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I understand that change can be challenging, but actively seeking reasons to avoid change is another matter entirely. The criticism of Wayland in this article s

I understand that change can be challenging, but actively seeking reasons to avoid change is another matter entirely. The criticism of Wayland in this article seems unfounded. Transitioning to new tools can resolve many issues. You have a choice: acknowledge that Wayland is faster, more user-friendly, and more secure, or remain tied to technologies from the 1990s. Since Ubuntu has adopted Wayland exclusively for its new LTS release, I've noticed over the past few days that much of the criticism comes from Windows users who rely on RDP to configure Red Hat or CentOS with a GUI, or something similar. These users have become accustomed to the lack of security in Xorg to perform their tasks. Now, they must reconsider how they maintain their Linux machines. In any case, I was unaware that Wayland was becoming the new systemd. Perhaps this is because I have been using it for more then four years, starting with bullseye (sid) / GNOME, and for about two years with FreeBSD / Sway. I use these systems daily at work without any major issues.

eadmund 1y ago
> I understand that change can be challenging It’s less about change and more about outright breakage. Wayland does not support me. > You have a choice: acknowledge that Wayland is faster, more user-friendly, and more secure, or remain tied to technologies from the 1990s. Wayland may be faster, it’s certainly more secure (in the same sense that a system embedded in a ton of concrete and dropped to the bottom of the ocean is more secure), but I’m not convinced that it’s more user friendly. It’s certainly not friendly to me, since it does not allow me to run my window manager of choice. I’m not convinced that the technologies of the 1990s were necessarily all that bad, either. Yeah, there were some assumptions which turned out not to be the case in reality. And yeah, there is a ton of cruft. And yeah, no-one would design X11 the way it is today. But, you know what? X11, unlike Wayland, works for me. I would love to use Wayland, honestly. That’s not a lie. But it doesn’t work. And from what I can see it doesn’t want to work.
- exiguus 1y ago
  I understand your perspective and the challenges you're encountering with Wayland. It's evident that this transition can be difficult for many, particularly when it comes to maintaining compatibility with specific setups and personal preferences, such as your choice of window manager. When selecting technology, I always consider my specific use case. For instance, at work, I need to manage multiple open windows simultaneously, so I rely on tiled windows across four monitors. To ensure stability and avoid OS issues, I use GNOME with Pop Shell on Debian. On my smaller laptop, where mobility and keyboard-only navigation are priorities, I've found Sway to be an excellent replacement for dwm. The key point I want to emphasize is the importance of identifying your unique use case. Once you understand your needs, you can choose the tools that best meet those requirements. The tool itself isn't the ultimate goal; it's about finding what works best for your specific situation. Typically, there are plenty of tools available that can solve your problem or fit your use case.
  - queenkjuul 1y ago
    Has anyone found a real replacement for X forwarding over SSH? it's the one thing i use all the time that Wayland doesn't seem to do or be interested in doing
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      No, but I think that's a consequence of the design. X forwarding a rectangle of pixels isn't functionally different than running a VNC solution. The removal of all the extra complexity from the new protocol was intentional after all.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    You've stated the blindingly obvious. The issue is that in certain cases there are not "plenty of tools available" but rather none that work properly. Most of the gaps have been closed by now (AFAICT) but the refrain for at least the past 5 years has been that the issues don't exist rather than acknowledging the glaringly obvious usability problems in an upfront manner. I'd characterize the wayland ecosystem as only just barely production ready (for typical desktop use) today. I don't think it was ready when I switched to it. As but one example, to this day drag and drop between windows still doesn't work reliably for me (I'm running sway) although it's certainly better than it used to be. Or consider multi-window usecases seen in scientific computing (among other things) and the active hostility of the maintainers towards standardizing any protocol that would enable an application to actively control layout across multiple monitors (provided user consent, of course).
  - eadmund 1y ago
    > this transition That begs the question of whether there should be or is a transition. From where I sit right now, there should not be and there isn’t. Wayland doesn’t meet my needs (not ‘needs’ in the sense of food and air, of course!) today, despite how interesting it is and despite the genuine improvements it offers in some ways. It may in the future, but until then any transition would be a net loss for me.
msgodel 1y ago
The problem is it is not in fact faster and more user friendly. Maybe it works ok with your set up but that doesn't change reality and all the attempted gas lighting from devs and fans does is tick off the portion of the community that has legitimate problems with it.
yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
> Since Ubuntu has adopted Wayland exclusively for its new LTS release, I've noticed over the past few days that much of the criticism comes from Windows users who rely on RDP to configure Red Hat or CentOS with a GUI, or something similar. These users have become accustomed to the lack of security in Xorg to perform their tasks. Now, they must reconsider how they maintain their Linux machines. I don't follow? If folks are using RDP, they don't need Xorg's less-secure remote access options, they can just use RDP? And Wayland has VNC and RDP servers, including GNOME having built-in RDP, so if people are using that then it shouldn't matter whether GNOME happens to have replaced X with Wayland.

