So I only just got into linux this year. I gave some X11 distro’s a go, but the screen tearing was awwwwfulll. So I’ve been running Wayalnd/Plasma for months now.
What exactly am I missing out on? Seems lots of users here still favor X11 over wayland but as I’ve never had any problems. It’s still unclear to me why people are still sticking with X11.
If you’re fine with Wayland, go with Wayland. There are lots of reasons still that people might prefer X11 but the list has been getting shorter.
The security model of Wayland is more restrictive than necessary for many users and means things like screen sharing and desktop toys are harder and not universally implemented or doable.
Wayland effectively requires many things to be handled by the same process, preventing traditional modular environments (e.g. separating window manager from compositor no longer possible)
Explicit compositor support required for more features, meaning having a feature complete environment in small projects is much harder, and the design of Wayland tends to promote a few large desktop environments rather than many small window managers.
honestly my biggest complaint with Wayland is the lack of programs being able to move their windows causing browsers to not be able to properly display certain web experiences.
I’m new to Linux too and testing both X11 and Wayland at home. so far I like Wayland in theory (it’s the future!) but prefer X11 in practice (no weird graphical issues).
I also switched to use different Wayland compositors many years ago for my main systems, but there are also still reasons to use X11. These are mine:
X11 forwarding, with that you can connect to another system via SSH (e.g. via ssh -Y) and just start a GUI app, and the window appears on your screen.
Sharing individual windows via WebRTC, with Wayland compositors you can normally only share full screens. Xserver allows applications to directly capture the window content of others.
Easily mirroring screens for presentations, with some Wayland compositors you have to capture one screen and then play it back on another screen, with X11 that is integrated into the xserver.
Automation and keyboard macros, with X11 it is much easier to automate keyboard macros and customize keyboard mapping than on Wayland. See Xmodmap, etc. Same for mouse input. That is also a reason why implementing remote control software is more difficult with Wayland, see for instance RustDesk support for Wayland (works now, but still a bit experimental).
There might be some Wayland compositors that worked around that, but on X11 this was standard. But generally X11 provides these features for all WMs, and in Wayland they have to be implemented individually.
And some just are not supposed to work, for security reasons.
But all of this depends on your use-case. I sometimes even (can or have to) go without a Wayland compositor or X11 and render GUI directly via KMS/DRM.
Pretty good, however wtype is only sending keystrokes globally, with xdotool you can also move the mouse, send key events to specific windows and more.
If you have no issues with Wayland, keep using it. You aren’t missing anything.
Linux is a vast space, and some people have use cases that aren’t covered by Wayland, yet.
So they still use X.
Xorg literally has a option to disable tearing: Option"TearFree""true. If that doesn’t work and your compositor neither, fix your video drivers. Lookup Hardware Video Acceleration and similiar on Arch wiki.
They use it cause their desktop does not support wayland yet or their Nvidia card causes issue with it, potentially since they are using an older driver.
Nothing, unless you really want to use a DE that’s still lacking behind in its adoption. There are a few tools that still only offer early support for it (like RustDesk), but otherwise Wayland is a way better choice these days.
However if you got an Nvidia GPU and need to use the proprietary driver you might be forced to still use X11. Their pile of garbage still routinely bugs on Wayland, and given their work on NVK I doubt that thing will ever get fully fixed.
So I only just got into linux this year. I gave some X11 distro’s a go, but the screen tearing was awwwwfulll. So I’ve been running Wayalnd/Plasma for months now.
What exactly am I missing out on? Seems lots of users here still favor X11 over wayland but as I’ve never had any problems. It’s still unclear to me why people are still sticking with X11.
If you’re fine with Wayland, go with Wayland. There are lots of reasons still that people might prefer X11 but the list has been getting shorter.
honestly my biggest complaint with Wayland is the lack of programs being able to move their windows causing browsers to not be able to properly display certain web experiences.
I’m new to Linux too and testing both X11 and Wayland at home. so far I like Wayland in theory (it’s the future!) but prefer X11 in practice (no weird graphical issues).
For what it’s worth, I regularly switch depending on what I’m doing (AwesomeWM for X11 and Hyprland for Wayland)
I also switched to use different Wayland compositors many years ago for my main systems, but there are also still reasons to use X11. These are mine:
ssh -Y) and just start a GUI app, and the window appears on your screen.There might be some Wayland compositors that worked around that, but on X11 this was standard. But generally X11 provides these features for all WMs, and in Wayland they have to be implemented individually.
And some just are not supposed to work, for security reasons.
But all of this depends on your use-case. I sometimes even (can or have to) go without a Wayland compositor or X11 and render GUI directly via KMS/DRM.
Multi-cursor support/multi focus
If I want two mice and monitors hooked up so me and another person can use the same computer independently it’s x11
I’ve seen some steps towards this on Wayland but it was in infancy last I checked
I think you can start two Wayland compositors, and change the compositor configuration to use different mice and outputs, but I never tried this.
Thanks for the tip
I’d wager that is true. I know, for sure, you can start one compositor inside another compositor. I do this all the time for gaming with
gamescope.Isn’t there
xdotoolfor this?Yes, that is for X11. Now find one that works on all Wayland compositors, that doesn’t require root permissions.
I guess wtype is waylands replacement for xdotool? https://github.com/atx/wtype
Pretty good, however
wtypeis only sending keystrokes globally, with xdotool you can also move the mouse, send key events to specific windows and more.Wayland is the new protocol and will be the one that everything uses in the long run
If Wayland works for you, then that’s great, don’t use X11
The main reason you’d want to use X11 these days is for compatibility. But that’s getting less and less of a concern as time goes on
If you have no issues with Wayland, keep using it. You aren’t missing anything.
Linux is a vast space, and some people have use cases that aren’t covered by Wayland, yet.
So they still use X.
Xorg literally has a option to disable tearing:
Option "TearFree" "true. If that doesn’t work and your compositor neither, fix your video drivers. Lookup Hardware Video Acceleration and similiar on Arch wiki.That doesn’t answer that question though
Why not just use Wayland?
Because the DE / tool i’m used to isn’t wayland ready yet.
They use it cause their desktop does not support wayland yet or their Nvidia card causes issue with it, potentially since they are using an older driver.
I like XFCE4 but there is no compositor for it yet.
It is in the works though. I’ll have to try it out when it lands
Nothing, unless you really want to use a DE that’s still lacking behind in its adoption. There are a few tools that still only offer early support for it (like RustDesk), but otherwise Wayland is a way better choice these days. However if you got an Nvidia GPU and need to use the proprietary driver you might be forced to still use X11. Their pile of garbage still routinely bugs on Wayland, and given their work on NVK I doubt that thing will ever get fully fixed.