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.

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

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

Thus we can have MATE looking like MATE and GNOME looking like GNOME on the same machine, from the same root partition, even in wayland

Welp, Canonical made big efforts to achieve uniform look regardless of the toolkit, but Shuttleworth's money dwindled. Enjoy GNOME turning into new Enlightenment, or GNUStep, or whatever. And just stay away. From KDE, ideally, too. Seems like it's all doomed, Gtk, Qt, whatever, who does still use it… everything nowadays is CLI, web or mobile. Making desktop software makes sense out of nostalgia and nothing more. Serious professional software like Blender or LMMS has its own toolkits anyway.

an inconsistent system

Who is supposed to enforce this consistency? CPC? Shoot those who stand out? How do you even imagine this implemented? Projects like Haiku achieve this only due to being pet projects out of contact with reality with a limited set of developers who all do software out of enthusiasm.

you can't even know the name of the application

macOS and GNOME users don't have this problem because they see the name of the focused application in the top panel anyway.

@bodqhrohro

What do I even still do in this thread?

Click on 'Unsubscribe' at the top of the gist.

Just ask the author of just about any screen recording application

Well, how about OBS, which is works perfectly in modern DEs and even WM? Through xdg-desktop-portal you can easily share your screen. Sometimes you can even do without this and use xwaylandvideobridge, so I don’t see a problem with this. You will probably say why is all this necessary when everything works on X11 without tweaks and you will be right, but we should not forget that Wayland is not the same age as X11, and this thing has been developing very actively lately.

Just ask the author of just about any screen recording application

Well, how about OBS, which is works perfectly in modern DEs and even WM? Through xdg-desktop-portal you can easily share your screen. Sometimes you can even do without this and use xwaylandvideobridge, so I don’t see a problem with this. You will probably say why is all this necessary when everything works on X11 without tweaks and you will be right, but we should not forget that Wayland is not the same age as X11, and this thing has been developing very actively lately.

OBS? Relies on uvcvideo, and the webcams (except Logitech) usually have no proper implementation of it.
Not to mention, for virtual camera, I had to use a hack... Like, without sudo modprobe v4l2loopback devices=1 video_nr=10 card_label="OBS Cam" exclusive_caps=1 it doesn't even show up.
It's pretty broken!

@aki-k I would do long ago if I didn't want to keep track of the thread and some persons didn't delete their messages so an instant e-mail copy is a way to fight their reluctance.

And I hope I get my hooves on wayland-bites again (as no expert is willing to help with completing the table anyway). But why?.. I don't care much about Wayland anyway. And I don't encounter the propagandist LOR trolls anymore who ignited the butthurt in the first place. Those trolls were targeting lamers primarily anyway.

I asked not to be highlighted for a while. Oh well.

@lukefromdc I dunno about you but I haven't had a graphics card with 2d acceleration hardware for a long time and it upsets me that I don't. The tradeoff for more modern toolkit that isn't completely worthless vs 20 year old toolkits is that you will have to accept an 3d accelerated reality no matter what or simply deal with tearing and slow paints. X11 should be accelerating video whenever possible.

Now this may upset people but understand and read carefully the following.. I don't have a practical need to care about X11's network transparency capabilities but I have a desire to find a reason to care cause it sounds cool as shit if one can get it working. Exactly the kind of thing I'd want.. BUT up till now I don't have a practical need for it. Maybe x11 users should do a better job of explaining how to do these cool things, come together document it, figure out the latest gotchas etc.. Would be a lot closer to putting your money where your mouth is when that chestnut is seeming the only thing people universally repeat vs wayland.

I have my own ignorance of just what X11 is fully capable of and the ways it has been bent to do even more except my ignorance is of specifics not the potential or direct capability existing over all. Most waylandists and converts either don't care or don't know they should care about these things.. Playing right in to Wayland acceptance. They are not informed of what they are loosing and the painful thing is even if they were most wouldn't care. New users which is the goal of this will also not know what they could have had instead or what they can still have..

