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Think twice about Wayland. It breaks everything!
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Wayland.md

Think twice before abandoning Xorg. Wayland breaks everything!

Hence, if you are interested in existing applications to "just work" without the need for adjustments, then you may be better off avoiding Wayland.

Wayland solves no issues I have but breaks almost everything I need. Even the most basic, most simple things (like xkill) - in this case with no obvious replacement. And usually it stays broken, because the Wayland folks mostly seem to care about Automotive, Gnome, maybe KDE - and alienating everyone else (e.g., people using just an X11 window manager or something like GNUstep) in the process.

The Wayland project seems to operate like they were starting a greenfield project, whereas at the same time they try to position Wayland as "the X11 successor", which would clearly require a lot of thought about not breaking, or at least providing a smooth upgrade path for, existing software.

In fact, it is merely an incompatible alternative, and not even one that has (nor wants to have) feature parity (missing features). And unlike X11 (the X Window System), Wayland protocol designers actively avoid the concept of "windows" (making up incomprehensible words like "xdg_toplevel" instead).

DO NOT USE A WAYLAND SESSION! Let Wayland not destroy everything and then have other people fix the damage it caused. Or force more Red Hat/Gnome components (glib, Portals, Pipewire) on everyone!

Please add more examples to the list.

Wayland seems to be made by people who do not care for existing software. They assume everyone is happy to either rewrite everything or to just use Gnome on Linux (rather than, say, twm with ROX Filer on NetBSD).

Edit: When I wrote the above, I didn't really realize what Wayland even was, I just noticed that some distributions (like Fedora) started pushing it onto me and things didn't work properly there. Today I realize that you can't "install Wayland", because unlike Xorg, there is not one "Wayland display server" but actually every desktop envrironment has its own. And maybe "the Wayland folks" don't "only care about Gnome", but then, any fix that is done in Gnome's Wayland implementation isn't automatically going to benefit all users of Wayland-based software, and possibly isn't even the implementation "the Wayland folks" would necessarily recommend.

Edit 12/2023: If something wants to replace X11 for desktop computers (such as professional Unix workstations), then it better support all needed features (and key concepts, like windows) for that use case. That people also have displays on their fridge doesn't matter the least bit in that context of discussion. Let's propose the missing Wayland protocols for full X11 feature parity.

Edit 08/2024: "Does Wayland becoming the defacto standard display server for Linux serve to marginalize BSD?" https://fossforce.com/2024/07/the-unintended-consequences-linuxs-wayland-adoption-will-have-on-bsd/

Wayland is broken by design

  • A crash in the window manager takes down all running applications
  • You cannot run applications as root
  • You cannot do a lot of things that you can do in Xorg by design
  • There is not one /usr/bin/wayland display server application that is desktop environment agnostic and is used by everyone (unlike with Xorg)
  • It offloads a lot of work to each and every window manager. As a result, the same basic features get implemented differently in different window managers, with different behaviors and bugs - so what works on desktop environment A does not necessarily work in desktop environment B (e.g., often you hear that something "works in Wayland", even though it only really works on Gnome and KDE, not in all Wayland implementations). This summarizes it very well: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/233

Apparently the Wayland project doesn't even want to be "X.org 2.0", and doesn't want to provide a commonly used implementation of a compositor that could be used by everyone: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/233. Yet this would imho be required if they want to make it into a worthwile "successor" that would have any chance of ever fixing the many Wayland issues at the core.

Wayland breaks screen recording applications

  • MaartenBaert/ssr#431 ❌ broken since 24 Jan 2016, no resolution ("I guess they use a non-standard GNOME interface for this")
  • https://github.com/mhsabbagh/green-recorder ❌ ("I am no longer interested in working with things like ffmpeg/wayland/GNOME's screencaster or solving the issues related to them or why they don't work")
  • vkohaupt/vokoscreenNG#51 ❌ broken since at least 7 Mar 2020. ("I have now decided that there will be no Wayland support for the time being. Reason, there is no budget for it. Let's see how it looks in a year or two.") - This is the key problem. Wayland breaks everything and then expects others to fix the wreckage it caused on their own expense.
  • obsproject/obs-studio#2471 ❌ broken since at least 7 Mar 2020. ("Wayland is unsupported at this time", "There isn't really something that can just be easily changed. Wayland provides no capture APIs")
  • There is a workaround for OBS Studio that requires a obs-xdg-portal plugin (which is known to be Red Hat/Flatpak-centric, GNOME-centric, "perhaps" works with other desktops)
  • phw/peek#1191 ❌ broken since 14 Jan 2023. Peek, a screen recording tool, has been abandoned by its developerdue to a number of technical challenges, mostly with Gtk and Wayland ("Many of these have to do with how Wayland changed the way applications are being handled")

As of February 2024, screen recording is still broken utterly on Wayland with the vast majority of tools. Proof

Workaround: Find a Wayland compositor that supports the wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 protocol and use wf-recorder -a. The default compositor in Raspberry Pi OS (Wayfire) does, but the default compositor in Ubuntu doesn't. (That's the worst part of Wayland: Unlike with Xorg, it always depends on the particular Wayand compositor what works and what is broken. Is there even one that supports everything?)

Wayland breaks screen sharing applications

  • jitsi/jitsi-meet#2350 ❌ broken since 3 Jan 2018
  • jitsi/jitsi-meet#6389 ❌ broken since 24 Jan 2016 ("Closing since there is nothing we can do from the Jitsi Meet side.") See? Wayland breaks stuff and leaves application developers helpless and unable to fix the breakage, even if they wanted.

NOTE: As of November 2023, screen sharing in Chromium using Jitsi Meet is still utterly broken, both in Raspberry Pi OS Desktop, and in a KDE Plasma installation, albeit with different behavior. Note that Pipewire, Portals and whatnot are installed, and even with them it does not work.

Wayland breaks automation software

sudo pkg install py37-autokey

This is an X11 application, and as such will not function 100% on 
distributions that default to using Wayland instead of Xorg.

