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Software works best when the developers take responsibility for solving user's problems. > Wayland, which is a protocol This is wayland's biggest weakness. T

Software works best when the developers take responsibility for solving user's problems. > Wayland, which is a protocol This is wayland's biggest weakness. The effect is diffusion of responsibility.

wmf 2y ago
You're kind of getting tripped up on terminology. The OP didn't measure Wayland; they measured GNOME Shell which does take responsibility for its performance. Also, I'm not aware of any latency-related mistakes in Wayland/Weston (given its goal of tear-free compositing).
- wmanley 2y ago
  > You're kind of getting tripped up on terminology. I'm not. My comment doesn't address the latency of gnome shell. I understand the boring technical distinctions between wayland and wayland client libraries and wayland display servers and gnome shell and mutter and sway, blah blah blah. Much like I understand that Linux is a kernel. That it is inspired by UNIX, but it is technically not a UNIX. I also understand that if someone describes themselves as a Linux user they probably don't just mean that they have a Android phone or that the display controller in their dishwasher or wireless access point happens to include Linux the kernel. The "well acksually wayland is just the name of the protocol" that emerges whenever a problem is brought up is a symptom of the underlying problem with wayland the system. The confusion that gives rise to these deflections is also a symptom of that problem. By Conway's law systems end up resembling the organisations that produce them. In this way the design of wayland the system seems to be designed by people who don't want to work together. I can see a parallel with microservice architecture.
  - WhyNotHugo 2y ago
    The distinction between protocol and implementation IS significant here. Imagine comparing HTTP1.1 vs HTTP3. These are protocols, but in practice one compares implementations. I can pick curl for http1.1, but Python for http3, and http3 would very likely measures as slower. Is that the protocols fault?
    - cwillu 2y ago
      All this proves is that it's possible for a protocol to not be the determining factor; which says nothing about whether it's possible that it _is_ a determining factor.
      - WhyNotHugo 2y ago
        You’re quite right. We’d need similar benchmarks done with other compositors. I very much doubt that Wayland makes a difference for this test; Wayland is for IPC between the client and server. Moving the cursor around is done by the server, without needing to talk to the client.
    - sshine 2y ago
      >> ”well acksually wayland is just the name of the protocol" […] is a symptom of the underlying problem > well acksually It’s not the protocol’s fault, but the system and organisation that brought it.
      - bandrami 2y ago
        Which brings up the other problem that Wayland introduced, that instead of one incredibly old inscrutable software stack doing these things there are now five (and counting!) new and insufficiently tested software stacks doing these things in slightly different ways.
        jorvi 2y ago
        It would have been nice if KDE and Valve could (would?) work together to reimplement KWin's features on top of wlroots. That would have basically made Gnome the sole holdout, and I imagine they'd eventually have switched to the extended wlroots as well, or at least forked it.
        bandrami 2y ago
        There's also EFL and one other I'm forgetting at the moment, but yeah.
  - mcv 2y ago
    > I understand the boring technical distinctions between wayland and wayland client libraries and wayland display servers and gnome shell and mutter and sway I do not. Does anyone know a good but quick introduction into these concepts and the problems they cause or fix? All I know is that Wayland was supposed to be faster by taking some slow parts out of the loop, but that doesn't seem to be working, according to these figures.