There is your social construct as open source. Socially being vilified for X11 use is already a thing. Imagine how much hate will happen if resistance to Wayland grows. Imagine what people will say to a new linux user on the brink of going back to Windows because Wayland and Gnome 48778.3 sucks so badly.. How much hate will be spewed when some distro user decides to just run xorg because it just works for them in a few years.

How much hate was generated externally and over time internally at Pale Moon for the simple crime of forking Firefox and being independent and wanting to have something. Even before I showed up and started asking difficult questions and doing things deemed impossible by the very people taking capabilities away and generally making that shit way more legit than it should ever have been considered. It sure hasn't done me any favors. Yet, those little Daleks persist even if they nearly exterminated me. Well they ARE Daleks what do you expect?

At this point I am about ready to renounce my hard earned status as a Linux user and all linux constructs and just start considering linux as raw material for a custom os. Avoids the bs of the linux community.

And if you want to say that all that nonsense is just isolated to the Mozillasphere and the very edges of the linux community.. Weeeeeellll.. SystemD.

without sudo modprobe v4l2loopback devices=1 video_nr=10 card_label="OBS Cam" exclusive_caps=1 it doesn't even show up

First of all, you can apply this tweak permanently in /etc/modprobe.d/. Here's my example:

# /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2loopback.conf
options v4l2loopback video_nr=0 exclusive_caps=1 max_openers=1 devices=1 card_label="OBS Virtual Camera"

This option allows me to avoid having to manually load the kernel module and enter a password when enabling the virtual camera in OBS itself.

Yes, Wayland has problems, but. As I said above, this is a very rapidly developing project, and I hope all your problems will be fixed soon. For me (I repeat, for me personally) Wayland works great, it covers all my needs and I don’t experience any inconvenience at all.

and here I go again... People should be configuring and building their kernel with the code they need built in. Pre-built kernels are only good for install media and building custom kernels.

without sudo modprobe v4l2loopback devices=1 video_nr=10 card_label="OBS Cam" exclusive_caps=1 it doesn't even show up

First of all, you can apply this tweak permanently in /etc/modprobe.d/. Here's my example:

# /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2loopback.conf
options v4l2loopback video_nr=0 exclusive_caps=1 max_openers=1 devices=1 card_label="OBS Virtual Camera"

This option allows me to avoid having to manually load the kernel module and enter a password when enabling the virtual camera in OBS itself.

Yes, Wayland has problems, but. As I said above, this is a very rapidly developing project, and I hope all your problems will be fixed soon. For me (I repeat, for me personally) Wayland works great, it covers all my needs and I don’t experience any inconvenience at all.

Well. Over time, if I do not document every step, I end up with having a system with no reproducability. But fortunately, I can make this file possibly part of a git repo.

At what point is modifying someone elses linux distro more work than just building it yourself how you want?

At what point is modifying someone elses linux distro more work than just building it yourself how you want?

I mean if you are using arch, then of course you need to configure everything, but if it is a fedora, for example, then I guess, everything (including vcam) should work out of the box.

At what point do you just decide you have to make so many changes so many compromises to get a working system that by the time you do it all it is a very different beast from stock whatever do you just have to throw your hands up and say it would be so much easier if it was just built or configured this way from the start?

I mean if you are using arch, then of course you need to configure everything, but if it is a fedora, for example, then I guess, everything (including vcam) should work out of the box.

Fedora got that super annoying apparmor thingy that you need to do a Dr. Dr. Professor for.

I wish you had quoted my final edit cause that is the core of the two mashed up but related thoughts.

Fedora works out the box if you use a livecd and that livecd works out the box and you never update it unless it is broken out the box then an update might fix it but bust 10 other things. There is a fuckin reason I want off the Fedora Train.. It's gonna crash and when it does no one will care because it didn't crash for them, yet.