Wayland breaks Gnome-Global-AppMenu (global menus for Gnome)

Wayland broke global menus with KDE platformplugin

Good news: According to this report global menus now work with KDE platformplugin as of 4/2022

Wayland breaks global menus with non-KDE Qt platformplugins

Wayland breaks AppImages that don't ship a special Wayland Qt plugin

  • https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2018/03/unsetting-qt_qpa_platform-environment-variable-by-default/ ❌ broke AppImages that don't ship a special Wayland Qt plugin. "This affects proprietary applications, FLOSS applications bundled as appimages, FLOSS applications bundled as flatpaks and not distributed by KDE and even the Qt installer itself. In my opinion this is a showstopper for running a Wayland session." However, there is a workaround: "AppImages which ship just the XCB plugin will automatically fallback to running in xwayland mode" (see below).

Wayland breaks Redshift

Update 2023: Some Wayland compositors (such as Wayfire) now support wlr_gamma_control_unstable_v1, see https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/wiki/Tutorial#configuring-wayfire and jonls/redshift#663. Does it work in all Wayland compositors though?

Wayland breaks global hotkeys

Wayland does not work for Xfce?

See below.

Wayland does not work properly on NVidia hardware?

Apparently Wayland relies on nouveau drivers for NVidia hardware. The nouveau driver has been giving unsatisfactory performance since its inception. Even clicking on the application starter icon in Gnome results in a stuttery animation. Only the proprietary NVidia driver results in full performance.

See below.

Update 2024: The situation might slowly be improving. It remains to be seen whether this will work well also for all existing old Nvidia hardware (that works well in Xorg).

Wayland does not work properly on Intel hardware

Wayland prevents GUI applications from running as root

  • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274451 ❌ broken since 22 Oct 2015 ("No this will only fix sudo for X11 applications. Running GUI code as root is still a bad idea." I absolutely detest it when software tries to prevent me from doing what some developer thinks is "a bad idea" but did not consider my use case, e.g., running truss for debugging on FreeBSD needs to run the application as root. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1323302 suggests it is not possible: "These sorts of security considerations are very much the way that "the Linux desktop" is going these days".)

Suggested solution

Wayland is biased toward Linux and breaks BSD

  • https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/wayland_on_netbsd_trials_and ❌ broken since 28 Sep 2020 ("Wayland is written with the assumption of Linux to the extent that every client application tends to #include <linux/input.h> because Wayland's designers didn't see the need to define a OS-neutral way to get mouse button IDs. (...) In general, Wayland is moving away from the modularity, portability, and standardization of the X server. (...) I've decided to take a break from this, since it's a fairly huge undertaking and uphill battle. Right now, X11 combined with a compositor like picom or xcompmgr is the more mature option."

Wayland complicates server-side window decorations

  • https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2018/01/server-side-decorations-and-wayland/ ❌ FUD since at least 27 January 2018 ("I heard that GNOME is currently trying to lobby for all applications implementing client-side decorations. One of the arguments seems to be that CSD is a must on Wayland. " ... "I’m burnt from it and are not interested in it any more.") Server-side window decorations are what make the title bar and buttons of all windows on a system consistent. They are a must have_ for a consistent system, so that applications written e.g., Gtk will not look entirely alien on e.g., a Qt based desktop, and to enforce that developers cannot place random controls into window titles where they do not belong. Client-side decorations, on the other hand, are destroying uniformity and consistency, put additional burden on application and toolkit developers, and allow e.g., GNOME developers to put random controls (that do not belong there) into window titles (like buttons), hence making it more difficult to achieve a uniform look and feel for all applications regardless of the toolkit being used.

Red Hat employee Matthias Clasen ("I work at the Red Hat Desktop team... I am actually a manager there... the people who do the actual work work for me") expicitly stated "Client-side everything" as a principle, even though the protocol doesn't enforce it: "Fonts, Rendering, Nested Windows, Decorations. "It also gives the design more freedom to use the titlebar space, which is something our designers appreciate" (sic). Source

Wayland breaks windows rasing/activating themselves

Wayland breaks RescueTime

Wayland breaks window managers

Apparently Wayland (at least as implemented in KWin) does not respect EWMH protocols, and breaks other command line tools like wmctrl, xrandr, xprop, etc. Please see the discussion below for details.

Wayland requires JWM, TWM, XDM, IceWM,... to reimplement Xorg-like functionality

  • Screen recording and casting
  • Querying of the mouse position, keyboard LED state, active window position or name, moving windows (xdotool, wmctrl)
  • Global shortcuts
  • System tray
  • Input Method support/editor (IME)
  • Graphical settings management (i.e. tools like xranrd)
  • Fast user switching/multiple graphical sessions
  • Session configuration including but not limited to 1) input devices 2) monitors configuration including refresh rate / resolution / scaling / rotation and power saving 3) global shortcuts
  • HDR/deep color support
  • VRR (variable refresh rate)
  • Disabling input devices (xinput alternative)

As it currently stands minor WMs and DEs do not even intend to support Wayland given the sheer complexity of writing all the code required to support the above features. You do not expect JWM, TWM, XDM or even IceWM developers to implement all the featured outlined in ^1.

Wayland breaks _NET_WM_STATE_SKIP_TASKBAR protocol

  • https://github.comelectron/electron#33226 ("skipTaskbar has no effect on Wayland. Currently Electron uses _NET_WM_STATE_SKIP_TASKBAR to tell the WM to hide an app from the taskbar, and this works fine on X11 but there's no equivalent mechanism in Wayland." Workarounds are only available for some desktops including GNOME and KDE Plasma.) ❌ broken since March 10, 2022

Wayland breaks NoMachine NX

Wayland breaks xclip

xclip is a command line utility that is designed to run on any system with an X11 implementation. It provides an interface to X selections ("the clipboard"). Apparently Wayland isn't compatible to the X11 clipboard either.

This is another example that the Wayland requires everyone to change components and take on additional work just because Wayland is incompatible to what we had working for all those years.

Wayland breaks SUDO_ASKPASS

Wayland breaks X11 atoms

X11 atoms can be used to store information on windows. For example, a file manager might store the path that the window represents in an X11 atom, so that it (and other applications) can know for which paths there are open file manager windows. Wayland is not compatible to X11 atoms, resulting in all software that relies on them to be broken until specifically ported to Wayland (which, in the case of legacy software, may well be never).

