4 ms·

If you call what Xorg supports a narrow space, I'm not sure you've used Wayland. I read the exact same things about it a decade ago, and I remember that Fedora

by brnt 3y ago

If you call what Xorg supports a narrow space, I'm not sure you've used Wayland. I read the exact same things about it a decade ago, and I remember that Fedora 31 (maybe 32?) defaulted to Wayland. Just as it was then: I get breakage whereas with Xorg I get none. And a trivial search reveals there are _many_ more for who Wayland creates issues or showstoppers. Once people in the Wayland sphere start to realize they'll need to cover those 1001 Xorg edge cases _on top_ of enabling the good stuff that they've done, sure, we'll be getting there. However, that interest doesn't seem to be there, counting by the #worksforme's...

jchw 3y ago
I have been using SwayWM for five years. My system configuration is public on Github. I have also been closely tracking the Plasma Wayland session on AMD hardware, too. Unfortunately you didn't list any of the shortcomings, just vaguely that there are breakages, but my point isn't that Wayland is perfect, it's that X11 is effectively non-viable for many people due to shortcomings that are difficult or nearly impossible to fix that nobody is working on. Meanwhile, one of the biggest showstoppers for Wayland isn't even Wayland, it's that the Linux graphics infrastructure Wayland compositors rely on isn't well-supported by the official NVIDIA driver.
- brnt 3y ago
  I'm not going down for the umpteenth time with someone appearing to be interested in what broke, but not taking me up on my offer to help them troubleshoot (because Wayland doesn't print any helpful error codes, just freezes my desktop, on a variety of different hardware, a variety of Intel graphics too, variety of distros, all in the same way). Unfortunately you hand wave away Xorg being not an option an account of not much more than fractional scaling issues, which is pretty easily worked around in my experience, while many people happily use it daily, and have for decades. I'm not saying things can be better, I'm saying Wayland proponents are always devvy types doing same-ish things on same-ish hardware. No wonder that by now Wayland supports this well!
  - jchw 3y ago
    Funny enough I didn't mention fractional scale but heterogeneous scale factors across monitors. But frankly, I am a little offended that anyone would try to portray any Xorg scaling scheme as "working". It's a crapshoot at best, and the illusion is shattered the moment you start an app or game that doesn't carefully coordinate its scaling factor. I've tried many things, on both KDE and GNOME, and it's just not reliable. Pop!_OS has its own workarounds, too, and it's still a mess; having to log out to make scaling changes take effect reliably is a terrible experience. Dragging windows across screens and having some of them change scale and others not makes your desktop feel utterly unpredictable, it's just not going to work. Even Windows doesn't have this issue anymore! (Of course, Pop!_OS, being pragmatic, is just going to move to its own Wayland compositor and sidestep all of that non-sense.) Anyway, the true irony is that Xorg doesn't actually have especially great support for a wide range of use cases and hardware, it's more just that NVIDIA specifically holds Wayland compositors back for desktop support. I use AMD graphics and it works great. Intel graphics works, too. Raspberry Pi computers on VideoCore now run Wayfire by default and its about as smooth as it ever has been. Wayland has seen adoption across different use cases, from embedded machines to powering "Linux" features in ChromeOS and Windows, to the Steam compositor on Steam Deck. To paint it as though Wayland only supports developer desktops running Intel graphics is just silly. Anyway, yes, I am not volunteering to debug your machine, but the vast majority of complaints about what Wayland can't do aren't even correct. The common wisdom is still that Wayland can't even do screen capture when I was using it in Zoom calls two years ago, not to mention the newer developments like XWayland Video Bridge in KDE. Obviously, it sucks that people are having stability issues with this switch, but just like "Works on my machine" is not a meaningful retort to issues, "Doesn't work on my machine" is also not a good excuse to hold back the future forever. Whether Wayland compositors are ready or not, X11 is not a viable future. For many users, it's not a viable present. So, if you're not willing to debug your Linux issues, I can't blame you. But, in return, you can't blame the rest of us for continuing without debugging your personal machine issues, either.
    - brnt 3y ago
      > Funny enough I didn't mention fractional scale but heterogeneous scale factors across monitors. Even more niche. And I'm not saying it's not worth solving, I'm saying your niche isn't more important than other niches. > it's more just that NVIDIA specifically holds Wayland compositors back for desktop support. As I wrote, my issues were all on Intel graphics. From 3 different generations. > So, if you're not willing to debug your Linux issues, I literally wrote the opposite of that. Happy to see you confirm the impression I initially put forth though.
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  The only limitation of Wayland that is actually real and important is the lack of support for accessibility technologies such as screen readers - a side effect of its more secure design that is going to need an added protocol to fix. But my understanding is that is being worked on. (Lack of support for screensavers is a real but not very important issue. The ext-session-lock-v1 protocol provides everything needed, and wlr supports it, but jwz doesn't like its design, which means xscreensaver is not getting ported. Also Gnome and KDE are yet to come on board.)
  - jchw 3y ago
    I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, just to be completely clear, AT-SPI2 is not X11 specific (according to the Freedesktop page about it[1]) so at the very least, just like with input methods, the existing accessibility tools should be possible to get working. Admittedly, I haven't tried at all, and I'm sure there are still problems getting it to work in practice. I think the best short-term option would be for desktop environments to try to get AT-SPI2 to work as it does in their X sessions. That said, I am really hoping that GNOME Foundation donation from the Sovereign Tech Fund comes to the rescue here. I was very happy when I read the whitepaper[2] for the accessibility protocol that was being worked on, as it looks like it is being designed with the right priorities to build real and robust accessibility technology. These technologies aren't just great for accessibility but also for automation, and I think that putting them into Wayland protocols (as opposed to off to the side like what is being done with libei) is the right way to go. [1]: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Accessibility/AT-SPI2/ https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Accessibility/AT-SPI2/ [2]: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs/new-protocol.html https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs...

