Just please get us proper color management. Creators need accuracy & HDR is still a mess.
Can anyone explain why Wayland exists or who cares about it? X has been around forever, it sucks but it works and everything supports it. Alternatives like NeWS came around that were radically better, but were too soon or relied too much on corporate support, so they faded. The GNU project originally intended to write its own thing, but settled for using X. Now there’s Wayland though, which seems like a slight improvement over X, but mostly kind of a lateral move.
If you’re going to replace X, why not do something a lot better? If not actual NeWS, then something that incorporates some of its ideas. I think Squeak was like that but I don’t know much about it.
X has been around forever, it sucks
That right there. X11 was released in the mid-80s and has become an unmaintainable patchwork of additions. Nobody wants to develop or maintain the code because changing one thing breaks five others.
Wayland also takes advantage of 3D acceleration, since each window is a plane rendered in 3D space. There’s no longer a choice between massive input lag with a compositor and massive screen tearing without.
I mean, the extension system means we could easily fix it, just deprecate the old paths, use the legacy xlib to set up extensions and write a lighter stack from there. A new input path too and you’re on your way.
It makes things a bit more complicated, but it’s also exactly how x86 managed to stay relevant all these decades, the old macro instructions are all slow microcode and you only use the safe stuff that’s hyper-optimized.
Meanwhile you get the one thing X has: It works.
Meanwhile you get the one thing X has: It works.
You mean I’ve been doing everything, from work through CGI to gaming (with 120 FPS mind you) on a display that doesn’t work?
Wayland has many issues, sure, but it’s not even close to the point where “it works” can be used to distinguish it from other display protocols. We (and by we I mean anyone willing to dedicate their life to it) could do a lot to bring X11 up to modern expectations, but it’s just not worth the effort. X11 will outlive the cockroaches, but claiming that Wayland is not a functional display protocol is incorrect and uninformed.
I mean, the extension system means we could easily fix it
If that’s the case, then why not do it? Apparently the people who actually worked on X11 had a different idea, and so they decide not to do it themselves - but the code is right there for those who do think that that’s a good approach.
X11 […] has become an unmaintainable patchwork of additions.
Wayland will be an unmaintainable patchwork of protocols, once it will have the same functionality as X11 has.
From what I can see it mostly does ease of development better; it’s a completely new and rather lean codebase, and it’s seen as an investment in compatibility with graphical applications.
Also, it has lock screens.
X cannot do lock screens; it can have an app being full screen and pray to some collection of deities that nothing will come in front of it or that the fake lock screen won’t draw far too small, but it cannot natively do secure lockscreens that are guaranteed to work.
So there, it does something much better: security.
Likewise, there are plenty of definitions of “better” that make Wayland a lot better. It’s just that it’s a lot of work to make something better, especially for some interpretations of “better”.
I was responding to someone who saw no need for Wayland to exist, not advocating for everyone to use it
But Wayland is waaay better than X in basically everything? Performance and security are simply in another league entirely. And these 2 are the most important factors.
The rest of the “features” will be eventually there. In fact, mostly are there already. I’ve been using Wayland 2 years without issues. The important thing is that now the sofware is solid, the code is clean and the performance is amazing. Growing from there will be so much better than from X11.
You cannot even record single windows without having your DE patching that in for you.
The screen capture protocol was merged a month ago. Support will come soon. wayvnc, grim (and by extension grimshot) already have support for it. No compositors have implemented it afaik, but wlroots is very close to it.
I have been using X11 since 1996, and I never felt that it was very good. Sure, at the start it was better the then state-of-the-art desktop (Windows 95), mostly thanks to Linux, but that advantage went away in 2001 when OS/X was released. And even Windows went past it at some point, perhaps around Windows 7 or 8.
Wayland took a long time to get there, but it definitely is there today.
You answered your question of why Wayland exists right after asking it. X sucks. Wayland is a very significant improvement, I’m not sure why you think it’s a lateral move.
Also, X works for some cases, but not all, just lime Wayland. Using multiple refresh rates doesnt work well, HDR has no hope of ever working, and fractional scaling is horrible. Wayland has initial support for HDR and great support for the other two.
Ok but now I want a life size sentry
Accelerating wayland développement would mean forking it. As it is right now there’s a lot of yapping in their git for every decision, small or big.
Accelerating wayland développement would mean forking it.
You mean feurking
I’d be fine with switching over to Valve’s crazy high-speed frog version of Wayland if it came down to it lol
Wayland is a protocol used by each desktop that supports it. It often moves slowly because each desktop works together and discusses each change. If valve forked it, they would just have a protocol nobody is using. If people started using it, it would just slow down again for the same reason.
If noone used it that wouldn’t matter. Experimentally implemented features on a separate branch can still be useful as proof of concept to whoever is taking their time to discuss where Wayland has to go. Of course the usefulness depends on how well the Valve devs understand the needs of the desktops.
I want to work at Valve
I do love how they just kind of like picked up Linux and dragged it into mainstream gaming lol. Hopefully they’re doing the same thing to Wayland now.
Good luck!
