Firefox 121 Now Available With Wayland Enabled By Default

[Weasel]

Apple already had 4 different cpu architectures, one complete system rewrite, left openGL and openCL on old version in buggy state, removed all support for 32b applications and supports only a few year old hardware. And with all of that it has its year of desktop.

It has less market share than Linux for gaming on the desktop. WTF you talking about?

[Citan]

For starters Linux needs to support 16 bit color channels with complex gamut mappings. Three 8k displays with VRR and HDR and varying refresh rates, subpixel layouts and orientation. Also HDCP 2.2 and asio like low latency support for HDMI Audio. In addition 4-head displays need to support 4-way multiseat in addition to multi seat via RDP and VNC. OpenGL should be faster than native via zink + vulkan, also for all virtualization techs. Also 3d model avatars for zoom and colored borders for the captured window. So this is the bare minimum.

These are not "for starters", these are extremely niche use cases only needed right now by 0,0000001% of the user base.

Was gonna say exactly this.

Yes... and no. They are niche cases, but they are the ones where the future of the desktop is: graphical, audio and development workstations. In other words they are the ones where Linux absolutely must be competitive.

On the "development workstation" part Linux is already like 10 years ahead of anyone else, since the last 30 years.
On audio, I'm no expert in available "professional-oriented apps", but the audio stack while cumbersome has always been extremely feature-rich from the little I have seen.
On graphics, I'll believe you that the lack of support for high-precision colours or refresh rate can be crippling for video/audio creation jobs, but for everyone else it's just a minor annoyance really.

Furthermore, in any case what Caligula expressed was clearly a very, very, very niche use-case of a user having a) three full displays b) all 8k c) all with different characteristics.
Just having 3 displays already push you into the top 0.1% of all computer users around the world. Having 3*8k (meaning *VERY* high-end computer) probably puts 3 more digits behind the point.

[kozman]

Hopefully this improves the experience of FireFox for me.

I'm not saying 2024 is the year of Linux, but we have a lot to look forward to next year. And if you ask me, every year is the year of Linux. ^^,

When I read the above, I too wanted to lean into that statement with positive thoughts towards a great 2024 for Linux. I used to get into arguments with our Unix/Linux admin in the late 90s/early 2000s about when the kernel and the overall UI, sound, graphics, etc. would be in a state that you could throw a user-friendly distro on a vanilla bare metal machine and Joe/Jane Shmoe user could do nearly 100% of the things they need to do in Windows or Mac OS and not have to fiddle with config files or terminal commands to get something done.

I'm super happy with how far development has come in the almost 30 years I've played with Linux in its varying state of growth. Linux, as I see it, was never meant to replace or compete with Windows or Mac OS. It thrives in the server arena and has it's niche at the desktop level. Whether you love or hate Android, it's probably the most successful "Year of Linux" to date, right? But, Linux's gradual adoption as a viable desktop OS has been helped along by countless people making that possible and asking some Linux knuckleheads to stop being obstacles to getting it across that proverbial "Year of Linux (on the desktop)" finish line. Getting out of the way of progress is often the best approach to seeing something grow and become what it needs to be.

I know you guys have your very strong feeling about XServer and Wayland. XServer isn't going to go away any time soon but don't shit on Wayland because it's still in a fledging state of development a few decades behind XServer. It needs a ton more time and a ton more work. No one is pointing a gun at your temple and making you do anything with it but don't stand in the way of it's development nor shit on the people working hard to make it better.

I've been selling a bunch of used laptops on eBay recently and those that cannot run Windows well or at all I have been installing Linux Mint onto them. You guys have no idea how many people bought them because "I always wanted to try Linux but never knew how." or some such similar refrain. People out there DO want to try Linux but they just need some simple point of entry or introduction to it in some way. Consider this as MY way way of "getting out of the way" of progress.

Remember when governments in the EU tried to go fully Linux? https://www.theregister.com/2003/06/16/linux_in_europe/ It failed. But it failed because I don't think Linux was ready for prime time then. Compared to 2003, the Linux universe we have in 2023 is a Tesla compared to a Model-T.

Will 2024 be "Year of Linux" on the desktop, maybe. Surely we're way closer to that finish line than we were a few years ago. I agree, we do have a LOT of good stuff to look forward to in 2024 for Linux-land.

[jacob]

Was gonna say exactly this.


On the "development workstation" part Linux is already like 10 years ahead of anyone else, since the last 30 years.
On audio, I'm no expert in available "professional-oriented apps", but the audio stack while cumbersome has always been extremely feature-rich from the little I have seen.
On graphics, I'll believe you that the lack of support for high-precision colours or refresh rate can be crippling for video/audio creation jobs, but for everyone else it's just a minor annoyance really.

Furthermore, in any case what Caligula expressed was clearly a very, very, very niche use-case of a user having a) three full displays b) all 8k c) all with different characteristics.
Just having 3 displays already push you into the top 0.1% of all computer users around the world. Having 3*8k (meaning *VERY* high-end computer) probably puts 3 more digits behind the point.

The development workstation is unfortunately more like 30 years BEHIND windows for 80% of the people. There is no decent IDE for C# (that's still one of the most widely used languages in the world, whatever one thinks about it), the debugging experience is YMMV, using Android Studio on Linux is a massive PITA, etc. I'm lucky in that I don't need to rely on those things in my own work; if I did, I would be using windows. People need to realise that in 2023, having vi doesn't cut it.

[cend]

There is no decent IDE for C#

For half of all C# software, .NET Framework 4.x is dead tied to Windows so you really have no other choice. For the other half,

code

has a pretty decent official C# plugin, not far behind the big brother Visual Studio from my experience, and it can run natively on Linux.

[cend]

oh wait does phoronix support inline monospace

[cynic]

The development workstation is unfortunately more like 30 years BEHIND windows for 80% of the people. There is no decent IDE for C# (that's still one of the most widely used languages in the world, whatever one thinks about it), the debugging experience is YMMV, using Android Studio on Linux is a massive PITA, etc. I'm lucky in that I don't need to rely on those things in my own work; if I did, I would be using windows. People need to realise that in 2023, having vi doesn't cut it.

probably I live in a Linux / FOSS bubble, but on every survey result I have seen since forever, people are running Linux or Macos for development.

[dammarin]

Not everyone in the Linux community is quite as happy with Wayland...

https://youtu.be/GRd1uJGlNM8?t=354

Without even clicking on your link: so? There has never in the history of humans been a thing that everyone was happy with.

[dammarin]

It has less market share than Linux for gaming on the desktop. WTF you talking about?

It JUST got higher marketshare on STEAM, not even total gaming. Which is just one use of a desktop.

Linux apparently only has a couple of very simple hurdles to overcome before it DOMINATES personal computing (which is total crap, btw, the problem lies in a completely different place) while Apple has been throwing logs under its own feet for years now and despite all that having great success with its very expensive hardware which totally blows any desktop success of Linux out of the water.

[Weasel]

It JUST got higher marketshare on STEAM, not even total gaming. Which is just one use of a desktop.

Linux apparently only has a couple of very simple hurdles to overcome before it DOMINATES personal computing (which is total crap, btw, the problem lies in a completely different place) while Apple has been throwing logs under its own feet for years now and despite all that having great success with its very expensive hardware which totally blows any desktop success of Linux out of the water.

Apple comes preinstalled with all of their junk hardware and has a massive cult following + advertisements compared to Linux.

But even without Linux, the fact they sank this low compared to Windows is actually a testament of how pathetic their ways are and how you should never use them as good examples, not the other way around. In fact they teach you what NOT to do about everything, including UI design.