by brnt 3y ago

jchw 3y ago

I have been using SwayWM for five years. My system configuration is public on Github. I have also been closely tracking the Plasma Wayland session on AMD hardware, too. Unfortunately you didn't list any of the shortcomings, just vaguely that there are breakages, but my point isn't that Wayland is perfect, it's that X11 is effectively non-viable for many people due to shortcomings that are difficult or nearly impossible to fix that nobody is working on. Meanwhile, one of the biggest showstoppers for Wayland isn't even Wayland, it's that the Linux graphics infrastructure Wayland compositors rely on isn't well-supported by the official NVIDIA driver.

brnt 3y ago
I'm not going down for the umpteenth time with someone appearing to be interested in what broke, but not taking me up on my offer to help them troubleshoot (because Wayland doesn't print any helpful error codes, just freezes my desktop, on a variety of different hardware, a variety of Intel graphics too, variety of distros, all in the same way). Unfortunately you hand wave away Xorg being not an option an account of not much more than fractional scaling issues, which is pretty easily worked around in my experience, while many people happily use it daily, and have for decades. I'm not saying things can be better, I'm saying Wayland proponents are always devvy types doing same-ish things on same-ish hardware. No wonder that by now Wayland supports this well!
- jchw 3y ago
  Funny enough I didn't mention fractional scale but heterogeneous scale factors across monitors. But frankly, I am a little offended that anyone would try to portray any Xorg scaling scheme as "working". It's a crapshoot at best, and the illusion is shattered the moment you start an app or game that doesn't carefully coordinate its scaling factor. I've tried many things, on both KDE and GNOME, and it's just not reliable. Pop!_OS has its own workarounds, too, and it's still a mess; having to log out to make scaling changes take effect reliably is a terrible experience. Dragging windows across screens and having some of them change scale and others not makes your desktop feel utterly unpredictable, it's just not going to work. Even Windows doesn't have this issue anymore! (Of course, Pop!_OS, being pragmatic, is just going to move to its own Wayland compositor and sidestep all of that non-sense.) Anyway, the true irony is that Xorg doesn't actually have especially great support for a wide range of use cases and hardware, it's more just that NVIDIA specifically holds Wayland compositors back for desktop support. I use AMD graphics and it works great. Intel graphics works, too. Raspberry Pi computers on VideoCore now run Wayfire by default and its about as smooth as it ever has been. Wayland has seen adoption across different use cases, from embedded machines to powering "Linux" features in ChromeOS and Windows, to the Steam compositor on Steam Deck. To paint it as though Wayland only supports developer desktops running Intel graphics is just silly. Anyway, yes, I am not volunteering to debug your machine, but the vast majority of complaints about what Wayland can't do aren't even correct. The common wisdom is still that Wayland can't even do screen capture when I was using it in Zoom calls two years ago, not to mention the newer developments like XWayland Video Bridge in KDE. Obviously, it sucks that people are having stability issues with this switch, but just like "Works on my machine" is not a meaningful retort to issues, "Doesn't work on my machine" is also not a good excuse to hold back the future forever. Whether Wayland compositors are ready or not, X11 is not a viable future. For many users, it's not a viable present. So, if you're not willing to debug your Linux issues, I can't blame you. But, in return, you can't blame the rest of us for continuing without debugging your personal machine issues, either.
  - brnt 3y ago
    > Funny enough I didn't mention fractional scale but heterogeneous scale factors across monitors. Even more niche. And I'm not saying it's not worth solving, I'm saying your niche isn't more important than other niches. > it's more just that NVIDIA specifically holds Wayland compositors back for desktop support. As I wrote, my issues were all on Intel graphics. From 3 different generations. > So, if you're not willing to debug your Linux issues, I literally wrote the opposite of that. Happy to see you confirm the impression I initially put forth though.
NoGravitas 3y ago
The only limitation of Wayland that is actually real and important is the lack of support for accessibility technologies such as screen readers - a side effect of its more secure design that is going to need an added protocol to fix. But my understanding is that is being worked on. (Lack of support for screensavers is a real but not very important issue. The ext-session-lock-v1 protocol provides everything needed, and wlr supports it, but jwz doesn't like its design, which means xscreensaver is not getting ported. Also Gnome and KDE are yet to come on board.)
- jchw 3y ago
  I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, just to be completely clear, AT-SPI2 is not X11 specific (according to the Freedesktop page about it[1]) so at the very least, just like with input methods, the existing accessibility tools should be possible to get working. Admittedly, I haven't tried at all, and I'm sure there are still problems getting it to work in practice. I think the best short-term option would be for desktop environments to try to get AT-SPI2 to work as it does in their X sessions. That said, I am really hoping that GNOME Foundation donation from the Sovereign Tech Fund comes to the rescue here. I was very happy when I read the whitepaper[2] for the accessibility protocol that was being worked on, as it looks like it is being designed with the right priorities to build real and robust accessibility technology. These technologies aren't just great for accessibility but also for automation, and I think that putting them into Wayland protocols (as opposed to off to the side like what is being done with libei) is the right way to go. [1]: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Accessibility/AT-SPI2/ https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Accessibility/AT-SPI2/ [2]: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs/new-protocol.html https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs...