Think twice about Wayland. It breaks everything!

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.

• raspberrypi/bookworm-feedback#149 (comment) ❌ broken since at least Nov 17, 2023 ("window sharing not being available in wlroots derived compositors (such as wayfire)")
• flathub/us.zoom.Zoom#22 Zoom ❌ broken since at least 4 Jan 2019. ("Can not start share, we only support wayland on GNOME with Ubuntu (17, 18), Fedora (25 to 29), Debian 9, openSUSE Leap 15, Arch Linux"). No word about non-GNOME!
• https://community.zoom.com/t5/Meetings/Screensharing-only-works-on-GNOME-wayland-when-it-should-work-on/m-p/64823 Zoom ❌ Still broken as of 24 Jun 2022. ("... we only support Wayland on Gnome with Ubuntu 17 and above, Fedora 25 and above, Debian 9 and above ...")
• probonopd/Zoom.AppImage#8 ❌ broken since 1 Oct 2022 Zoom: "You need PulseAudio 1.0 and above to support audio share" on a system that uses pipewire-pulseaudio

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)

• https://gitlab.com/lestcape/Gnome-Global-AppMenu/-/issues/116 ❌ broken since 24 Aug 2018 ("because the lack of the Gtk+ Wayland support for the Global Menu")

• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424485 ❌ Still broken as of late 2023 ("I am also still not seeing GTK global menus on wayland. They appear on the applications themselves, wasting a lot of space.")

Wayland broke global menus with KDE platformplugin

• https://blog.broulik.de/2016/10/global-menus-returning/ ("it uses global window IDs, which don’t exist in a Wayland world... no global menu on Wayland, I thought, not without significant re-engineering effort"). KDE had to do additional work to work around it. And it still did not work:

• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=385880 ("When using the Plasma-Wayland session, the global menu does not work.")

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

• https://blog.broulik.de/2016/10/global-menus-returning/ ❌ broke non-KDE platformplugins. As a result, global menus now need _KDE_NET_WM_APPMENU_OBJECT_PATH which only the KDE platformplugin sets, leaving everyone else in the dark

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

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/redshift ❌ broken ("Redshift does not support Wayland since it offers no way to adjust the color temperature")

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

• albertlauncher/albert#309 ❌ broken since 7 Jan 2017 ("This is a security measure, but has the side effect of preventing applications from registering their own global hotkeys") YouTube video by René Rebe

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

• https://cfenollosa.com/blog/fed-up-with-the-mac-i-spent-six-months-with-a-linux-laptop-the-grass-is-not-greener-on-the-other-side.html ❌ broken since at least 02 Apr 2021 ("Screen tearing with the intel driver. Come on. This was solved on xorg and now with Wayland it's back.")

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

• https://phabricator.kde.org/D16648#470609 ("Wayland clients can't raise or activate themselves"), ❌ broken since May 27 2019

Wayland breaks RescueTime

• https://help.rescuetime.com/article/117-common-linux-issues ("One of the features of Wayland is that it prevents apps from doing precisely what RescueTime is trying to do—track activity in other windows.") ❌ broken since June 3, 2021

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

• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/233

• 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

• https://kb.nomachine.com/TR03S10126?s=wayland ❌ broken since 2021-03-09 ("The session becomes unresponsive once logged-in to the Wayland desktop")

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.

• AppImage/AppImageKit#1221 (comment) ❌ broken since 2022-20-15 ("Espanso built for X11 will not work on Wayland due to xclip. Wayland asks for wl-copy")

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

• https://github.com/linuxhw/hw-probe-pyqt5-gui/commit/eb2d6e5145fb8571414bda57676084b7f13b94e5#diff-23cb15995f1502beebb38433bfa83204a5f45b376eaf88e2e41a0d8a1cd44722R290 ❌ broken since 2022-04-09 ("SUDO_ASKPASS doesn't work on Wayland currently, so piping the password")

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".