Fedora doesn't test everything they produce. They test only critical-paths. Yes, I am aware of what the comment says. It was written years ago.

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    Note: The critical-path-* groups are used to identify the packages
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    <uservisible>false</uservisible>
    <packagelist>
      <!--
        @core is already in the critical path, there is no need to duplicate things from @core here
      -->
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">dracut</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">initial-setup</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">kernel</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">NetworkManager</packagereq>
    </packagelist>
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  <group>
    <id>critical-path-build</id>
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    <uservisible>false</uservisible>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">redhat-rpm-config</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">rpm-build</packagereq>
    </packagelist>
  </group>
  <group>
    <id>critical-path-compose</id>
    <_name>Critical Path (Compose)</_name>
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    <default>false</default>
    <uservisible>false</uservisible>
    <packagelist>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">gnome-kiosk</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">kiwi-cli</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">kiwi-systemdeps</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">livesys-scripts</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">lorax</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">mock</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">mock-core-configs</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">pungi</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">selinux-policy</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">setup</packagereq>
    </packagelist>
  </group>
  <group>
    <id>critical-path-deepin-desktop</id>
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  <group>
    <id>critical-path-gnome</id>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">gnome-control-center</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">gnome-initial-setup</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">gnome-shell</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">gnome-terminal</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">gvfs-fuse</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="aarch64,ppc64le,x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-amdgpu</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="aarch64,ppc64le,x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-ati</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-evdev</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="aarch64,ppc64le,x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-fbdev</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-intel</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-libinput</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="aarch64,ppc64le,x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-nouveau</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="aarch64,ppc64le,x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-qxl</packagereq>
      <packagereq arch="x86_64" type="mandatory">xorg-x11-drv-vesa</packagereq>
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    <id>critical-path-kde</id>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">plasma-discover</packagereq>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">plasma-nm</packagereq>
      <packagereq type="mandatory">plasma-systemsettings</packagereq>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">polkit-kde</packagereq>
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    <id>critical-path-lxde</id>
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    <id>critical-path-server</id>
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      <packagereq>bind-dyndb-ldap</packagereq>
      <packagereq>cockpit</packagereq>
      <packagereq>freeipa-server</packagereq>
      <packagereq>freeipa-server-dns</packagereq>
      <packagereq>freeipa-server-trust-ad</packagereq>
      <packagereq>opendnssec</packagereq>
      <packagereq>postgresql</packagereq>
      <packagereq>realmd</packagereq>
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  <group>
    <id>critical-path-standard</id>
    <_name>Critical Path (standard)</_name>
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    <default>false</default>
    <uservisible>false</uservisible>
    <packagelist>
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      <packagereq type="mandatory">xfce4-settings</packagereq>
    </packagelist>
  </group>

@shvedes

Yes, Wayland has problems, but. As I said above, this is a very rapidly developing project, and I hope all your problems will be fixed soon.

Very rapidly developing project?
How many years has it been? 16? Wayland is almost legal in that sense of age.
(if we compare since public release, x only has only 8 years ~> sure it has more non-public releases, but all the work public actually uses has been made in some 10-12 years)

I wish you had quoted my final edit cause that is the core of the two mashed up but related thoughts.

Fedora works out the box if you use a livecd and that livecd works out the box and you never update it unless it is broken out the box then an update might fix it but bust 10 other things. There is a fuckin reason I want off the Fedora Train.. It's gonna crash and when it does no one will care because it didn't crash for them, yet.

To be honest, I don't know what are you talking about. In my case fedora working flawlessly, no matter what machine I run it on.

@shvedes

Yes, Wayland has problems, but. As I said above, this is a very rapidly developing project, and I hope all your problems will be fixed soon.

