Asahi Linux To Users: Please Stop Using X.Org

[Damian]

Depending of the desktop environment, those implementations bar the global shortcuts are already available on GNOME Shell. The reason why global shortcuts are missing on Wayland protocol is mainly security related issue requiring root access. One of suggestion is handling portal support


On which distributions? For development perspective, Fedora, possibly OpenSUSE and Arch in some extent have a better integration of Wayland protocol. Applications need to transition to full use of Wayland library otherwise XWayland is a better option.


The issue is related on NVIDIA themselves who took longer to implement Wayland protocol while both AMD and Intel hardware run smoothly for years. As an example, I am able to run my laptop Dell Inspiron 14 7425 on a big monitor under GNOME Shell using Wayland protocol by default. Recently, the former slowly start to address their own problem with their newer driver.

I'm using Ubuntu 22.04, Tumbleweed and Arch Linux.

I'm having to be desktop agnostic. So I need shortcuts to work on at least gnome and KDE. They need to work in a common way.

I believe X servers are no longer run as root.

I use NVIDIA because thier GPU debuggers are really really good. Plus the customer requires the performance and specifies them.

Sounds like I need to stick with X11 and thus XWayland at least.

[Luke]

I've done a lot more MATE-Wayland work, some merged to master but the big stuff still being polished and reviewed. We need to make sure there are NO regressions in x11 with such changes, so mostly I wrote this code to check at runtime for x11 and if not running x11 use the wayland code path.

Turns out with GtkLayerShell you can make a working desktop that stays on the bottom and is sticky on all workspaces. Commits for Caja to manage the desktop in wayland are now being reviewed, polished, and hopefully debugged. I got stumped a bit on needing gtk_widget_show_all() to get the desktop to appear if and only if using GtkLayerShell but found that and it works.

I've also ported most of the panel applets to in-process for wayland. Haven't yet reached the brightness and inhibit applets from mate-power-manager but ported battstat on the laptop so we now have a wayland battery indicator on mate-panel! AccessX won't work in Wayland without major changes to use the standalone XKB library instead of x11 for keyboard management and I do not yet have the background for that. Geyes improperly computes pointer position if the applet window is the panel window (as is always the case running in-process). That makes the eyes not follow the mouse. Worse yet, in Wayland the applet cannot see the pointer at all when not over the panel as wayland for security reasons does not allow apps to see other app's windows. Thus I marked AccessX and Geyes incompatable and ported over the rest of mate-applets. This is in review, error finding, and polishing as are the caja commits and the mate-desktop (libmate-desktop in most distros) changes needed for caja to work.

I now have a functioning mate-wayfire setup that I sometimes mistake for running in x11 when playing with it. All of my panel except show desktop and workspace switcher, which we don't have wayland bindings for yet. Caja rendering desktop icons from itself, unlike using a plugin that doesn't even take a drag and drop from the file manager.
Much more to do however: we need a settings daemon that works in wayland, and an integrated session to launch everything together. Wayfire can launch mate-panel as its default and set the background (which caja simply copies) but cannot launch nm-applet --indicator etc. Yes, I have the SNI portion of the tray working in wayland, that is now in git master.

Best of all, this should work with any wlroots compositor that is compatable with gtk-layer-shell. Try it yourself. X11 can live or die but MATE shall live on!

[Luke]

If I may ask, what country are you referring to?

Also, thanks for Mate, mate!

The US of course: utter chaos since the dawn of covid

[mrg666]

The problem is my card is not supported. I have an 8 year old GTX Titan X, which was chosen back then for the same reason, because of better Linux driver support.

This card works perfectly fine and still has the performance I need for what I'm doing.

I use i3, so the equivalent for the wayland protocol would be Sway. It outright states that nividia is not supported, and it indeed has issues at least for me.

I use Gentoo, so I can probably build my X11 for a long time until either the nvidia situation improves or I get a new card.

For the moment I simply can't switch

Don't feel bad about it. X11 will be available many more years.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Well, it is good that X11 is still widely available and it will be for a long time. When I built my workstation, I selected an AMD GPU just because of Linux drivers.

The problem is my card is not supported. I have an 8 year old GTX Titan X, which was chosen back then for the same reason, because of better Linux driver support.

This card works perfectly fine and still has the performance I need for what I'm doing.

I use i3, so the equivalent for the wayland protocol would be Sway. It outright states that nividia is not supported, and it indeed has issues at least for me.

I use Gentoo, so I can probably build my X11 for a long time until either the nvidia situation improves or I get a new card.

For the moment I simply can't switch

[mrg666]

No, it doesn't work for me. I regularly try, and I still get serious flickering with my graphics card, something which doesn't happen with X11. I'm currently not able to replace X11 with Wayland, even though I would really like to switch to Sway or maybe Hyprland.

Well, it is good that X11 is still widely available and it will be for a long time. When I built my workstation, I selected an AMD GPU just because of Linux drivers. Your problem could be something else though, something like the monitor working at 30Hz or a kernel upgrade (I am running my custom 6.3.6 as of today), or an update of desktop compositor (Gnome, KDE, whatever) etc. You can make it work for sure.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Wayland is a working solution. That is why Fedora, Ubuntu, etc are making (or made) the switch already. Everything needed on a desktop works. EVERYTHING!

No, it doesn't work for me. I regularly try, and I still get serious flickering with my graphics card, something which doesn't happen with X11. I'm currently not able to replace X11 with Wayland, even though I would really like to switch to Sway or maybe Hyprland.

[Magissia]

What this reminds me most of is the old debate over pulseaudio. And that debate died very quickly when pipewire came along.

I wonder how long it will be until there is a kind of pipewire for a new display server protocol that will replace Wayland. Successful projects do not take 15+ years to achieve maturity and adoption, and Wayland appears to be headed to 30+ years at this pace.

Pipewire solved problems affecting my usage of a computer. Wayland doesn't and generate regressions in my workflow because my automaton cannot interact with the window anymore or inject input.

I switched to pipewire voluntarily as soon as it was available as a stable package on distro I use and happily removed pulseaudio.

While I understand potential security implications, being able to use productivity tools trumps the security provided by Wayland to me.

With popular distributions trying to force Wayland we'll just end up with an insane regression for the Linux desktop when used for more advanced scenarios then basic office use and web browsing.

[Blademasterz]

Man I want to see the day when there's no one arguing about X vs Wayland on the internet 😂

[t1r0nama]

The first sentence of the first post says "wayland is the future". You seem to be upset

That's what we are explaining to you wayland is the future. It has been like 15 years already X.org is present. Just deal with it man