• "Unfortunately not all Wayland compositors support DRM leasing" https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/18A4-1E10-8A94-3DDA - "not all" highlights one of the fundamental problems with Wayland - there is fragmentation

Wayland breaks In-home Streaming

• ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#6148 ❌ broken since 2019-03-17

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

• Wayland breaks window icons when no .desktop files are used: Seemingly Wayland requires developers to use the xdg-shell protocol, which in turn requires developers to use reverse-DNS application IDs and set_app_id, which causes the icon to be loaded from the .desktop file. This is serious breakage, as not all desktop environments (for good reasons) use .desktop files. A display server should have no business in this, as this belongs into the domain of the desktop environment. https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Wayland_Porting_Notes#Application_Icon, https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/issues/52 ❌ broken since 2021-06-21

• Qt setWindowIcon has no effect on KDE/Wayland https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-101427 ("Resolution: Out of scope", meaning it cannot be fixed in Qt, "Using QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb works, though", meaning that if you disable Wayland then it works) ❌ broken since 2022-03-03

• LibrePCB developer: "Btw it's just one of several problems we have with Wayland, therefore we still enforce LibrePCB to run with Xwayland. It's a shame, but I feel totally helpless against such decisions made by Wayland and using XWayland is the only reasonable option (which even works perfectly fine)..." https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/issues/52#note_2155885

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

• On Raspberry Pi OS (which is running a Wayland session by default), dragging a file out of a zip file onto the desktop fails with "XDirectSave failed."
• The same seems to be true in Gnome: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/xdnddirectsave-and-wayland/2954

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

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G9zX8CkGTY

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.

• Asahi Linux enforces Wayland for ARM-based Macs: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110354541574112092
• Fedora enforces Wayland for KDE Plasma: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/KDE_Plasma_6#Why_drop_the_X11_session_with_the_Plasma_6_upgrade?
• Red Hat enforces Wayland for RHEL:https://www.redhat.com/de/blog/rhel-10-plans-wayland-and-xorg-server

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

• Dudemanguy's Musings, Wayland Isn't Going to Save The Linux Desktop
• Chris Titus Tech: Wayland vs Xorg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_MBJcD3SFI
• tildearrow: did somebody say "anti-Wayland horseshit"?
• pcsx2: CI/Linux: Disable Wayland and spring cleaning
• Testing SCREEN RECORDERS on Linux Mint Wayland
• ProtonPenguin: Wayland Breaks Everything

Has this been posted in this thread? Sorry, it if has been:

This image makes no sense. Why on X11 are all window managers contained in one rectangle, while on Wayland each compositor is placed in a different box? Furthermore, XWayland is only needed for X11 compatibility, if it is present in the Wayland diagram, equivalently something for Wayland compatibility should be present in Xorg

This image makes no sense. Why on X11 are all window managers contained in one rectangle, while on Wayland each compositor is placed in a different box? Furthermore, XWayland is only needed for X11 compatibility, if it is present in the Wayland diagram, equivalently something for Wayland compatibility should be present in Xorg

I also think it's strange that compositors and window managers are not properly distinguished. these are often split and different.
(X11 compositors are also a god-damn terrible thing since they can break rendering in ways which (unlike with wayland where expectations are clear) are not properly communicated (if anyone disagrees then I'd be happy if you could help me set a wallpaper in a way that makes picom render it correctly))

This image makes no sense. Why on X11 are all window managers contained in one rectangle, while on Wayland each compositor is placed in a different box? Furthermore, XWayland is only needed for X11 compatibility, if it is present in the Wayland diagram, equivalently something for Wayland compatibility should be present in Xorg

I also think it's strange that compositors and window managers are not properly distinguished. these are often split and different. (X11 compositors are also a god-damn terrible thing since they can break rendering in ways which (unlike with wayland where expectations are clear) are not properly communicated (if anyone disagrees then I'd be happy if you could help me set a wallpaper in a way that makes picom render it correctly))

I admit that all this is still obscure.