Possible workaround (to be verified): Use the (Qt proprietary?) Extended Surface Wayland protocol casually mentioned in https://blog.broulik.de/2016/10/global-menus-returning/ "which allows you to set (and read?) arbitrary properties on a window". Is it the set_generic_property from https://github.com/qt/qtwayland/blob/dev/src/extensions/surface-extension.xml?

Wayland breaks games

Games are developed for X11. And if you run a game on Wayland, performance is subpar due to things like forced vsync. Only recently, some Wayland implementations (like KDE KWin) let you disable that.

Wayland breaks xdotool

(Details to be added; apparently no 1:1 drop-in replacement available?)

Wayland breaks xkill

xkill (which I use on a regular basis) does not work with Wayland applications.

What is the equivalent for Wayland applications?

Wayland breaks screensavers

Is it true that Wayland also breaks screensavers? https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/

Wayland breaks setting the window position

Other platforms (Windows, Mac, other destop environments) can set the window position on the screen, so all cross-platform toolkits and applications expect to do the same on Wayland, but Wayland can't (doesn't want to) do it.

  • PCSX2/pcsx2#10179 PCX2 (Playstation 2 Emulator) ❌ broken since 2023-10-25 ("Disables Wayland, it's super broken/buggy in basically every scenario. KDE isn't too buggy, GNOME is a complete disaster.")

Wayland breaks color mangement

Apparently color management as of 2023 (well over a decade of Wayland development) is still in the early "thinking" stage, all the while Wayland is already being pushed on people as if it was a "X11 successor".

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pq/color-and-hdr/-/blob/main/doc/color-management-model.md

Wayland breaks DRM leasing

According to Valve, "DRM leasing is the process which allows SteamVR to take control of your VR headset's display in order to present low-latency VR content".

Wayland breaks In-home Streaming

Wayland breaks NetWM

Extended Window Manager Hints, a.k.a. NetWM, is an X Window System standard for the communication between window managers and applications

Wayland breaks window icons

Update 6/2024: Looks like this will get unbroken thanks to xdg_toplevel_icon_manager_v1, so that QWindow::setIcon will work again. If, and that's a big if, all compositors will support it. At least KDE is on it.

Wayland breaks drag and drop

Wayland breaks ./windowmanager --replace

  • Many window managers have a --replace argument, but Wayland compositors break this convention.

Wayland breaks Xpra

Xpra is an open-source multi-platform persistent remote display server and client for forwarding applications and desktop screens.

  • Under Xpra a context menu cannot be used: it opens and closes automatically before you can even move the mouse on it. "It's not just GDK, it's the Wayland itself. They decided to break existing applications and expect them to change how they work." (Xpra-org/xpra#4246) ❌ broken since 2024-06-01

Xwayland breaks window resizing

Workarounds

  • Users: Refuse to use Wayland sessions. Uninstall desktop environments/Linux distributions that only ship Wayland sessions. Avoid Wayland-only applications (such as PreSonus Studio One) (potential workaround: run in https://github.com/cage-kiosk/cage)
  • Application developers: Enforce running applications on X11/XWayland (like LibrePCB does as of 11/2023)

Examples of Wayland being forced on users

This is exactly the kind of behavior this gist seeks to prevent.

History

  • 2008: Wayland was started by krh (while at Red Hat)
  • End of 2012: Wayland 1.0
  • Early 2013: GNOME begins Wayland porting

Source: "Where's Wayland?" by Matthias Clasen - Flock 2014

A decade later... Red Hat wants to force Wayland upon everyone, removing support for Xorg

References

@myownfriend
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I highly doubt. The current "modern" alternative is running picom alongside a WM. Kwin and Mutter are both more capable by a mile to Picom and they don't have to the weird shenanigans Picom does with WMs because they are WMs. Unless you want to run a desktop with no compositor which in this day and age is not an acceptable solution, they are better.

However, I'm not sure why you say running a desktop with no compositor is not an acceptable solution. I don't need a compositor. I don't want a compositor. I haven't been running a compositor for at least a year. And I see no need to.

I think they mean the general public. There are a lot of things people can technically do without but aren't negotiable features for a lot of people.

One example I can think of is desktop icons. I don't use them, don't like them, and disabled them on Windows. I'll spare you the details why, but I don't see them as necessary and neither do a lot people. Technically, when you have app launchers to launch applications from and file browsers to access your files, they aren't necessary. But their absence from Gnome (without an extension) is inexcusable because they see them as necessary.

Another would be server-side decorations or client-side decorations. There's a lot of discussion about which are better. I prefer-client side for most things but for game windows, I prefer server-side. Truth is that neither are really needed. Davinci Resolve doesn't have CSDs but also doesn't launch with SSDs on Linux but with Gnome Super + Primary Click allows me to drag the window, Super + Middle Click allows me to resize the window, dragging to the top of the screen maximizes it, dragging a maximized window from the top restores it. Super + Secondary Click gives me a dropdown that gives me the following options: Take Screenshot, Hide, Maximize, Move, Resize, Always on Top, Move to Left/Right Monitor, and Close. So while decorations aren't technically needed, I don't think most people would agree.

I haven't been running a compositor for at least a year. And I see no need to.

Just re-quoting for separation.

Compositing is the only way that mixed-DPI scaling can work as well as it does. Neither GTK nor Wayland support more than integer scaling so a compositor enables fractional scaling by taking an integer-scaled client buffers a monitors and scaling them down to an fractional scale. There is work being done on a fractional scaling protocol in Wayland which would allow compositors and applications that support fractional scales to draw to fractionally-scaled screen without scaling down but scaling would still be needed for clients that aren't DPI aware (like XWayland clients currently) and clients that only support integer scales.