- ebiester 2y ago
  As a user, why should I care? I would just rather pay someone 100 bucks and not care whose fault it is. (And yes, that's why I don't use Linux on the desktop anymore, as much as I loved i3 and tiling environments.) It's probably in a hundred places that all add up, all of which are no particular person's responsibility. So, that probably means that 10 people from 10 different projects need to get on a call or mailing list together and find a plan of attack. But it won't happen. And people will keep wondering why Linux can't ever get a foothold on the desktop.
sho_hn 2y ago
It's no different from X11, which is also a protocol/spec with many implementations.
- josefx 2y ago
  If there is no difference then how does the official reference implementation of Wayland, that nearly everyone uses daily, handle it? /s
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Vilian 2y ago
  The difference is that x11 was SK bag that you required a tons of plugins to have a working system(xorg) and no one could reliable maintain that mess of codes and plugins where every change could break another
  - account42 2y ago
    Funny seing as X.Org is still being maintained and still works to this day.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Works: Yes Maintained: Only for bugfixes, except by metux, who is working on starting a fork.
  - donio 2y ago
    The extension situation is already much worse in Wayland than in X11. In my X11 server there are about 25 extensions and only a handful are required for modern desktop functionality. Wayland already has well over a hundred extensions (protocols) and dozens of them have to be implemented by each compositor just to get basic stuff working. https://wayland.app/protocols/ https://wayland.app/protocols/
  - mdedetrich 2y ago
    I have a news flash for you, the situation with extensions in Wayland is ten times worse than X11. Wayland requires an extension for what used to be considered basic functionality in a desktop environment.
guappa 2y ago
It's the biggest strength! Every time someone complains about wayland there's someone informing you how it achtually it isn't.
- genewitch 2y ago
  See also AI discussions and holding a telephone incorrectly, also do we not own phones
- tankenmate 2y ago
  Your biggest strength is also your biggest weakness. The organisation of Wayland sounds great, but it is very hard to share optimised code between compositors since key parts that affect performance (in this case latency) are largely developed outside of any shared library code. The "organisation" of Wayland reminds me of the UNIX wars; this is going to get worse before it gets better. SVR4 Wayland anyone? xref the time it has taken the Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils and arguably coreutils is a much easier problem.
  - this_user 2y ago
    In the end, Poettering is going to swoop in and turn the graphics stack into another part of systemd.
arghwhat 2y ago
Is it a weakness of the web that HTTP is just a protocol specification? The "problem" with this in Wayland is that before people 'ran Xorg with GNOME on top", now they just run GNOME the same way they run Chrome or Firefox to use HTTP - it will take time for people to get used to this.
- johannes1234321 2y ago
  There are problems on the web, which originate from aspects of HTTP. It's an okay protocol, but clearly not intended for interactive applications.
- wmanley 2y ago
  HTTP is to Wayland as the web is to what??? I think the answer is also Wayland. It's very confusing because there is wayland the protocol and wayland the system, where the protocol is a part of the system - but there is no separate name for it. When people discuss wayland they are very rarely talking about wayland the protocol, and are much more likely talking about wayland the system.