If you are creating an X11 GUI application, after compilation you need to link to 'libX11.so.6' and maybe the most used dependencies 'libXft.so', 'libXrender.so', ...
And your application will work regardless of which compositor/window manager you use.

But for Wayland GUI application, you have to write code for Wayland and for the compositor used.

That's what I understood.

But for Wayland GUI application, you have to write code for Wayland and for the compositor used.

The way I understand it:

You can write a GUI application for Wayland and it should run on all Wayland compositors, but since not all compositors support all features, functionality may be broken in different ways on each of them.

But for Wayland GUI application, you have to write code for Wayland and for the compositor used.

The way I understand it:

You can write a GUI application for Wayland and it should run on all Wayland compositors, but since not all compositors support all features, functionality may be broken in different ways on each of them.

So, I haven't yet figured out how to create a compositor-agnostic Wayland GUI app.

But for Wayland GUI application, you have to write code for Wayland and for the compositor used.

The way I understand it:
You can write a GUI application for Wayland and it should run on all Wayland compositors, but since not all compositors support all features, functionality may be broken in different ways on each of them.

So, I haven't yet figured out how to create a compositor-agnostic Wayland GUI app.

If you are using only stable protocols, it should work in all compositors

@alfredon996

Why on X11 are all window managers contained in one rectangle, while on Wayland each compositor is placed in a different box?

Because an X11 window manager is totally optional software (as I demonstrated above by writing a simple X11 client which is capable of changing its window geometry itself with no running WM).

With Wayland it's totally not the case, you cannot run some ordinary "Wayland" software (if you don't consider Weston as such). You have to run some compositor, and all compositors provide significantly different flavours of "Wayland".

If you are using only stable protocols, it should work in all compositors

Useless suggestion. In case of tachycardia, cut the heart out and use only stable organs?

Oh, and I didn't even start the topic of incompatible blood types. How do I write generic blood which works for all blood types and Rh factors, and for minor cases of angitens incompatibility as well, like Kell, Kidd, Duffy, MNSs, etc.?

With Wayland it's totally not the case, you cannot run some ordinary "Wayland" software (if you don't consider Weston as such). You have to run some compositor, and all compositors provide significantly different flavours of "Wayland".

You can run ordinary "wayland" software. The window can composite itself over DRM with minimal LOC.

You can run ordinary "wayland" software. The window can composite itself over DRM with minimal LOC.

You seriously believe a single Wayland app will ever do that? Why? LMAO, what a joke.

I don't recall any widespread apps designed to work like that but is so low-overhead that you could probably slap it onto any application you wanted.

I don't recall any X11 apps that were meant to run without a window manager either. In the end, you actually end up with less overhead on Wayland thanks to everything talking client->compositor->DRM, not client->compositor(optional) -> WM -> server -> DRM

Though, this is perhaps an unfair comparison since an X11 compositor and a Wayland compositor are fundamentally dissimilar concepts.

I don't recall any X11 apps that were meant to run without a window manager either. In the end, you actually end up with less overhead on Wayland thanks to everything talking client->compositor->DRM, not client->compositor(optional) -> WM -> server -> DRM

The point is that when developing an X11 application, you don't have to worry about which window manager will be used.
But yes, the X11 application will of course work with a window manager (if installed).

To summarize, Wayland certainly has many qualities but, instead of doing everything to attract developers, everything seems to be done to discourage them, obsolete docs and demos, war of compositors, ...

And like it or not, the end developers of the applications that will run on Wayland are the key to Wayland's possible success.

Or perhaps Wayland's policy is "only for applications made by tenors, who of course do not forget to give alms".

Lets face it though, if you use GTK or Qt your application just magically works fine on wayland. Unless you used X11 specific functions manually instead of via the toolkit wrapper. Also, frameworks have a bunch of X11 WM workarounds in place. Just because you don't see them when writing your application doesn't mean that all WMs behave the same way.

Lets face it though, if you use GTK or Qt your application just magically works fine on wayland.