It will also always be useful for hide the transition from one DPI to the other. On Windows, dragging a window from a scale to scale results in the window popping to the DPI of the target monitor once more than 50% of the window is on that monitor. In my case, this means if I drag File Explorer from my primary monitor to the secondary monitor then initially the part on monitor 1 looks the right size but the part on the monitor 2 is way too small. Then once more than half is on monitor 2, File Explorer gets drawn 50% larger which makes it look the correct size on monitor 2 but way too large on monitor 1. It's an incredibly jarring effect especially when dragging larger windows over as they can momentarily cover and even clip outside the boundaries of monitor 1 until the window is complete moved to monitor 2

In a Wayland session, Gnome tells the client to draw at higher DPI pretty much as soon as a single pixel is on monitor 2 and just scales it down to maintain it's size on monitor 1. The result is that dragging windows from one screen to the other feels no different than if both screens were the same resolution but of course it's still using all of the resolution of both monitors. Of course because Wayland doesn't currently support fractional scaling, the contents on my 4K screen are technically being drawn at 5K and then scaled down. It sounds wasteful but it's not as bad as in X11.

Because of how X11 handles spanning across multiple monitors, both need to be one DPI. I'd need to use XRANDR to resize them down to different scales. So the contents of both monitors would be drawn at 5K and scaled down by 56% on my 4K monitor and by 75% on my 1440p monitor. You can imagine that always having to set the scale to the highest scale in a set of monitors would become more and more wasteful as you add more monitors. Adding a 720p monitor to my setup would be functionally the same as adding 5K monitor. The other side of that is if I add an 8K monitor to my setup then it would be the same as have a setup with three 8K monitors..

I think this why Wayland and the old X12 proposal both require compositing. You need to account for different clients and monitors supporting different scales and handle all scenarios where the size that a client is drawn at isn't necessarily the size it will be displayed at.

@snakedye
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@sognokdev

I love Wayland and I defended it in many posts here, but I don't think that people who hate Wayland think that "everything was perfect".

Hate is a very strong word. If you feel that type of way about free software, you are deranged enough to fit that caricature.

Several people here have said that improving X would have been better than creating an entirely new protocol. While it may not be true, it shows that X is not perfect from their point of view.

If you hate Wayland and think that X can be improved why aren't you improving it? This gist is 2 years old and none of these people made a single commit to Xorg. If you really hate Wayland and think it's a nuisance to the point of calling for boycott why aren't you contributing to Xorg so it's never obsoleted. I think it's phony.

If you don't hate Wayland, you are fine.

That's a real argument, but X could have been improved to support high-DPI displays. Nobody wants to do it, but that doesn't mean it's not the better option.

If no one wants to do it, it is the worse option.

@snakedye
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@codic12

I don't "hate" Wayland, that doesn't mean I have to like or use it either. But I'm not a boomer, I was born in this century and millenium wink

If you don't hate it, I'm not addressing you. You are graced...

I'm not sure why you say running a desktop with no compositor is not an acceptable solution. I don't need a compositor.

Yes, you. I was more talking about 99.9% of people who use desktops or phones. It's like selling a 720p 30 fps monitor, like sure some people could use it but almost everyone will notice that it's straight up worse than anything else they have ever used.

@codic12
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codic12 commented Apr 22, 2022 •
edited
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One example I can think of is desktop icons. I don't use them, don't like them, and disabled them on Windows. I'll spare you the details why, but I don't see them as necessary and neither do a lot people. Technically, when you have app launchers to launch applications from and file browsers to access your files, they aren't necessary. But their absence from Gnome (without an extension) is inexcusable because they see them as necessary. Another would be server-side decorations or client-side decorations. There's a lot of discussion about which are better. I prefer-client side for most things but for game windows, I prefer server-side. Truth is that neither are really needed. Davinci Resolve doesn't have CSDs but also doesn't launch with SSDs on Linux but with Gnome Super + Primary Click allows me to drag the window, Super + Middle Click allows me to resize the window, dragging to the top of the screen maximizes it, dragging a maximized window from the top restores it. Super + Secondary Click gives me a dropdown that gives me the following options: Take Screenshot, Hide, Maximize, Move, Resize, Always on Top, Move to Left/Right Monitor, and Close. So while decorations aren't technically needed, I don't think most people would agree.

I think there's some misinterpretation on my end or on yours, I was talking about a X11 compositor, which is not needed for desktop icons or any sort of window decorations, client-side or server-side, or really anything but:

  • forcing vsync
  • transparency / shadows / other visual effects

@snakedye could you give one example of something which you think a X compositor is needed for? I'm genuinely curious... I genuinely find the experience to be better than anything I've used, but it's all subjective

@myownfriend
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myownfriend commented Apr 22, 2022 •
edited
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I think there's some misinterpretation on my end or on yours, I was talking about a X11 compositor, which is not needed for desktop icons or any sort of window decorations, client-side or server-side, or really anything but:

* forcing vsync

* transparency / shadows / other visual effects

Oh! Yes there is a misunderstanding. I wasn't saying that desktop icons and decorations require compositing. It's hard for me to word this but I was using them as examples of things that people don't technically "need" because they aren't "necessary" to get certain functionality but they are necessary from a practical stand point.

Here's a real world example. If you're trying to sell someone on a house that doesn't have a bathroom but there's an outhouse, you're technically not losing any functionality. Anyone living there would still have some place to poo. But how many people are really gonna want to buy that house?

I'm probably still doing a bad job explaining this.

@snakedye could you give one example of something which you think a X compositor is needed for? I'm genuinely curious... I genuinely find the experience to be better than anything I've used, but it's all subjective

"Mixed DPI scaling" and v-sync. I mentioned that neither is as good in X as they are in Wayland or Windows but it's far better than if it didn't have them.

Let me flip that on you. What do you think using a compositor takes away from your experience?

@codic12
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codic12 commented Apr 22, 2022

Oh! Yes there is a misunderstanding. I wasn't saying that desktop icons and decorations require compositing. It's hard for me to word this but I was using them as examples of things that people don't technically "need" because they aren't "necessary" to get certain functionality but they are necessary from a practical stand point.

Ah, I see. Sorry for the confusion! I understand what you mean.

"Mixed DPI scaling" and v-sync. I mentioned that neither is as good in X as they are in Wayland or Windows but it's far better than if it didn't have them.

V-sync is definitely true, DPI scaling I actually can't comment on because I have no idea about that topic, but I would guess it has no need for a compositor...

Let me flip that on you. What do you think using a compositor takes away from your experience?