Software works best when the developers take responsibility for solving user's problems. > Wayland, which is a protocol This is wayland's biggest weakness. The effect is diffusion of responsibility.

wmf 2y ago

You're kind of getting tripped up on terminology. The OP didn't measure Wayland; they measured GNOME Shell which does take responsibility for its performance. Also, I'm not aware of any latency-related mistakes in Wayland/Weston (given its goal of tear-free compositing).

wmanley 2y ago
> You're kind of getting tripped up on terminology. I'm not. My comment doesn't address the latency of gnome shell. I understand the boring technical distinctions between wayland and wayland client libraries and wayland display servers and gnome shell and mutter and sway, blah blah blah. Much like I understand that Linux is a kernel. That it is inspired by UNIX, but it is technically not a UNIX. I also understand that if someone describes themselves as a Linux user they probably don't just mean that they have a Android phone or that the display controller in their dishwasher or wireless access point happens to include Linux the kernel. The "well acksually wayland is just the name of the protocol" that emerges whenever a problem is brought up is a symptom of the underlying problem with wayland the system. The confusion that gives rise to these deflections is also a symptom of that problem. By Conway's law systems end up resembling the organisations that produce them. In this way the design of wayland the system seems to be designed by people who don't want to work together. I can see a parallel with microservice architecture.
- WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  The distinction between protocol and implementation IS significant here. Imagine comparing HTTP1.1 vs HTTP3. These are protocols, but in practice one compares implementations. I can pick curl for http1.1, but Python for http3, and http3 would very likely measures as slower. Is that the protocols fault?
  - cwillu 2y ago
    All this proves is that it's possible for a protocol to not be the determining factor; which says nothing about whether it's possible that it _is_ a determining factor.
    - WhyNotHugo 2y ago
      You’re quite right. We’d need similar benchmarks done with other compositors. I very much doubt that Wayland makes a difference for this test; Wayland is for IPC between the client and server. Moving the cursor around is done by the server, without needing to talk to the client.
  - sshine 2y ago
    >> ”well acksually wayland is just the name of the protocol" […] is a symptom of the underlying problem > well acksually It’s not the protocol’s fault, but the system and organisation that brought it.
    - bandrami 2y ago
      Which brings up the other problem that Wayland introduced, that instead of one incredibly old inscrutable software stack doing these things there are now five (and counting!) new and insufficiently tested software stacks doing these things in slightly different ways.
      - jorvi 2y ago
        It would have been nice if KDE and Valve could (would?) work together to reimplement KWin's features on top of wlroots. That would have basically made Gnome the sole holdout, and I imagine they'd eventually have switched to the extended wlroots as well, or at least forked it.
        bandrami 2y ago
        There's also EFL and one other I'm forgetting at the moment, but yeah.
- mcv 2y ago
  > I understand the boring technical distinctions between wayland and wayland client libraries and wayland display servers and gnome shell and mutter and sway I do not. Does anyone know a good but quick introduction into these concepts and the problems they cause or fix? All I know is that Wayland was supposed to be faster by taking some slow parts out of the loop, but that doesn't seem to be working, according to these figures.
ebiester 2y ago
As a user, why should I care? I would just rather pay someone 100 bucks and not care whose fault it is. (And yes, that's why I don't use Linux on the desktop anymore, as much as I loved i3 and tiling environments.) It's probably in a hundred places that all add up, all of which are no particular person's responsibility. So, that probably means that 10 people from 10 different projects need to get on a call or mailing list together and find a plan of attack. But it won't happen. And people will keep wondering why Linux can't ever get a foothold on the desktop.

sho_hn 2y ago

It's no different from X11, which is also a protocol/spec with many implementations.

josefx 2y ago
If there is no difference then how does the official reference implementation of Wayland, that nearly everyone uses daily, handle it? /s
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Vilian 2y ago
The difference is that x11 was SK bag that you required a tons of plugins to have a working system(xorg) and no one could reliable maintain that mess of codes and plugins where every change could break another
- account42 2y ago
  Funny seing as X.Org is still being maintained and still works to this day.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Works: Yes Maintained: Only for bugfixes, except by metux, who is working on starting a fork.
- donio 2y ago
  The extension situation is already much worse in Wayland than in X11. In my X11 server there are about 25 extensions and only a handful are required for modern desktop functionality. Wayland already has well over a hundred extensions (protocols) and dozens of them have to be implemented by each compositor just to get basic stuff working. https://wayland.app/protocols/ https://wayland.app/protocols/
- mdedetrich 2y ago
  I have a news flash for you, the situation with extensions in Wayland is ten times worse than X11. Wayland requires an extension for what used to be considered basic functionality in a desktop environment.

guappa 2y ago

It's the biggest strength! Every time someone complains about wayland there's someone informing you how it achtually it isn't.

genewitch 2y ago
See also AI discussions and holding a telephone incorrectly, also do we not own phones
tankenmate 2y ago
Your biggest strength is also your biggest weakness. The organisation of Wayland sounds great, but it is very hard to share optimised code between compositors since key parts that affect performance (in this case latency) are largely developed outside of any shared library code. The "organisation" of Wayland reminds me of the UNIX wars; this is going to get worse before it gets better. SVR4 Wayland anyone? xref the time it has taken the Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils and arguably coreutils is a much easier problem.
- this_user 2y ago
  In the end, Poettering is going to swoop in and turn the graphics stack into another part of systemd.

arghwhat 2y ago

Is it a weakness of the web that HTTP is just a protocol specification? The "problem" with this in Wayland is that before people 'ran Xorg with GNOME on top", now they just run GNOME the same way they run Chrome or Firefox to use HTTP - it will take time for people to get used to this.

johannes1234321 2y ago
There are problems on the web, which originate from aspects of HTTP. It's an okay protocol, but clearly not intended for interactive applications.
wmanley 2y ago
HTTP is to Wayland as the web is to what??? I think the answer is also Wayland. It's very confusing because there is wayland the protocol and wayland the system, where the protocol is a part of the system - but there is no separate name for it. When people discuss wayland they are very rarely talking about wayland the protocol, and are much more likely talking about wayland the system.