Yes, thank you, I know that.
The problem is that I don't want to use GTK or QT, all my apps use another widgetset that don't have the tons of bugs of those big Tenors.
And making that other widgetset Wayland-compatible is just boring, tedious, unappealing and ultimately only focused on Linux (while destroying its philosophy).

Why is it only focused on Linux? FreeBSD for example works fine (at least for wlroots based compositors). And the philosophy of X11 protos vs wayland protos is really the same. Both have a required core and lots of optional extensions.

@Consolatis

And the philosophy of X11 protos vs wayland protos is really the same. Both have a required core and lots of optional extensions.

No. Wayland doesn't have any "core" because there is no unified server. Nobody cares that there is some "core" specification. This core specification without implementation is nothing. Moreover, this core specification is obviously insufficient.

Wayland's philosophy is very simple - “we'll write an incompatible server for our DE from scratch, now do the same to compete with us, let's see if you have the enough resources”. The architecture based on this philosophy is inherently flawed.

If you want to stay sane, don't play this game.

The Wayland inventors don't care that users and the entire ecosystem will suffer. All for the sake of Wayland cargo cult.

Why is it only focused on Linux? FreeBSD for example works fine (at least for wlroots based compositors). And the philosophy of X11 protos vs wayland protos is really the same. Both have a required core and lots of optional extensions.

OK, so I'm going to ask you again because you're a connoisseur of Wayland.
Could you please show the code for a simple, fully functional demo using a wlroots compositor, out-of-the-box, ready to use and not obsolete?

Tip: If you can't find one, here are the working codes for all chapters in the Wayland-book: https://wayland-book.com/

Original C++ code (updated and fixed):
https://github.com/fredvs/wayland-pascal/tree/main/src/c

Translated Pascal code:
https://github.com/fredvs/wayland-pascal/tree/main/src

Like in the Wayland-book, the last chapter is how to use the compositor and is on the "TODO" world.

Many thanks.

The problem is that I don't want to use GTK or QT, all my apps use another widgetset that don't have the tons of bugs of those big Tenors.

The "bugs" you're facing are caused more so by your incompetence, because I've never seen any show-stopping bugs that don't get fixed by a single extra LOC.

The problem is that I don't want to use GTK or QT, all my apps use another widgetset that don't have the tons of bugs of those big Tenors.

The "bugs" you're facing are caused more so by your incompetence

Thanks for the interesting tip.

Also note that I switched to another widgetset to avoid the numerous incompatibilities between versions (GTK1 vs GTK2 vs GTK3, Qt4 vs Qt5), the huge need for dependencies, and that, for audio applications, this eats up latency.

But that's another story, let's talk about Wayland and its open doors.

Could you please show the code for a simple, fully functional demo using a wlroots compositor, out-of-the-box, ready to use and not obsolete?

https://github.com/emersion/hello-wayland could be an example. Took me like 2 minutes to find, compile and test.

Wayland doesn't have any "core" because there is no unified server. Nobody cares that there is some "core" specification. This core specification without implementation is nothing.

Some parts of the core (e.g. what is defined in libwayland via wayland.xml) + xdg-shell (from wayland-protocols) should be enough for a basic application (also used by ^). For sane compositors (e.g. basically everything other than gnome) I would also add the decoration protocol so you have some proper server side decorations.

Also note that I switched to another widgetset to avoid the numerous incompatibilities between versions (GTK1 vs GTK2 vs GTK3, Qt4 vs Qt5), the huge need for dependencies, and that, for audio applications, this eats up latency.

There are no "incompatibilites" within Qt that can't be solved by 4 lines of Macros.

@Monsterovich

No. Wayland doesn't have any "core" because there is no unified server.

that's like saying there is no core of http as there is no unified server.

Also note that I switched to another widgetset to avoid the numerous incompatibilities between versions (GTK1 vs GTK2 vs GTK3, Qt4 vs Qt5), the huge need for dependencies, and that, for audio applications, this eats up latency.

There are no "incompatibilites" within Qt that can't be solved by 4 lines of Macros.

