X Window System Turns 38 Years Old

[skeevy420]

So the problem is not Wayland but the not ready environment, drivers and software in general. The major problem is that many developers are not ready at all.

Depending on what you do Wayland works just fine. Similar to how electric cars are just fine if you want to get groceries or cruise around town. I do all my Linux stuff from KDE Wayland. I had to switch from SMPlayer to Haruna, I get occasional cursor issues in places like Kate and Dolphin, but for the most part it just works. That said, I don't do remote computing, desktop recording, 3D VMs, or other things that I tend to see people talking about having issues with some Wayland implementation somewhere. Talk to those people and you'll get a completely different story and readiness assessment of their Wayland implementation.

But the problem is Wayland; specifically in how I just said the phrases "some Wayland implementation somewhere" and "their Wayland implementation". The biggest feature of X is the biggest anti-feature of Wayland -- how much is able to be shared from one place to another and what level of support the toolkits and environments have for whatever it is that you're doing; how everyone reinventing the wheel (their implementation) makes it seem like we're losing more and more smaller WMs like IceWM, JWM, and Fluxbox and the ability to do random WM swaps like putting KWin on XFCE or Fluxbox on Anywhere since so much isn't shared like it used to be.

Granted, X is 38 and Wayland is 10. It's not like kids are great at sharing. Given time Wayland could share all the things expected of X with better security. It's not like X was like it is now on its first day or first decade.

[tildearrow]

How is there a party over the 38th anniversary of X11! I am late!

I bet 2024 can be safely assumed as Wayland only Linux desktop on all major Linux distributions. Maybe even 2023.

More like 2030...
...or at least until Wayland devs put in the missing bits (slowly getting there).

[Mahboi]

This poll hurts my soul, because I feel compelled to answer 10 years even though it should've been done and over with 10 years ago...

[archkde]

Microsoft completely reworked the graphics stack in Windows Vista, no one even noticed.

Bullshit. WDDM being new was at least half of the reason Vista was the shitshow it was.

[archkde]

The Wayland approach looks interesting, but anything that starts off with a chmod 777 disturbs my security hinky sense.

You're right, the shown command allows all users to access the Wayland socket instead of just <account_name>. Use

setfacl -m user:<account_name>:rwx

instead to only grant access for the desired user.

[tildearrow]

there are people that act like that whenever there is a technical innovation.

* who need cars? horses are just fine and car are dangerous and get stuck in mud.
* who need electricity? candles are good enough, and are not as dangerous as electricity is.
* who need the internet? Faxes are working perfectly, email is clunky!
* who need wayland? there are several case where X11 works out of the box! Just stay with it forever!

This is why Wayland is not getting any better - you compare X11 to something old but still functional and Wayland to something new, without realizing its flaws.

Your comparison is totally wrong because in the first three points, the former has ALL features of the latter (cars can move and more, electricity can power a light bulb and more, and the Internet can do fax and more); but in the last point, the former cannot do everything the latter could (for the most part it makes sense, e.g. you don't want fonts/primitive rendering in your protocol, but for SOME things, like data query or setting resolution, it doesn't make sense).
I can't believe people still do not realize Wayland is still lacking...

[tildearrow]

Why should Gnome shoot itself in the foot by adopting old mistakes into a modern protocol.

Why should two processes be responsible for drawing one window, it was madness in the past and never properly worked, why in gods name should we do that BS again.

KDE adopted that because why should they care if something sucks, producing a desktop that sucks is in their DNA.

Again there already is a proper solution, which is either already adopted by the usual "toolkits" like SDL2. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...L2-Wayland-CSD

Disagreements between developers is why Wayland progress is slow.

[archkde]

This is why Wayland is not getting any better - you compare X11 to something old but still functional and Wayland to something new, without realizing its flaws.

Your comparison is totally wrong because in the first three points, the former has ALL features of the latter (cars can move and more, electricity can power a light bulb and more, and the Internet can do fax and more); but in the last point, the former cannot do everything the latter could (for the most part it makes sense, e.g. you don't want fonts/primitive rendering in your protocol, but for SOME things, like data query or setting resolution, it doesn't make sense).
I can't believe people still do not realize Wayland is still lacking...

Your argument is flawed as well. "Cars can move and more" or "electricity can power a light bulb and more", while correct, are the analog of saying "Wayland can display framebuffers and more".

[tildearrow]

Your argument is flawed as well. "Cars can move and more" or "electricity can power a light bulb and more", while correct, are the analog of saying "Wayland can display framebuffers and more".

You are right, but then X11 could do things like setting resolution or data query (retrieve window list or mouse position), whereas Wayland cannot do that.... in the name of security (and nobody thought of the permission system!!!).

[arun54321]

People expecting useless and niche features on Wayland just because they got them on stupid xorg. -_-