Linux Mint Gets 'Experimental' Wayland Support in December (9to5linux.com) 57
"The work started on Wayland," the Linux Mint project announced in their monthly newsletter.
An anonymous reader shared this report from 9to5Linux about an upcoming new option in the Ubuntu-based distro: Linux Mint 21.3 [planned for Christmas of 2023] will be the first Linux Mint release to offer a Wayland session, but in an experimental state. The default session will still be the X11 one, but users who want to try Wayland can do so by selecting the "Cinnamon on Wayland" session from the login screen.
"The Wayland session won't be as stable as the default one. It will lack features and it will come with its own limitations. We won't recommend it but you'll be able to give it a shot if you want to and it'll be there for interested people if they want to give us feedback," said Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre.
I said that "2024 is the year of the Wayland desktop", but Clement Lefebvre doesn't think Linux Mint needs Wayland support before 2026... By that time, I believe Xfce will also be fully Wayland compatible so that Linux Mint can fully switch to Wayland by default.
The newsletter says the 2026 target "leaves us two years to identify and to fix all the issues. It's something we'll continue to work on.
"Whenever it happens, assuming it does, we'll consider switching defaults. We'll use the best tools to do the job and provide the best experience. Today that means Xorg. Tomorrow it might mean Wayland. We'll be ready and compatible with both."
An anonymous reader shared this report from 9to5Linux about an upcoming new option in the Ubuntu-based distro: Linux Mint 21.3 [planned for Christmas of 2023] will be the first Linux Mint release to offer a Wayland session, but in an experimental state. The default session will still be the X11 one, but users who want to try Wayland can do so by selecting the "Cinnamon on Wayland" session from the login screen.
"The Wayland session won't be as stable as the default one. It will lack features and it will come with its own limitations. We won't recommend it but you'll be able to give it a shot if you want to and it'll be there for interested people if they want to give us feedback," said Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre.
I said that "2024 is the year of the Wayland desktop", but Clement Lefebvre doesn't think Linux Mint needs Wayland support before 2026... By that time, I believe Xfce will also be fully Wayland compatible so that Linux Mint can fully switch to Wayland by default.
The newsletter says the 2026 target "leaves us two years to identify and to fix all the issues. It's something we'll continue to work on.
"Whenever it happens, assuming it does, we'll consider switching defaults. We'll use the best tools to do the job and provide the best experience. Today that means Xorg. Tomorrow it might mean Wayland. We'll be ready and compatible with both."
While Experimenting With It (Score:1, Troll)
Kind of the same thing: gives same things as stable software but in a broken way.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Why don't you also add "Virtual Python Shell" [slashdot.org] experimental support too?
Kind of the same thing: gives same things as stable software but in a broken way.
'Cause that would be two things people don't need instead of just one?
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The best thing that can happen to Wayland at this point is to scrap it. It sucks sooooo bad, and will set the Linux desktop back by decades.
Three, at most.
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I haven't switched yet. But I'm willing to, at some point, IF by then: (a) xfce4 supports it, and (b) I still have some way to run X apps remotely.
(a) is being worked on, and (b) XWayland would likely suffice for my needs. I'd have to test it of course.
The biggest problem I see with the current state of Wayland is that each major compositor does stuff differently. I expect that over time that fragmentation will lessen.
No Yutani? (Score:3, Funny)
Wayland has been ready for a while now. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to find the last bunch of bugs is to actually use it. Wayland has been my daily driver for a few months now, and the number of issues on it is about the same as the number of issues on X11.
Of course this is anecdotal, and with my sample size of 1 it's not quite representative of the Linux using population, but consider this:
There will never be a time when any piece of software is perfectly free of bugs... right about now it is more about which set of bugs you want to accept.
It is also quite easy to have both X11 and Wayland installed at the same time, so users can switch between the two as they find showstoppers in their favorite bits of software.
