49 ms·

I think this is a good move. Wayland has been stable for me for years. I hope it prompts companies like Slack to sort their apps out.

martinsbalodis 3y ago
Slack is the only reason why we switch back to X11. It's because screen sharing doesn't work on Wayland.
- k8svet 3y ago
  I've been screen sharing my desktop (sway) for years at my job. Years is not an exaggeration. What do Discord, Slack, and Nvidia all have in common?
- petepete 3y ago
  I use Slack in a Chrome tab and screen sharing works perfectly there. I don't know how they've managed to fuck their app up so much it just shows a black rectangle.
- bogdan 3y ago
  It does with the browser version. Is there any reason to use the non browser version? 1 less v8 instance running
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    > Is there any reason to use the non browser version? Making it completely disappear to a tray icon. > 1 less v8 instance running I doubt. With process isolation, I guess every tab runs its on V8. Otherwise, oh boy.
    - bonzini 3y ago
      Tabs are sharing the code though, because it comes from the same binary. Every electron app instead has its V8 and Blink in a separate binary that has to be loaded into its own RAM.
      - MikusR 3y ago
        I suggest you open your systems version of task manager. All those chrome processes are loaded in their own ram.
        kaba0 3y ago
        That’s just sandboxing. They still share a significant amount of resources.
        bonzini 3y ago
        Sharing of read-only pages from the executable is done at the kernel (page cache) level. I agree that for example JIT compiled code is not shared.
  - raffraffraff 3y ago
    It's weird that it doesn't work since it uses webrtc for huddles. That's precisely what I had to enable in the browser to get various screen sharing websites to work. Btw, this isn't for slack but teams: I use the website because their Linux app blows, but I actually use a totally different browser (chromium) to my main browser (firefox) intentionally. Occasionally when teams takes 100% cpu and memory for no reason, I can 'pkill chromium' without nuking firefox. So the "one less engine" argument wouldn't convince me.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I had the same issue with Teams a few years ago and I just switched to the browser version. Teams app was buggy anyway. No big deal. The good thing with the browser version is rolling updates are immediate, no need to upgrade a flatpak or rpm. And if they fuck up, rollback is also immediate. Also this is about removing the gnome x11 session package from the default install. That doesn't mean you can't run X11. Having said that I don't know who would want to keep using X11 AND choose Fedora as its goto distro. This is a distro whose purpose is to push forward these kind of stuff, there are a number of much more conservative distros available and one could argue that if you are conservative and want to stay in the RPM/RH family you can use RHEL or a derivative distro such as Almalinux or Rocky. That is what I use on the media center computer in my living room for other reasons[1]. Back in the day someone would complain about outdated package but nowadays with tools like flatpak, podman and the toolbox this is just not true anymore. [1] I don't power it up so often. I don't want to have tons of packages to update every time I power it up to watch a show on streaming. All I want is to be able to upgrade the browser's flatpak.
- kaba0 3y ago
  Why even install these web apps separately? You can even just create a shortcut for them that opens them in a separate browser window if you need that.
bayindirh 3y ago
"Works on my machine" is never a good argument for something AFAICS. There are still many edge cases and paper cuts with many Free and Open Source applications. Yes, it'll push developers a little harder, but we will see tons of complaints in the beginning. This will take another ~2-3 years to be sorted out. While X11's codebase is known for its state, it's working well at this point.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Since Fedora is ostensibly the bleeding edge distro second only to the likes of Arch, it seems reasonable for the dev nudging to start(?) happen(ing?) there.
  - Zetaphor 3y ago
    People seem to either ignore or just not be aware of this. Fedora has always been the first mover. If that's not what you want you should be using a different distro. Ubuntu will be supporting an LTS version with X11 for many more years.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Personally I'm very aware, and not against that. Just wanted to point out that a single "I'm running it without problems for years" experience is not a high quality signal for state of any piece of software. I have experienced "very fun" problems with a "supported NVIDIA card with official drivers that support that card", while people said that they are using theirs without any problems for years.
  - NekkoDroid 3y ago
    I get where you are coming from with the bleeding edge comment, but Arch is not really experimental levels of cutting edge, they just try to follow upstream as close as possible. Fedora OTOH is happy to do these kinda non-upstream stuff to actually bring stuff forward.
    - 3y ago
raffraffraff 3y ago
But surely... Gnome shouldn't be dropping X11 sessions until Slack do get their shit together? (And I'm not just talking about Slack obviously). I get it, people are lazy, but I don't like these gun-to-the-head upgrades because the users are the losers. FWIW I tried to switch to Wayland 3 times in the last year before finally making it stick. I had to change a ton of silly little things, like: - grepping through my .config and /etc for any mention of xclip and switching to wl-copy (vimrc, tmux.conf to name two) - enabling webtrc on browsers so that screen sharing works in web apps (MS Teams still refuses to work) I don't know if there's a good source of migration tips that covers all of these things in one place so you can search for the things that affect you. But on a work machine, switching across can result in random minor disruptions over a week, some of them in the middle of meetings. And if you're having "one of those weeks" you need to switch back to what works. Even now on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, a bleeding edge rolling distro with excellent wayland + kde plasma support, I still run into the odd issue that makes me wanna switch back. Disappearing cursor is one. It's totally random, but if I click on a text input box on a browser, I get no text cursor. WTH.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  Why is wayland not shipping xclip (could be just a symbolic link to wl-copy) This is the kind of thing that makes it harder on people to switch The lack of focus and backwards compatibility in the open source world is appaling. As much as I like to complain about systemd it is not surprising it came to replace 3 scripts in a long coat
- crote 3y ago
  It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Apps like Slack don't want to invest time in supporting Wayland: just ask the user to switch to an X11 session! But Gnome shouldn't drop X11 support until all apps work on Wayland. In other words, we're stuck with X11 apps forever. Someone eventually has to break the stalemate, and Fedora is usually the distro making the switch first. Its users are used to stuff like this, and it serves as a nice heads-up for app developers to get to work because it'll land in RHEL within a year or two and you can't really claim Linux support if your app doesn't work on RHEL.
- sloowm 3y ago