eadmund 1y ago

> I understand that change can be challenging It’s less about change and more about outright breakage. Wayland does not support me. > You have a choice: acknowledge that Wayland is faster, more user-friendly, and more secure, or remain tied to technologies from the 1990s. Wayland may be faster, it’s certainly more secure (in the same sense that a system embedded in a ton of concrete and dropped to the bottom of the ocean is more secure), but I’m not convinced that it’s more user friendly. It’s certainly not friendly to me, since it does not allow me to run my window manager of choice. I’m not convinced that the technologies of the 1990s were necessarily all that bad, either. Yeah, there were some assumptions which turned out not to be the case in reality. And yeah, there is a ton of cruft. And yeah, no-one would design X11 the way it is today. But, you know what? X11, unlike Wayland, works for me. I would love to use Wayland, honestly. That’s not a lie. But it doesn’t work. And from what I can see it doesn’t want to work.

exiguus 1y ago
I understand your perspective and the challenges you're encountering with Wayland. It's evident that this transition can be difficult for many, particularly when it comes to maintaining compatibility with specific setups and personal preferences, such as your choice of window manager. When selecting technology, I always consider my specific use case. For instance, at work, I need to manage multiple open windows simultaneously, so I rely on tiled windows across four monitors. To ensure stability and avoid OS issues, I use GNOME with Pop Shell on Debian. On my smaller laptop, where mobility and keyboard-only navigation are priorities, I've found Sway to be an excellent replacement for dwm. The key point I want to emphasize is the importance of identifying your unique use case. Once you understand your needs, you can choose the tools that best meet those requirements. The tool itself isn't the ultimate goal; it's about finding what works best for your specific situation. Typically, there are plenty of tools available that can solve your problem or fit your use case.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  Has anyone found a real replacement for X forwarding over SSH? it's the one thing i use all the time that Wayland doesn't seem to do or be interested in doing
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    No, but I think that's a consequence of the design. X forwarding a rectangle of pixels isn't functionally different than running a VNC solution. The removal of all the extra complexity from the new protocol was intentional after all.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  You've stated the blindingly obvious. The issue is that in certain cases there are not "plenty of tools available" but rather none that work properly. Most of the gaps have been closed by now (AFAICT) but the refrain for at least the past 5 years has been that the issues don't exist rather than acknowledging the glaringly obvious usability problems in an upfront manner. I'd characterize the wayland ecosystem as only just barely production ready (for typical desktop use) today. I don't think it was ready when I switched to it. As but one example, to this day drag and drop between windows still doesn't work reliably for me (I'm running sway) although it's certainly better than it used to be. Or consider multi-window usecases seen in scientific computing (among other things) and the active hostility of the maintainers towards standardizing any protocol that would enable an application to actively control layout across multiple monitors (provided user consent, of course).
- eadmund 1y ago
  > this transition That begs the question of whether there should be or is a transition. From where I sit right now, there should not be and there isn’t. Wayland doesn’t meet my needs (not ‘needs’ in the sense of food and air, of course!) today, despite how interesting it is and despite the genuine improvements it offers in some ways. It may in the future, but until then any transition would be a net loss for me.

msgodel 1y ago

The problem is it is not in fact faster and more user friendly. Maybe it works ok with your set up but that doesn't change reality and all the attempted gas lighting from devs and fans does is tick off the portion of the community that has legitimate problems with it.

yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago

> Since Ubuntu has adopted Wayland exclusively for its new LTS release, I've noticed over the past few days that much of the criticism comes from Windows users who rely on RDP to configure Red Hat or CentOS with a GUI, or something similar. These users have become accustomed to the lack of security in Xorg to perform their tasks. Now, they must reconsider how they maintain their Linux machines. I don't follow? If folks are using RDP, they don't need Xorg's less-secure remote access options, they can just use RDP? And Wayland has VNC and RDP servers, including GNOME having built-in RDP, so if people are using that then it shouldn't matter whether GNOME happens to have replaced X with Wayland.