Nothing, it's just that too many X compositors feel kind of sluggish on my laptop, which was pretty mediocre when it was released (2012) already. And I admit, Wayland compositors like Wayfire do these things smoother, because Wayland does make that improvement; the client and server code can both be in one application, rather than being sent over local unix domain sockets or however X does it. But when I have too many windows open, I still do see some sluggishness, which is expected from an i5's integrated graphics from 2012. But again, in that aspect, I have to hand it to Wayland.

Xfwm4 and Marco/Metacity do come with relatively performant compositors. And honestly, compiz is still not a bad option. Even kwin and mutter, or even picom, are perfectly fine. It's just that when I have 15-20 windows open (I have a weird workflow) it feels a lot smoother without a compositor, not to mention that there is the memory concern (some compositing WMs / picom can be pretty heavy on memory and CPU). This is weirdly hardware-specific and an issue which is partly addressed by Wayland. And I don't really need a process running in the background for things I don't use anyways.

@myownfriend
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V-sync is definitely true, DPI scaling I actually can't comment on because I have no idea about that topic, but I would guess it has no need for a compositor...

Doesn't the scaling in XRANDR require compositing? I couldn't find anything that confirmed or denied that. If so then it's oddly more of a requirement for mixed-scales on X11 than it is on Wayland because one monitor's output would always to be scaled down.

Nothing, it's just that too many X compositors feel kind of sluggish on my laptop, which was pretty mediocre when it was released (2012) already. And I admit, Wayland compositors like Wayfire do these things smoother, because Wayland does make that improvement; the client and server code can both be in one application, rather than being sent over local unix domain sockets or however X does it.

It's not the the client and server code are in one application its that the server, window manager, and compositor are all combined. The client still just has it's client code. Part of the reason that compositing in X is slow is because the compositor is separate and the communication between the two adds a lot of latency and X11 already had latency issues.

This was posted already but I think you might find it enjoyable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ

But when I have too many windows open, I still do see some sluggishness, which is expected from an i5's integrated graphics from 2012. But again, in that aspect, I have to hand it to Wayland.

Xfwm4 and Marco/Metacity do come with relatively performant compositors. And honestly, compiz is still not a bad option. Even kwin and mutter, or even picom, are perfectly fine. It's just that when I have 15-20 windows open (I have a weird workflow) it feels a lot smoother without a compositor, not to mention that there is the memory concern (some compositing WMs / picom can be pretty heavy on memory and CPU). This is weirdly hardware-specific and an issue which is partly addressed by Wayland. And I don't really need a process running in the background for things I don't use anyways.

Is it probably a memory usage thing? Compositors give each client their own buffer so they're going to use more VRAM but in exchange for that, applications don't need to redraw parts of themselves when they're obscured by another window, the compositor just needs to fetch that part of the application's buffer. You're trading off VRAM usage in order to save your GPU from having to do repeat work which can also save on memory bandwidth.

@codic12
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codic12 commented Apr 22, 2022

It's not the the client and server code are in one application its that the server, window manager, and compositor are all combined.

By the client I meant the window manager and compositor, which are clients in X terminology. Sorry for the confusion ;)

This was posted already but I think you might find it enjoyable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ

Perhaps, I'll be sure to check it out later, but now it's almost 1 AM!

Doesn't the scaling in XRANDR require compositing? I couldn't find anything that confirmed or denied that. If so then it's oddly more of a requirement for mixed-scales on X11 than it is on Wayland because one monitor's output would always to be scaled down.

Don't know about however Xrandr scaling works, but I can definitely change the DPI without a compositor:
image

Is it probably a memory usage thing? Compositors give each client their own buffer so they're going to use more VRAM but in exchange for that, applications don't need to redraw parts of themselves when they're obscured by another window, the compositor just needs to fetch that part of the application's buffer. You're trading off VRAM usage in order to save your GPU from having to do repeat work which can also save on memory bandwidth.

Funnily enough, when developing my window manager, I ran into this problem - when not running a compositor stuff is obscured. I just redraw, which works fine... but yes, I see your point. although you can also "compress" received X events, and redraw only after you've finished receiving them quickly one after the other... which is what it seems the majority of gui applications / frameworks do from my observations. Also often you can repaint one small area instead of the whole window.

@myownfriend
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By the client I meant the window manager and compositor, which are clients in X terminology. Sorry for the confusion ;)

Oh right! I forgot lol

Don't know about however Xrandr scaling works, but I can definitely change the DPI without a compositor: image

Oh! We don't mean font DPI when we talk about DPI scaling. What we mean is UI scaling on high DPI displays. For example, lets say you have a taskbar that's 48 pixels high. On a 27" 1440p screen, that would be 0.44" high, but if that same interface was on a phone with a 6" 1440p screen, then it would be just 0.098" high. Sure you'd be closer to the phone which make up for some of the loss in size, but that would still be too small. That's where DPI scaling comes into play. With 300% scaling, that taskbar would now be drawn to be 144 pixels high which is 0.29". That's way easier to see on a phone and way easier to hit.

Funnily enough, when developing my window manager, I ran into this problem - when not running a compositor stuff is obscured. I just redraw, which works fine... but yes, I see your point. although you can also "compress" received X events, and redraw only after you've finished receiving them quickly one after the other... which is what it seems the majority of gui applications / frameworks do from my observations. Also often you can repaint one small area instead of the whole window.

Yes, both Wayland and X send damage events so that only a portion of the screen needs to be updated and that's true with and without compositors. It's not just the additional X events that need to be considered each time you repaint though. That application needs to run functions to draw buttons, icons need to be fetched and drawn, and text needs to be drawn. The latter two will likely need some amount of alpha blending too and it's no uncommon for UIs to have a decent amount of overdraw. That's all avoided when you don't need to repaint.

@codic12
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codic12 commented Apr 22, 2022

Oh! We don't mean font DPI when we talk about DPI scaling. What we mean is UI scaling on high DPI displays. For example, lets say you have a taskbar that's 48 pixels high. On a 27" 1440p screen, that would be 0.44" high, but if that same interface was on a phone with a 6" 1440p screen, then it would be just 0.098" high. Sure you'd be closer to the phone which make up for some of the loss in size, but that would still be too small. That's where DPI scaling comes into play. With 300% scaling, that taskbar would now be drawn to be 144 pixels high which is 0.29". That's way easier to see on a phone and way easier to hit.