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Yep. Make that a sample size of 2. I've been using it with raspberry pi OS, and it's worked fine thus far (though I haven't pushed it very hard).
Re: Wayland has been ready for a while now. (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's no better than X11 then what's its purpose other than massive NIH ego trip for the devs?
Wayland is X11 designed by idiots. It does no rendering itself, its little more than a glorified framebuffer. X11 has a shed load of low level drawing functionality and while all the kool kids say who needs it, from a devs POV you can get a lot of shit done with Xlib that would require a 3rd party library or probably a month to code up even basic algos like line drawing fpr wayland.
Beats me why the team didnt de
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what's its purpose other than massive NIH ego trip for the devs?
Wayland is X11 designed by idiots.
Wayland is literally a project by ex-X.org developers. Not only do these people know what they are doing, they know far more than you do, and Wayland was literally "invented here" by the people who used to maintain X.
You say a lot of ignorant shit, but this really takes the cake.
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Wayland is a pretty good example to be honest. Good programmers with graphics. Real bad at design.
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Now fuck off with your appeal to "authority"
That is not how an appeal to authority fallacy actually works. We are literally talking about the capabilities of that authority figure. If you're going to invoke logical fallacies it really helps to know what they mean and how they apply.
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"Wayland was literally "invented here" by the people who used to maintain X."
X was developed in the mid 80s when most of the X.org devs were still dribbling in a high chair. You might want to get a clue before you post next time.
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That explains a lot. Since you didn't invent the English language it stands to reason that you're incapable of making a logical argument using it. That's what you're saying right now. ... And demonstrating wonderfully, so maybe you are actually right.
Lean what NIH actually means, and reflect about the fact that people who spend their worktime maintaining code know a fuck load more about it than some worthless troll on Slashdot whose only contribution to the world is shitting on the work of others.
And since
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Which part of They Didn't Invent it is your tiny brain having a problem understanding?
But hey, keep digging your hole, let me know when you see kangaroos.
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This is why I wish I had mod points. Wayland is the 2nd (maybe third) attempt to "fix" X. I remember an attempt was called Y. I thought there was another one. Only time will tell if this works.
But because Wayland is really Linux only and is almost impossible to port to other OSs, it is really a non starter for me. I am hoping the BSDs get together and work on xenodm. I believe that has better security than Wayland has right now and avoids all the nasty Linuxisms Wayland will force into the BSDs.
FWIW,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why there couldn't be a major version update to X12 beats me. Remove some of the cruft, add in features that are currently loaded as modules but generally keep it back compatible except say for really old code that will only work with 256 colour colormaps or suchlike.
But no, the usual happens - a complete rewrite which turns out to be worse than the original. How many times have we seen this? Don't some people EVER learn?
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However, the parent post does vibe with a common sentiment, that Wayland doesn't replace X.org and to have a full replacement, many extra pieces are needed, apparently also from the developers who made all their stuff work on x11.
So projects with no or low development bandwidth are getting shafted. Or rather, users of such software. And no one knows which software really is used, users often even don't exactly know.
Re:Wayland has been ready for a while now. (Score:4, Interesting)
The only way to find the last bunch of bugs is to actually use it.
In the beginning, I thought Wayland was a good idea. The more I learned about it, the more leary I became. I also cheered about it being developed by x.org developers, and thought they must know what they're doing. But after being developed for many years, I have deep reservations about that.
I recently tried Wayland in a fresh install of Kubuntu 22.04, and was shocked at how badly it failed at even trivial tasks that x.org has done well for many years.
One of the biggest (but not the only, by far) is with monitors. Wayland told me my three 1920x1080 monitors were all 640x480 monitors, and that it was not possible for Wayland to support anything larger. It then randomly placed the GUI's clickable areas among all three monitors, but gave no indication of where the clickable areas were. They existed, but their locations were randomized and had no relationship whatsoever to where their respective visible components were. If I blindly clicked around the screen, I could accidentally click on a component. It was never the component I wanted, but that confirmed the clickable areas at least existed. I even disconnected two of my three monitors, in case it was an issue limited to multi-monitor support. But nope, it still randomly placed clickable areas and complained that my monitor was 640x480 and that Wayland could not support anything higher.