martinsbalodis 3y ago

Slack is the only reason why we switch back to X11. It's because screen sharing doesn't work on Wayland.

k8svet 3y ago
I've been screen sharing my desktop (sway) for years at my job. Years is not an exaggeration. What do Discord, Slack, and Nvidia all have in common?
petepete 3y ago
I use Slack in a Chrome tab and screen sharing works perfectly there. I don't know how they've managed to fuck their app up so much it just shows a black rectangle.
bogdan 3y ago
It does with the browser version. Is there any reason to use the non browser version? 1 less v8 instance running
- bayindirh 3y ago
  > Is there any reason to use the non browser version? Making it completely disappear to a tray icon. > 1 less v8 instance running I doubt. With process isolation, I guess every tab runs its on V8. Otherwise, oh boy.
  - bonzini 3y ago
    Tabs are sharing the code though, because it comes from the same binary. Every electron app instead has its V8 and Blink in a separate binary that has to be loaded into its own RAM.
    - MikusR 3y ago
      I suggest you open your systems version of task manager. All those chrome processes are loaded in their own ram.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        That’s just sandboxing. They still share a significant amount of resources.
      - bonzini 3y ago
        Sharing of read-only pages from the executable is done at the kernel (page cache) level. I agree that for example JIT compiled code is not shared.
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  It's weird that it doesn't work since it uses webrtc for huddles. That's precisely what I had to enable in the browser to get various screen sharing websites to work. Btw, this isn't for slack but teams: I use the website because their Linux app blows, but I actually use a totally different browser (chromium) to my main browser (firefox) intentionally. Occasionally when teams takes 100% cpu and memory for no reason, I can 'pkill chromium' without nuking firefox. So the "one less engine" argument wouldn't convince me.
prmoustache 3y ago
I had the same issue with Teams a few years ago and I just switched to the browser version. Teams app was buggy anyway. No big deal. The good thing with the browser version is rolling updates are immediate, no need to upgrade a flatpak or rpm. And if they fuck up, rollback is also immediate. Also this is about removing the gnome x11 session package from the default install. That doesn't mean you can't run X11. Having said that I don't know who would want to keep using X11 AND choose Fedora as its goto distro. This is a distro whose purpose is to push forward these kind of stuff, there are a number of much more conservative distros available and one could argue that if you are conservative and want to stay in the RPM/RH family you can use RHEL or a derivative distro such as Almalinux or Rocky. That is what I use on the media center computer in my living room for other reasons[1]. Back in the day someone would complain about outdated package but nowadays with tools like flatpak, podman and the toolbox this is just not true anymore. [1] I don't power it up so often. I don't want to have tons of packages to update every time I power it up to watch a show on streaming. All I want is to be able to upgrade the browser's flatpak.
kaba0 3y ago
Why even install these web apps separately? You can even just create a shortcut for them that opens them in a separate browser window if you need that.