I see. I never completely understood UI scaling, as when you increase font DPI do the rest of the elements not scale also?
But clearly I don't know anything about this 😅

@bodqhrohro
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Just for the matter of holywar.

I usually SIGSTOP greedy apps which actively use the NTFS partition, as the NTFS-3G driver fails to freeze them under a heavy load and prevents the system from sleeping.

Today, I unsuspended the system and SIGCONTed only TelegramDesktop to quickly add a contact and send a message. Surprisingly, despite a lack of a load, it was freezing all the way for tens of seconds and didn't report pings to the WM. The CPU was cold, the Telegram process made 0% load, and iotop-c showed no any disk activity. I suspected it's some multithreading or IPC lock, connected to the process with strace, and observed a confirmation:

@bq:19:43:48:/tmp/dl$ strace -p 3783717
strace: Process 3783717 attached
restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted read ...>) = 0
futex(0x7f39fd0d8fc0, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x7f39fd0d9014, FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=10320726, tv_nsec=94307775}, FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY) = -1 ETIMEDOUT (Время ожидания соединения истекло)
futex(0x7f39fd0d8fc0, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
poll([{fd=7, events=POLLIN|POLLOUT}], 1, -1) = 1 ([{fd=7, revents=POLLOUT}])
writev(7, [{iov_base="\27\0\2\0x\1\0\0", iov_len=8}], 1) = 8
futex(0x7ffc2d32a678, FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET_PRIVATE|FUTEX_CLOCK_REALTIME, 0, NULL, FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY) = -1 EAGAIN (Ресурс временно недоступен)
futex(0x7f39fd11ca18, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
poll([{fd=7, events=POLLIN|POLLOUT}], 1, -1) = 1 ([{fd=7, revents=POLLOUT}])

So, what's that 7?

@bq:19:55:55:/tmp/dl$  ls -l /proc/3783717/fd/7
lrwx------ 1 bodqhrohro bodqhrohro 64 мая  7 19:56 7 -> 'socket:[1763110736]'
@bq:19:56:05:/tmp/dl$ ss|grep 1763110736
u_str ESTAB      0      0                                @/tmp/.X11-unix/X0 1763111837               * 1763110736        
u_str ESTAB      0      0

Pff. And Compiz benchmark showing nearly 23 FPS ;DD

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ghost commented May 8, 2022

Much of this is outdated, or is lacking some context, or is plain misleading. Here's a few things:

  • vokoscreenNG has support now: "For Windows and Linux(X11, Experimental Wayland support since 3.1.0 pre alpha)" (https://github.com/vkohaupt/vokoscreenNG)

  • OBS now supports wayland by default (obsproject/obs-studio#2484)

  • Jitsi Meet is broken on browsers that don't support Wayland ("Closing since there is nothing we can do from the Jitsi Meet side. The browser must have support for this.")--different from what was implied above

  • Zoom now has a solution that will be released soon (https://community.zoom.com/t5/Meetings/Wayland-screen-sharing-broken-with-GNOME-41-on-Fedora-35/m-p/53991/highlight/true#M27430)

  • Applications breaking without the Qt Wayland plugin is a feature. You can't run X11 apps on Wayland without XWayland, and the Wayland plugin is there to allow you to run it as a native Wayland app. Simple.

  • A fork of Redshift exists to support Wayland--but there's also gammastep for wlroots.

  • As mentioned in albertlauncher/albert#309, "Wayland does not allow clients to register global hotkeys atm. Use your desktop evironment to bind a hotkey to albert toggle or albert show."

    • Sounds like global hotkeys to me.

  • You can run apps as root, with sudo --preserve-env=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR,WAYLAND_DISPLAY

  • As others have mentioned, global menus seem to work all around.

I'm disappointed at how outdated this is.

Wayland was not intended to be a 1:1 replacement. Guess what? X11 wasn't a 1:1 with X10 either. If developers aren't willing to put in the effort to add Wayland support, don't blame it on Wayland.

Also, what arguments are there against Portals and PipeWire outside of the fact they're related to GNOME? I don't have any other GNOME software installed and it works perfectly for me.

@Monsterovich
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Monsterovich commented May 9, 2022 •
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Wayland was not intended to be a 1:1 replacement. Guess what? X11 wasn't a 1:1 with X10 either.

Which is irrelevant because X10 existed like ~40 years ago. Do you realize how many applications rely on X11? You can't just throw X11 out the window. X11 will be revisited one day, but certainly not by Wayland-monkeys.

If developers aren't willing to put in the effort to add Wayland support, don't blame it on Wayland.

You know what? We don't care about Wayland. Wayland is going to die and be and be abandoned. Forever. Everyone's happy. Especially me.

Also, what arguments are there against Portals and PipeWire outside of the fact they're related to GNOME?

In X, screen capturing is done with extensions. You can capture the entire screen or a single window. In Wayland, you need a crutch to do this. I don't want to use PipeWire for screen capturing or for sound, even though it is better written than the nasty PulseAudio. Any other sound subsystem over ALSA is a software crutch. We'll have to admit it. Wayland's lack of features and its anarchic ideology makes it necessary to use crutches. Only companies like Microsoft do that. And all sorts of software like Systemd, PulseAudio, pushes GNU/Linux down this path. A path of anarchy and Redhat/GNOME supremacy.

@phrxmd
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phrxmd commented May 9, 2022 •
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Much of this is outdated, or is lacking some context, or is plain misleading. Here's a few things:

  • vokoscreenNG has support now: "For Windows and Linux(X11, Experimental Wayland support since 3.1.0 pre alpha)" (https://github.com/vkohaupt/vokoscreenNG)
  • OBS now supports wayland by default (obsproject/obs-studio#2484)
  • Jitsi Meet is broken on browsers that don't support Wayland ("Closing since there is nothing we can do from the Jitsi Meet side. The browser must have support for this.")--different from what was implied above
  • Zoom now has a solution that will be released soon (https://community.zoom.com/t5/Meetings/Wayland-screen-sharing-broken-with-GNOME-41-on-Fedora-35/m-p/53991/highlight/true#M27430)
  • Applications breaking without the Qt Wayland plugin is a feature. You can't run X11 apps on Wayland without XWayland, and the Wayland plugin is there to allow you to run it as a native Wayland app. Simple.
  • A fork of Redshift exists to support Wayland--but there's also gammastep for wlroots.
  • As mentioned in albertlauncher/albert#309, "Wayland does not allow clients to register global hotkeys atm. Use your desktop evironment to bind a hotkey to albert toggle or albert show."
    • Sounds like global hotkeys to me.
  • You can run apps as root, with sudo --preserve-env=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR,WAYLAND_DISPLAY
  • As others have mentioned, global menus seem to work all around.