Yes, you already said it, it's because of my incompetence.
And it's because of this that some of my old applications written for Qt4 (what a bad idea I had) force users to tinker with their system because the qt4/libqt4-* dependencies are removed in last distros.
Of course you will tell me that with 4 lines in the console, forcing the user to add the PPA repository, it will work.

With my "other widgetset" this won't happen.

In fact, my view of open source and out-of-the-box applications is inconsistent with the Wayland philosophy.

So, I apologize for the noise and good luck in your closed world of Wayland and friends.

So, I apologize for the noise and good luck in your closed world of Wayland and friends.

I don't like Wayland either. But either way, it seems to be a accumulated issue...

@zarlo

@Monsterovich

No. Wayland doesn't have any "core" because there is no unified server.

that's like saying there is no core of http as there is no unified server.

These are incomparable things. A graphical server is many times more complicated than any web server. Isn't that obvious?
Even more so, applications depend on the approach to implementing things in that server.

Also note that I switched to another widgetset to avoid the numerous incompatibilities between versions (GTK1 vs GTK2 vs GTK3, Qt4 vs Qt5), the huge need for dependencies, and that, for audio applications, this eats up latency.

There are no "incompatibilites" within Qt that can't be solved by 4 lines of Macros.

Yes, you already said it, it's because of my incompetence. And it's because of this that some of my old applications written for Qt4 (what a bad idea I had) force users to tinker with their system because the qt4/libqt4-* dependencies are removed in last distros. Of course you will tell me that with 4 lines in the console, forcing the user to add the PPA repository, it will work.

With my "other widgetset" this won't happen.

In fact, my view of open source and out-of-the-box applications is inconsistent with the Wayland philosophy.

So, I apologize for the noise and good luck in your closed world of Wayland and friends.

Again, you can port a Qt 4 app to Qt 5 with minimal effort, and don't have to rely on some library that 4 other people use and you have to add 4 PPAs or compile 13 6000-file dependencies from the AUR or GURU.

Also note that I switched to another widgetset to avoid the numerous incompatibilities between versions (GTK1 vs GTK2 vs GTK3, Qt4 vs Qt5), the huge need for dependencies, and that, for audio applications, this eats up latency.

There are no "incompatibilites" within Qt that can't be solved by 4 lines of Macros.

Yes, you already said it, it's because of my incompetence. And it's because of this that some of my old applications written for Qt4 (what a bad idea I had) force users to tinker with their system because the qt4/libqt4-* dependencies are removed in last distros. Of course you will tell me that with 4 lines in the console, forcing the user to add the PPA repository, it will work.
With my "other widgetset" this won't happen.
In fact, my view of open source and out-of-the-box applications is inconsistent with the Wayland philosophy.
So, I apologize for the noise and good luck in your closed world of Wayland and friends.

Again, you can port a Qt 4 app to Qt 5 with minimal effort, and don't have to rely on some library that 4 other people use and you have to add 4 PPAs or compile 13 6000-file dependencies from the AUR or GURU.

Maybe you didn't understand it.
Once an application is "published", only the application binary is made public.
And if this application, when compiled, was linked to some qt4 libraries, these libraries are necessary to run the release binary.

Of course I can port the application to Qt x, but then I have to provide 2 different binary versions.

To get in the "Linux" mood, Qt and GTK should take a look at how glibc did with its signed symbol table for each method.
This way only one libc.so is used with multiple symbol tables to always ensure backward compatibilities.

Once an application is "published", only the application binary is made public.

I seriously hope you are complying with the respective licences of those libraries.

Once an application is "published", only the application binary is made public.

I seriously hope you are complying with the respective licences of those libraries.

Yes, of course, there is always a readme.txt and a license.txt and for open source projects there is a link to the source and contributors in the reame.txt and brush my teeth every morning.

But now that I'm using another widgetset with root code that only needs to link libx11.so, I'm no longer bothered by forgetting to add a license and being afraid of possible incompatibilities/outdated dependencies on the end-user system.