bayindirh 3y ago

"Works on my machine" is never a good argument for something AFAICS. There are still many edge cases and paper cuts with many Free and Open Source applications. Yes, it'll push developers a little harder, but we will see tons of complaints in the beginning. This will take another ~2-3 years to be sorted out. While X11's codebase is known for its state, it's working well at this point.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Since Fedora is ostensibly the bleeding edge distro second only to the likes of Arch, it seems reasonable for the dev nudging to start(?) happen(ing?) there.
- Zetaphor 3y ago
  People seem to either ignore or just not be aware of this. Fedora has always been the first mover. If that's not what you want you should be using a different distro. Ubuntu will be supporting an LTS version with X11 for many more years.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Personally I'm very aware, and not against that. Just wanted to point out that a single "I'm running it without problems for years" experience is not a high quality signal for state of any piece of software. I have experienced "very fun" problems with a "supported NVIDIA card with official drivers that support that card", while people said that they are using theirs without any problems for years.
- NekkoDroid 3y ago
  I get where you are coming from with the bleeding edge comment, but Arch is not really experimental levels of cutting edge, they just try to follow upstream as close as possible. Fedora OTOH is happy to do these kinda non-upstream stuff to actually bring stuff forward.
  - 3y ago

raffraffraff 3y ago

But surely... Gnome shouldn't be dropping X11 sessions until Slack do get their shit together? (And I'm not just talking about Slack obviously). I get it, people are lazy, but I don't like these gun-to-the-head upgrades because the users are the losers. FWIW I tried to switch to Wayland 3 times in the last year before finally making it stick. I had to change a ton of silly little things, like: - grepping through my .config and /etc for any mention of xclip and switching to wl-copy (vimrc, tmux.conf to name two) - enabling webtrc on browsers so that screen sharing works in web apps (MS Teams still refuses to work) I don't know if there's a good source of migration tips that covers all of these things in one place so you can search for the things that affect you. But on a work machine, switching across can result in random minor disruptions over a week, some of them in the middle of meetings. And if you're having "one of those weeks" you need to switch back to what works. Even now on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, a bleeding edge rolling distro with excellent wayland + kde plasma support, I still run into the odd issue that makes me wanna switch back. Disappearing cursor is one. It's totally random, but if I click on a text input box on a browser, I get no text cursor. WTH.

raverbashing 3y ago
Why is wayland not shipping xclip (could be just a symbolic link to wl-copy) This is the kind of thing that makes it harder on people to switch The lack of focus and backwards compatibility in the open source world is appaling. As much as I like to complain about systemd it is not surprising it came to replace 3 scripts in a long coat
crote 3y ago
It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Apps like Slack don't want to invest time in supporting Wayland: just ask the user to switch to an X11 session! But Gnome shouldn't drop X11 support until all apps work on Wayland. In other words, we're stuck with X11 apps forever. Someone eventually has to break the stalemate, and Fedora is usually the distro making the switch first. Its users are used to stuff like this, and it serves as a nice heads-up for app developers to get to work because it'll land in RHEL within a year or two and you can't really claim Linux support if your app doesn't work on RHEL.
sloowm 3y ago