I'm disappointed at how outdated this is.
Wayland was not intended to be a 1:1 replacement. Guess what? X11 wasn't a 1:1 with X10 either. If developers aren't willing to put in the effort to add Wayland support, don't blame it on Wayland.

Also, what arguments are there against Portals and PipeWire outside of the fact they're related to GNOME? I don't have any other GNOME software installed and it works perfectly for me.

Which is irrelevant because X10 existed like ~40 years ago. Do you realize how many applications rely on X11? You can't just throw X11 out the window. X11 will be revisited one day, but certainly not by Wayland-monkeys. [...] You know what? We don't care about Wayland. Wayland is going to die and be and be abandoned. Forever. Everyone's happy. Especially me. [...] In X, screen capturing is done with extensions. You can capture the entire screen or a single window. In Wayland, you need a crutch to do this. I don't want to use PipeWire, even though it is better written than the nasty PulseAudio. Any other sound subsystem over ALSA is a software crutch. We'll have to admit it. Wayland's lack of features and its anarchic ideology makes it necessary to use crutches. Only companies like Microsoft do that. And all sorts of software like Systemd, PulseAudio, pushes GNU/Linux down this path. A path of Redhat/GNOME supremacy.

This post was really instructive, because in response to a precise technical list of corrections to the OP (complete with links - I copied the original back in for clarity) we got a rant with zero technical merit and nothing but:

  • Expletives ("Wayland-monkeys")
  • Saying "we" while really meaning "I and maybe N other people" with N being small
  • Conspiracy framing, endless references to Microsoft, Red Hat and the supposed GNOME supremacy.
  • Lack of historical and/or technical knowledge (case in point: mentioning ALSA as the end-all of sound subsystems - when it came out, it was seen by many as an unnecessary crutch over OSS and as a way to enforce the Linux supremacy over other Unix flavours that use OSS until today - exactly the thing you're now blaming on Pipewire).

@bodqhrohro
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bodqhrohro commented May 9, 2022 •
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with N being small

Do you imply discriminating minorities is okay?

and the supposed GNOME supremacy

It's the reality: look what is a default DE in major distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian).

and as a way to enforce the Linux supremacy over other Unix flavours

As it still remains. The major difference though is that emulating OSS over ALSA works pretty well, which is not applicable to emulating X over Wayland due to the limited and primitive nature of Wayland (while OSS was more primitive than ALSA).

@Monsterovich
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Monsterovich commented May 9, 2022 •
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Expletives ("Wayland-monkeys")

Say "thank you" for that. I could have found less censorious words. Especially after forcing CSD in the majority of GTK applications. I also found out that in the new Intel GPU driver (modesetting) there is no "Tearfree" option, because, well, "use vsync in the compositor" which obviously doesn't cover all use-cases. The suspicion immediately falls on Wayland.

Saying "we" while really meaning "I and maybe N other people" with N being small

Most GNU/Linux users use Xorg, that's a fact. I don't care about a couple of "Mom, I'm a hacker!" students playing Wayland in their Arch Linux distro or whatever. I don't see how you can use it for everything else at this point. What matters to me is whether it works or not, and most importantly, how it works. Because people like me use Linux for work. Wayland is another attempt by corporations to impose their will on users, which is unacceptable in the Linux community. Many people have said it before me, so I have every right to say "we".

Conspiracy framing, endless references to Microsoft, Red Hat

Prove now that corporations want to do good for the Linux community. What good have they ever done for the Linux community?

when it came out, it was seen by many as an unnecessary crutch over OSS and as a way to enforce the Linux supremacy over other Unix flavours

I thought it was about the license, wasn't it? I remember that OSS was once proprietary, so they replaced it with ALSA.

@Monsterovich
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It's the reality: look what is a default DE in major distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian).

And now the developers of these distributions will make our life much harder for anyone who disagrees with their policy and simply cut off all non-GNOME alternatives with an Wayland-axe. What a beautiful plan.

I wouldn't be surprised if soon we have to divide into "corpo-distros" and "everyone else".

@Monsterovich
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while OSS was more primitive than ALSA

Hey, I heard that OSS has a separate volume control for each application. Does that make it more primitive or superior to ALSA, at least in some ways? :P

@sognokdev
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Most GNU/Linux users use Xorg, that's a fact.

That's true, but it's becoming less and less true as time goes by.

GNOME is now using Wayland by default, and according to you, we are heading towards the GNOME supremacy. In the meantime, Xorg is being abandoned by its own developers.

So, I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that Wayland is going to die. It seems to be wishful thinking.

@phrxmd
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phrxmd commented May 9, 2022 •
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and the supposed GNOME supremacy

It's the reality: look what is a default DE in major distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian).

It used to be KDE until they botched their 4.x release, and things are now more diverse again than they were 3-4 years ago - Mint defaults to Cinnamon, OpenSUSE to KDE, there's the Steam Deck, some distros default to X, others to Wayland and so on.

The major difference though is that emulating OSS over ALSA works pretty well, which is not applicable to emulating X over Wayland

If you say so. In the meantime lots of people are using their legacy applications with XWayland just fine.

with N being small

Do you imply discriminating minorities is okay?

No. But I imply that calling out pretentious bullshit is OK. As it is when you equate pointing out small numbers with the discrimination of minorities. Next thing you're going to claim you're a discrimination victim. Or a victim of corporate conspiracies. Or whatever victim.

@Monsterovich
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So, I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that Wayland is going to die. It seems to be wishful thinking.