Very rapidly developing project? How many years has it been? 16? Wayland is almost legal in that sense of age. (if we compare since public release, x only has only 8 years ~> sure it has more non-public releases, but all the work public actually uses has been made in some 10-12 years)

I said that this project has been developing very fast lately. When I say lately, I mean the last few years. For example, two years ago I definitely wouldn't have been able to use it. I tried, but there were too many issues that weren't compatible with my use case, but now it's a daily driver for me. I draw conclusions from my experience

I build mid-tier AMD machines with AMD Graphics. This is pre-pandemic mid-tier with a post-pandemic video card the previous one was RX560. Tell me why Wayland doesn't work properly. WHy am I getting 3d graphical glitches that look like a flat surface with a "camera" pointing at its surface. Why do I get blocky glitchy artifacts on Gnome and KDE on secondary monitors. Why does it run like shit, freeze, stutter, wholey and globally hard lock up to the point where I can't switch VTs. X11 used to do this 20 years ago and typically doesn't anymore without a direct reason behind it.. With wayland it could be anything everything and nothing because the other person doesn't have those issues or is simply lying their ass off because if they don't they will be shat on and blackballed if not outright cancelled.

So let me say what other people refuse to outright and matter of fact.

Wayland.. is not good enough.

I build mid-tier AMD machines with AMD Graphics. This is pre-pandemic mid-tier with a post-pandemic video card the previous one was RX560. Tell me why Wayland doesn't work properly. WHy am I getting 3d graphical glitches that look like a flat surface with a "camera" pointing at its surface. Why do I get blocky glitchy artifacts on Gnome and KDE on secondary monitors. Why does it run like shit, freeze, stutter, wholey and globally hard lock up to the point where I can't switch VTs. X11 used to do this 20 years ago and typically doesn't anymore without a direct reason behind it.. With wayland it could be anything everything and nothing because the other person doesn't have those issues or is simply lying their ass off because if they don't they will be shat on and blackballed if not outright cancelled.

So let me say what other people refuse to outright and matter of fact.

Wayland.. is not good enough.

Honestly, I don't know why you have so many problems. The only thing I would probably like to see soon is a fully functioning driver for Wine, global shortcuts and native apps (krita, gimp, etc). Also, the problem of scaling XWayland applications lies with XWayland, not with Wayland itself. Everything else has been working fine for me since switching to Wayland, no matter what systems and DE I test.

And it seems to me that our dialogue is developing into a quarrel, which I do not want. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanatic, I use XOrg on my laptop because it uses less RAM, which is important to me.

And I am using 6700XT, which can make sense for some reason, idk, since for different generations of GPU the driver can be used differently.

I have an 6650XT.

I have an 6650XT.

Well, then as I said I don't know why you facing so many graphical problems, and, unfortunately, I can't help you.

I have an 6650XT.

Well, then as I said I don't know why you facing so many graphical problems, and, unfortunately, I can't help you.

And this is why I have to take matters into my own hands and be a real linux user and do shit my self. That includes my decisions as well and one is to favor if not exclusively use x11 and specific reliable-enough tech.

not sure what's funnier, watching wayland-protocols fighting because of GNOME being petards, boomers fighting over why we should keep 40 yo software around or watching both display servers have their own specific issues, death by a thousand paper-cuts am I right?

not sure what's funnier, watching wayland-protocols fighting because of GNOME being petards, boomers fighting over why we should keep 40 yo software around or watching both display servers have their own specific issues, death by a thousand paper-cuts am I right?

Definitely

@severtheskyline

boomers fighting over why we should keep 40 yo software around

Click 'Unsubscribe' at the top of this gist, young grasshopper.

not sure what's funnier, watching wayland-protocols fighting because of GNOME being petards, boomers fighting over why we should keep 40 yo software around or watching both display servers have their own specific issues, death by a thousand paper-cuts am I right?

Yo! I am too young to be a boomer.

The only conflict for me is when people think they can convince me to give up a goal I have set forth. In this I must proceed regardless else I will just sit around and do nothing for another 2 years. No opposition shall stand against me or be the sole reason any of my endeavors would fail.