X.Org Server 1.20.9 Released With Numerous XWayland Fixes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: X.Org Server 1.20.9 Released With Numerous XWayland Fixes

With no one stepping up to manage the X.Org Server 1.21 release, the two year old X.Org Server 1.20 series continues seeing new point releases, particularly with 1.21 being out of the scope already for having the chance to appear in the major H2'2020 Linux distribution releases. X.Org Server 1.20.9 is the newest point release out today in shipping fixes...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org-Server-1.20.9-Released

[pranav]

A doubt I want to clear:
Is XWayland = Wayland?
or Is there some difference?

[smitty3268]

A doubt I want to clear:
Is XWayland = Wayland?
or Is there some difference?

XWayland is just regular X running on top of a wayland backend, which means that it doesn't interact with the hardware directly anymore but allows Wayland to take over that low-level part while it still deals with the whole userspace application side of things.

It's something like this...

Wayland: apps -> wayland compositor -> gpu hardware

X: apps -> x server -> [optionally: -> x compositor -> x server] -> gpu hardware

XWayland : apps -> x server -> wayland compositor -> gpu hardware

[Alexmitter]

A doubt I want to clear:
Is XWayland = Wayland?
or Is there some difference?

Xwayland is basically Xorg running on top of your Wayland desktop and in the case a program wants to talk with Xorg instead, Xwayland will do all the classic X stuff but at the end give that picture information of the rendered window to your Wayland Desktop and those at the end act like other Wayland clients. There are also some specialities regarding hardware accelerated graphics APIs but thats nothing really to care of.
Important is that it just works, you wont ever notice it. It works as performant as normal Xorg, I feel no added latency and it is absolutely gaming ready.

But of course as always, the right desktop choice is important if you actually plan to enjoy Wayland.

[Beherit]

Important is that it just works, you wont ever notice it. It works as performant as normal Xorg, I feel no added latency and it is absolutely gaming ready.

Performance aside, does it work now for everyday usage?

I tried Wayland about a year ago and had all sorts of different issues with Nvidia and AMD GPU's causing random crashes spamming the syslogs. What really made it a dealbreaker for me was that I was unable to copy and paste between apps. Not sure if I understood it correctly that it's supposed to be like that due to added security compared to X, or if it's just a myth and that its a bug that remains to be fixed.

[Mario Junior]

XWayland : apps -> x server -> wayland compositor -> gpu hardware

Now I knows why every single time when I run Team Fortress 2 on xwayland, becomes in stutters as hell, frame dropping as hell... Remember, TF2 is a OpenGL Valve game on Linux (DX9+ ON Windows).

Now Vulkan games runs fine using xwayland.

[Brane215]

Performance aside, does it work now for everyday usage?

I tried Wayland about a year ago and had all sorts of different issues with Nvidia and AMD GPU's causing random crashes spamming the syslogs.

Wayland itself works fine. It's window managers and client libraries that have problems.
That said, I have been using sway for quite some time. Works great. To the point that I find it awkward going back to X11 and/or classical GUI.
Sway+Wayland is great lean&mean combination. At least with drivers for my AMD RX580 GPU. Works with 3 4K 32" monitors like a charm.
BTW: great, low dependency terminal for this combo is alacritty.

[Britoid]

XWayland is just regular X running on top of a wayland backend, which means that it doesn't interact with the hardware directly anymore but allows Wayland to take over that low-level part while it still deals with the whole userspace application side of things.

It's something like this...

Wayland: apps -> wayland compositor -> gpu hardware

X: apps -> x server -> x compositor (optional) -> gpu hardware

XWayland : apps -> x server -> wayland compositor -> gpu hardware

It's actually

X: apps -> x server -> x compositor (optional) -> x server -> gpu hardware

The X server is still controlling the output so we have to go back through it.

[Alexmitter]

Performance aside, does it work now for everyday usage?

I tried Wayland about a year ago and had all sorts of different issues with Nvidia and AMD GPU's causing random crashes spamming the syslogs. What really made it a dealbreaker for me was that I was unable to copy and paste between apps. Not sure if I understood it correctly that it's supposed to be like that due to added security compared to X, or if it's just a myth and that its a bug that remains to be fixed.

I run Gnome Wayland on two different machines, but both have a modern AMD GPU(Radeon VII and RX560),
3.30 was not so good, 3.32 was the first release I could say Wayland was daily driver ready but with some issues, 3.34 was even better but still had a few small issues and 3.36 is rock solid. No crashes at all, no glitches, just a solid experience.

Sway is also a option for a solid wayland experience but only if you like those tiling minimal WM's.

Edit: Your copy paste issue was a bug and I think it is still a issue on KDE, other desktops resolved it since.

[Mez']

Performance aside, does it work now for everyday usage?

I tried Wayland about a year ago and had all sorts of different issues with Nvidia and AMD GPU's causing random crashes spamming the syslogs. What really made it a dealbreaker for me was that I was unable to copy and paste between apps. Not sure if I understood it correctly that it's supposed to be like that due to added security compared to X, or if it's just a myth and that its a bug that remains to be fixed.

It's still not. Some early adopters with light use cases will tell you it is though. But if you dig a little bit, you'll see most people (with the variety of use cases and workflows) are running into issues.

A month ago, I installed Manjaro Gnome on my laptop as a backup to Ubuntu. I had all kinds of issues and I grew a bit frustrated, then I realized they were the same issues I run into with Ubuntu on Wayland. On a desktop.
I don't know how I managed to log into wayland on Manjaro as I don't think it's default on 20.0.3 but I regretted it almost immediately and went straight back to Xorg.