Wayland is a bit more complicated than writing an extra layer over something else like PulseAudio did. In addition, PulseAudio made some sense, perhaps in terms of sound transmission over the network and software mixing, although many things could simply be implemented in ALSA. Wayland is different, you have to start from scratch. And you could do compatibility if Wayland wasn't such a GNOME-oriented prison.
They can't rewrite the entire software framework. Especially when you don't have enough knowledge to do it, which is obvious to Wayland developers. Eventually they will just get bored with this futile task. Wayland will become just another abandoned software. Don't be surprised, corporations often abandon their developments. Look at Google, for example.

@phrxmd
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phrxmd commented May 9, 2022

I don't care about a couple of "Mom, I'm a hacker!" students playing Wayland in their Arch Linux distro or whatever.

That's fine, you do whatever, but don't forget the kind of arguments brought forth in favour of X11 around here are My Little Pony apps and obscure window managers.

@bodqhrohro
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The trend Wayland is causing resembles what Google has done to browser engines. Just compare:

  • Canonical ditched Unity in favour of GNOME with a few extensions;
  • XFCE uses Mutter for Wayland support instead of porting xfwm4;
  • LWQt uses a Mutter fork with a KWin D-Bus API support (being Qt-based otherwise);
    with
  • Opera ditching Presto (except of Opera Mini transcoders) in favour of WebKit and later Blink;
  • M$ ditching Trident/Edge in favour of Blink;
  • Electron ousting XULRunner and MSHTA;
  • WebKit-based Android Browser being phased out and replaced by Chrome;
  • QtWebKit being replaced with QtWebEngine;
  • several other replacements of WebKit with Blink in embedded solutions (Tizen, Samsung Internet, don't remember the complete list already).

So now, instead of a diverse world of competing browser engines, there is omnipresent Blink, being an unusable and barely customizable (yup, still, despite all the efforts put in particular by Opera and Electron developers) bloatware, with Apple/Mozilla still resisting (and turning their engines into bloatware too), the furry Goanna developer pretending to resist, and a bunch of primitive projects like NetSurf, KHTML and elinks which barely handle the modern, intentionally over-engineered, Web. Oh, and proprietary Flow (was it even released already?)

I find all of this unusable and lost a notion of a favourite browser, suffering all the time I have to use the Web in general, and got disenchanted by the idea of Web-is-the-future, despite I highly leaned on it in early 10s. For average slatephone users, actually, it realized much earlier, as for some reason they prefer to download native apps from app stores (even if they are just wrappers for a browser engine, but such kind of apps is dying out too), instead of opening web apps in a browser.

Ironically, GNOME developers act as a good faction there, as they keep maintaining a port of WebKit for GNU/Linux, thus keeping the diversity in the GNU/Linux world instead of being devoured by the Blink/Quantum oligopoly. Still lots of users I've encountered don't recognize this and keep thinking by old memory that Chrome is WebKit-based too, and thus other WebKit-based browsers are as much bloated and thus not worth trying, despite this was true for an already shorter term (2008–2013) than Blink exists.

@bodqhrohro
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In the meantime lots of people are using their legacy applications with XWayland just fine

Because you take only things that work, ignore those which don't work, and conclude from it that it works well enough, huh?

Anything beyond a direct client-to-server talk, and to some extent beyond talking between X clients in one Xwayland session, is broken. And this is probably the only thing the topic starter managed to highlight and list correctly. Besides of the PipeWire scope, okay.

you're a discrimination victim

Yes I am, how can I get a shelter? ;DDD

obscure window managers

So you imply that obscure window managers are not being used for work, huh? Especially when people write window managers themselves for their specific workflow (like this one).

@sognokdev
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Eventually they will just get bored with this futile task. Wayland will become just another abandoned software.

Xorg is becoming another abandoned software. Its developers got tired with it. It's not a forecast, it's not hypothetical. It's happening right now for real.

Wayland has been created 14 years ago, and is becoming more and more popular. Major distros and desktop environnements are switching to Wayland.

@phrxmd
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phrxmd commented May 9, 2022

In the meantime lots of people are using their legacy applications with XWayland just fine

Because you take only things that work, ignore those which don't work, and conclude from it that it works well enough, huh?

Because if only you think up obscure edge cases hard enough, things that work just fine for other people suddenly stop doing so, huh?

Anything beyond a direct client-to-server talk,

...which is like 99% of what GUIs are doing... and the intersection of legacy software that needs the remaining 1%, has no developers working on Wayland support and has no Wayland-compatible equivalent is quite small and getting smaller, see the list posted a few posts earlier. And for the rest, just continue to use X11, as the intersection of that set with the set of users forced at gunpoint to use Wayland is zero.

My Little Pony apps and obscure window managers

So you imply that obscure window managers are not being used for work, huh? Especially when people write window managers themselves for their specific workflow (like this one).

Next you're going to say that people also write My Little Pony apps for work.

@phrxmd
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phrxmd commented May 9, 2022

Xorg is becoming another abandoned software. Its developers got tired with it. It's not a forecast, it's not hypothetical. It's happening right now for real.

Curiously, the people who project the immediate demise of Wayland in the future often tend to be the same who have done nothing to contribute to X11 in the past.

@Monsterovich
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Monsterovich commented May 9, 2022 •
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Xorg is becoming another abandoned software. Its developers got tired with it.

Ah, I get it now. So since Xorg works, we have to break everything and then fix it, because we're bored and need somewhere to spend the money?

Wayland has been created 14 years ago, and is becoming more and more popular.

That in itself sounds funny. It's like taking a dusty old tape recorder out of the closet. Look guys, it's mainstream now!

Major distros and desktop environnements are switching to Wayland.

Yeah. I heard that a lot. Good luck.

@sognokdev
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That in itself sounds funny. It's like taking a dusty old tape recorder out of the closet. Look guys, it's mainstream now!

Except the old thing here is X, not Wayland.

@Monsterovich
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Monsterovich commented May 9, 2022 •
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Except the old thing here is X, not Wayland.

I think it's impressive that such a thing as X has survived so long and is still working good and relevant. The desktop has hardly changed in 20 years, perhaps that's why. And Wayland never managed to become relevant for 14 years. And the only way to move everyone to Wayland is to forcibly break compatibility. What else? Oh yeah, NVidia bad.

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