Justine SmithiesMay 22
Playing around with #Labwc and it's really quite nice. I could get used to a stacking #Wayland compositor and the best bit is it can window snap to the edges too. So it's okay for basic tiling like most. I have built labwc myself from their repo though just to get the latest updates.
#FreeBSD
Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 23
@justine
Very nice background, but what a those options that were not yet available? I've been using xfce for years and the transparency and snapping has always been there.
I read about Wayland and several apps having problems with it. What is the big plus of Wayland?
Show threadJustine Smithies
I've been daily drive Wayland for about 5 years now in various window managers and I've had no issues. It's just a matter of learning who it works and there are plenty of replacement apps that do the same as your old ones from X. Also I think that you can run the latest xfce with labwc to get the Wayland experience.
May 23 at 7:28amWeb
Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 23
@justine I installed Wayland during a new laptop installation earlier this year because it was newer, but then some apps behaved erratically so reinstalled everything using X. I still don't understand what Wayland has to offer more than X. I like new things, but, I want to see why I need to switch. What's the gain?
Show threadHannes DeekenMay 23

@jerry1970 @justine

Security, for one thing. With X, every app can read all your keystrokes, for example.

Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 23
@justine @Glenlivet Aha that is interesting, I didn't know that.
Show threadCroc in a Froc (SuperGaytor)May 23

@jerry1970 @justine X is in maintenance mode and has been for years now, and most of the work being done is in aid of the xwayland compatibility layer. It's a very old codebase that's become difficult to work with and has structural security flaws (e.g. every application running in an x server can be a silent keylogger). Development has been focused on Wayland and the xwayland compatibility layer for some time, even RHEL 10 has officially dropped X11, it's not even available in the official repos.

Wayland is reaching an inflection point where most of it's usability issues (usually stemming from it's focus on security), have been solved with protocols and portals, and Wayland compositors and applications are adopting these features.

Over time depending on how much community support there is for the X server it will fall victim to bitrot and become increasingly broken on modern systems. Eventually popular toolkits and applications will cease to function anyway or require hacky workaround compatibility layers.

Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 23
@justine @SuperGaytor OK, that would be a good reason to move to Wayland of course. Hm, on my next laptop then I guess...
Show threadCroc in a Froc (SuperGaytor)May 23

@jerry1970 @justine what compositor/WM/DE did you try? GNOME and KDE have by far the most mature Wayland experience, with hyprland and sway being the most mature standalone WMs (this is assuming Linux, no idea what Wayland is like in BSD land)

Hopefully soon we'll see more choice for mature wayland compositors!

Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 23
@justine @SuperGaytor I don't know if compositor is synonym to DE (?) and WM, but I have been using Xubuntu for many years, so Ubuntu with XFCE desktop. Does that answer the question? Is XFCE the WM then?
Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this part, I am a software developer but that part has never been of interest to me. I think it's time I learn a little bit more so at least I understand the talk... ;)
Show threadCroc in a Froc (SuperGaytor)May 23
@jerry1970 @justine ah, in the Wayland... Land what would have traditionally been seperate components (the display server, window manager, and compositor) are one and are just called a compositor. The compositor can still be seperated from DE if designed to be modular. XFCE uses XFWM4 by default, which is an X11 window manager, but I understand you can BYO including Wayland compositors, but here be dragons!
Show threadStanislav OchotnickýMay 23
@jerry1970 @justine there's a few things (that not everyone cares about ). Lower input latency, smoother animations and general graphical performance since there's fewer layers between app and hardware. Better HiDPI support, better touch support in general. Though I think the last bit is less of a problem with libinput handling that even on X. Security is often mentioned but I never heard a good story how it's meant protect against attacker on local system 😂
Show threadChipMay 24

@jerry1970 @justine I think there are some architectural advantages to Wayland, but the main thing in my mind is developer support for X.org is dwindling. It’s an old code base and it’s not easy to work on. It looks like there are still some people fixing security issues, but it’s sporadic. About three updates a year. https://x.org/wiki/Development/Security/

That’s probably okay now, but it will become increasingly less okay as time goes on.

Security

Show threadJerry 🇸🇪May 24
@justine @bytex64 I'll take your word for it. I have no idea what X or Wayland actually do and what needs to be updated. It is of course a source of concern, but whatever I read about Wayland, that does not seem to be finished yet, so that is also a concern. I want my apps to work and show up, and my desktop to work (window resizing with mouse and keys, moving a file from browser to editor or file manager, making screenshorts and screen recordings, sharing screen and sound, etc.). If that does not work then it is useless. I wonder what alternatives there are.