing outside of tmux :) X stays out of my way and allows me to get work done.
  - interactivecode 5y ago
    So perhaps you should use your power supply instead of the monitor power because it's clearly not getting enough power at peak?
    - notemaker 5y ago
      Yep, that's one solution. Another is using X :)
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I get them every 5 minutes on some of my systems. Much like... everything else in Linux, its really hardware-dependant
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > Much like... everything else in Linux, its really hardware-dependant Much like... everything in any OS, its really hardware-dependant Fixed that for you.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
christophilus 5y ago
I’ve been using a 5k thunderbolt monitor with Fedora since 33 and haven’t once had an issue. My guess is it’s a kernel version or driver issue. I use Intel and Nvidea, and Intel is definitely smoother sailing. I’ll say this, though. Fedora has gotten much better support for Nvidia lately.
______-_-______ 5y ago
I was tinkering with building a wayland hello world a few weeks ago (on manjaro+gnome), and I could reliably hang the desktop by starting to create a window but not finishing the handshake. Many reboots later, even after finishing the handshake, running my app would break mouse input across the system until reboot. I never did figure that one out. The experience left me feeling that any misbehaving app/driver can break the desktop. And since you can't restart the window manager without losing your session, you'll lose a bunch of time every time something goes wrong. btw I should say I was seriously impressed by the UI in general and how smooth everything felt, but stability is ultimately more important for me.
ZeroCool2u 5y ago
I've been using Gnome/Wayland via Ubuntu LTS releases for the past 4 years now on my Dell XPS 13 and not once have I experienced a segfault. I think I've had maybe two instances where I had to do a hard reboot in those years and those both involved me doing something a tad aggressive with multiple containers on my system, which is an ultrabook and really isn't speced to handle a lot of them.

robert_foss 5y ago

Wayland is just a protocol. The desktop environment or application is likely your actual problem.

sprash 5y ago
Yes a protocol that has no standardized way to share screen content. And as such it is completely usless for todays workflow which is dominated by video call meetings.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Then how come I use both teams and zoom just fine under wayland? Pipewire support is there for a long time now.
  - sprash 5y ago
    > long time Considering the age of Wayland it's not that long. Besides that, Pipewire is not part of the Wayland protocol. This means external protocols now have to jump in fixing the deficiencies of Wayland.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      No, it means that a problem best solved elsewhere is solved.. elsewhere. Screen sharing is streaming, where audio is also relevant and the two have to be synced. It would be plain incorrect to solve the two thing separately.
      - sprash 5y ago
        The composited image of the desktop is only available to the compositor. Hence it needs to be solved at the compositor. Since Wayland is essentially nothing more than a multiprocess negotiation protocol for video memory access it is exactly the right place where it should be solved.
        kaba0 5y ago
        But at the end pipewire does get the output from the compositor, doesn’t it? Not specifying a general API can be a good and a bad thing — see eg. the linux kernel’s stance on driver interfaces.
notemaker 5y ago
Yes, I was a bit imprecise. It is Gnome's Wayland support that is too unstable. Given the thread topic, I didn't think to be explicit :)
______-_-______ 5y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wayland, the protocol, doesn't support restarting and reconnecting to running apps. That means any little bug and you lose your entire session. X11 does support this, even Windows supports it (win+ctrl+shift+b). I wish wayland had a way to make things robust in the face of bugs, because bugs are inevitable.

numlock86 5y ago

> And lots of applications still don't support it for screensharing (looking at you slack). Good point. This is the only issue keeping me from using Wayland, because OBS just won't work with it yet.

filmor 5y ago
Native wayland support through pipewire landed in OBS last September: https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-27-released https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-27-released
fsh 5y ago
What exactly is the issue? OBS (currently version 27.2.3) works perfectly fine on my machine using Gnome Wayland.
- numlock86 5y ago
  The issue is that capturing the screen puts OBS on ~40% CPU utilization. I wouldn't call that "perfectly fine" nor is that even an option to be considered for me.
blihp 5y ago
It absolutely works with Wayland... I just recorded a screencast yesterday with OBS on Wayland. The only thing that changes is you have to explicitly grant OBS rights to your display/window when it starts.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

1_player 5y ago

I haven't got a single Wayland seg fault since I moved back to Linux in October 2021. Not one.

notemaker 5y ago
I imagine this is very dependent on your hardware. In my case, I'm using a Lenovo P1 (gen 3). To be honest, I could have survived the segfault thing if I could predict when they would occur. But coupled with the fact that my laptop draws >100W at peak and that my monitors only supply ~70W or so over thunderbolt, my laptop disconnects the peripherals attached over thunderbolt on power peaks. When this happens, Gnome segfaults and I lose whatever I was doing outside of tmux :) X stays out of my way and allows me to get work done.
- interactivecode 5y ago
  So perhaps you should use your power supply instead of the monitor power because it's clearly not getting enough power at peak?
  - notemaker 5y ago
    Yep, that's one solution. Another is using X :)
smoldesu 5y ago
I get them every 5 minutes on some of my systems. Much like... everything else in Linux, its really hardware-dependant
- fsflover 5y ago
  > Much like... everything else in Linux, its really hardware-dependant Much like... everything in any OS, its really hardware-dependant Fixed that for you.
  - smoldesu 5y ago

christophilus 5y ago

I’ve been using a 5k thunderbolt monitor with Fedora since 33 and haven’t once had an issue. My guess is it’s a kernel version or driver issue. I use Intel and Nvidea, and Intel is definitely smoother sailing. I’ll say this, though. Fedora has gotten much better support for Nvidia lately.

______-_-______ 5y ago

I was tinkering with building a wayland hello world a few weeks ago (on manjaro+gnome), and I could reliably hang the desktop by starting to create a window but not finishing the handshake. Many reboots later, even after finishing the handshake, running my app would break mouse input across the system until reboot. I never did figure that one out. The experience left me feeling that any misbehaving app/driver can break the desktop. And since you can't restart the window manager without losing your session, you'll lose a bunch of time every time something goes wrong. btw I should say I was seriously impressed by the UI in general and how smooth everything felt, but stability is ultimately more important for me.

ZeroCool2u 5y ago

I've been using Gnome/Wayland via Ubuntu LTS releases for the past 4 years now on my Dell XPS 13 and not once have I experienced a segfault. I think I've had maybe two instances where I had to do a hard reboot in those years and those both involved me doing something a tad aggressive with multiple containers on my system, which is an ultrabook and really isn't speced to handle a lot of them.