Based on that experience, I see Wayland as being in an early Alpha state, and being nowhere even remotely close to being a viable competitor to x.org.
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Re:Wayland has been ready for a while now. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd really like to know what has caused the disconnect from the early enthusiasm.
It was a confluence of little things that built into larger things. The more I learned about Wayland, the more concerned I became that it would not serve as a viable replacement for x.org.
At one point, nVidia indicated that their drivers would not be available on Wayland. That's a deal-breaker all by itself. I don't know if that's changed.
Another one was that Wayland would not support X network transparency. I ssh into Linux desktops and run individual desktop programs all the time, and there were discussions that Wayland would only support VNC-type remote access (VNC is banned where I work). There was talk that X network support would be bolted on "at some point", but that the developers were really trying to kill all things X. That was a turning point where my animosity toward Wayland started to boil over.
Then I tried it myself, and watched Wayland hopelessly butcher my displays. At that point, my mind was made up. After 15 years of development, Wayland's legacy to my mind is a complete failure.
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"There will never be a time when any piece of software is perfectly free of bugs... right about now it is more about which set of bugs you want to accept."
No one would say that about window managers in Windows or MacOS. I don't want to accept any set of bugs and don't have to.
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I tried it when Gentoo recently started to include Wayland dependencies in for some reason.
Worked like X11 - expect
- I could no longer quickly terminate the session if I desired (ctrl+alt-backspace). This probably could be fixed somehow by adding a custom key handler.
- Font sizes/DPI were off, had to manually set them. Autodetection simply refused to work (using nouveau driver).
- Several small issues, like mouse cursor vanishing when moving it over window title b
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Re:Wayland has NOT been ready for a while now. (Score:2)
The Wayland session won't be as stable as the default one.
My anecdotal evidence says that to shoehorn Wayland in, Ubuntu has been dropping standard features for over a decade now.
Want to work from home using XDMCP (which is only 100 timns more stable than Remore Desktop)? It worked absolutely great when I was still at university, but Ubuntu killed it. The speed of an X connection in my university days was good, and much better than the speed of X connection from Wayland now. And yes, those better speeds were achieved 20 years ago, on hardware we now consider prehi
Trying to move closer to Microsoft (Score:1, Troll)
Half-baked, badly thought out software you have to use. Yep, Linux can do it too! Wonder whether Microsoft will hire the head of the Weyland project after they have forced that crap on Linux like they hired Poettering.
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Re:Trying to move closer to Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize weyland is not the fix for that?
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Re:Trying to move closer to Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly not reinventing the wheel. X11 as a protocol and API works. Clean the code up, re-implement were needed, but to _not_ throw out the kid with the bathwater. A primary reason for unstable and insecure software is redesigning things that do not need a redesign. Amateur level.
Anyone care to explain why users would notice? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm admittedly ignorant, but isn't this all a little inside-baseball, like debating whether plastic or brass plumbing fixtures should be used in a hotel? Either way, as long as hot water comes out of the showerhead when it's supposed to, who will care?
Modulo any unfixed bugs, what differences should a user expect to notice when running with Wayland vs X11?
Re: (Score:1)
You will care when there's all of a sudden a sheet of boiling water on the floor of your bathroom and the pipe is spraying boiling water everywhere, ruining your bathroom when you want to take a shower.
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A better comparison might be something like your hotel was wired with aluminum to all the standard outlets. It works, but it's more dangerous than copper, requires special maintenance, and will get worse over time.
Or federal pacific breaker boxes and breakers.
Light bulbs are easy. Wiring is harder.
Re:Anyone care to explain why users would notice? (Score:4, Interesting)
The two things I've picked up are firstly, games are more responsive on X11 because they get to access the screen directly whereas with Wayland they have to go through a compositor, and secondly, all the applications on X11 are like a big happy family, whereas Wayland tries to secure them from each other, so with X11 you can take screenshots, do all sorts of fun scripting things with the likes of xdotool, but you might be subject to some sorts of attacks, I haven't analysed whether the threats Wayland is guarding against are significant.
That's assuming your day to day stuff all supports both, of course. Which is far from guaranteed.
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1. In Wayland screens are isolated from one another by design. There are ways to do the things you describe, but, unfortunately, each compositor likes to do them differently. That's one of the things I'm hoping will be settled out. Once we have experience with which ways of solving these problems work best, then the solutions will very likely be added to the protocol and to the reference compositor (Weston) which all the others can adapt to their needs.
2. This site [github.io] seems to suggest that games on Wayla
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Missing features like screenshotting are recently available with grim and spectacle.
IIRC color management doesn't even exist.
It's improving but we need to send much more beer.
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I'm sitting at a thin client using X to connect to a graphic session which is running (using x2go) on a VM inside my main server. From there I can use Firefox (running on that server, remember) to connect to my separate host (not another VM) running Zoneminder and view live video from any of the garden cameras.
Call me when Wayland can do that.
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no great gain here, granted, but nothing lost either.
The stuff that people report "Wayland can't do" appears mostly BS to me: I run Fedora 39 with wayland (the default, though X session is also still avaliable)
# can do screenhots/video capture
# can sceen share (in Chrome, using MS teams) (I know, not cool, but it's work...)
can multi-monitor, HDMI or thunderbold
can use proprietary nVidia drivers (from rpmfusion, zero-fuss install)
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I know a lot of the complaints are outdated, but there is still some work left before I can switch.
Specifically, I'm waiting to be able to run XFCE4 under Wayland and for everything I need, including being able to run GUI apps in their own windows across the network (possibly using XWayland) to Just Work. I can't depend on mutter or kwin. My understanding is that the XFCE compositor will be based on wlroots.
Why XFCE4? Because it lets me do what I need to, and otherwise stays out of the way, and neither K
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Modulo any unfixed bugs, what differences should a user expect to notice when running with Wayland vs X11?
You are not wrong, it is a bit like looking at the plumbing, and for the most part, it does not matter. But there are some things that do affect the user directly:
* X is insecure by design [eevblog.com], and there is no way to fix it without breaking a number of applications. Malware can easily look at and log everything on your screen including passwords and CC information.
* Besides the design flaws, Xorg has had a long and neverending history of security vulnerabilities [cvedetails.com].
* X has a problem with tearing. There is no rea
Star trekking... (Score:1)
across the universe,
on the starship enterprise,
under captain kirk.
Star trekking,
across the universe,
boldly going forward,
because we CAN'T FIND REVERSE.
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Wayland is great (Score:5, Interesting)
Except when a particular use case doesn't work with it. I've found it pretty miserable with multi monitor support, or rather every compositor has a different behavior in multi monitor setups. Setting up my rather personalized keyboard layout is also a huge pain in some of the compositors. As slow and clunky as X11 is, it does cover a hell of a lot of use cases.
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Most people will not care. The people with one laptop, sitting in the local coffee shop for example. For the rest of us, repeat after me: NOTABUG, WONTFIX.
Re:Wayland is great (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. All the graphic artists have two monitors. But sure, let's make a platform that only competes with the needs of a Chromebook user. Except more expensive and less reliable and more difficult to configure.
Developers are usually OK as ad hoc product managers of deeply technical products, because they at least exercise some interesting use cases. But I'll stand back and watch a project's failure if the leadership can't see outside of their favorite coffee shop.
Remote access doesn't work iwithg Wayland. (Score:1)
I still have not found way to do remote desktop with Wayland, x11vnc doesn't work in it. Tried Freerdp as well, no bueno.
If you know of something that works, I'm all ears.