It's interesting to see Wayland enabled by default.
I'm curious to know what state Wayland is in nowadays, especially regarding how well it works with Nvidia cards. The last time I tried it out was around 2017ish when Fedora enabled it by default. It was 100% not ready then as it wouldn't even boot into the desktop with my nvidia card.
Is it actually ready now? Does it work with nvidia cards? Does GPU acceleration work with nvidia cards? Are apps launching via xwayland gpu accelerated / working as expected? It sounds like OBS and some screenshot programs work now which is nice.
From what I understand after briefly looking into this earlier this month the issue seems to be basically NVIDIA want to push their own buffer API (EGLStreams) rather than use the buffer API developers are actually using (GBM).
If you use one of the "big" compositors like GNOME or KDE I believe they have sort of added EGLStreams support so you can use it on NVIDIA but it's not perfect. If you use a more niche one, e.g sway, then it won't work on the NVIDIA proprietary drivers because they don't support GBM.
There is some news recently that NVIDIA may be coming around and are in the progress of implementing GBM support in their drivers, but it's not confirmed.
You can also use the nouveau nvidia drivers but from what I understand the performance is trash in 3d applications using modern cards, it seems more orientated to supporting older nvidia cards.
Depends a lot on the compositor. I've been running on Sway for about half a year. It's 99% perfect — the only thing I'm missing is smooth high-DPI scaling for XWayland windows. Note, smooth high-DPI scaling is good for Wayland programs – I'm just talking about that one piece of software that I use that still needs X (Emacs).
Before christmas I played around with Plasma on Wayland. It mostly works, but there were some weird quirky behavior. I didn't look much into it, since I'm so happy with Sway.
I've learned not to hold my breath on Ubuntu + Nvidia cards ever working out of the box. I've been using Pop_OS as a daily driver (distro over Ubuntu) and it works 95% of the time.
My biggest problem trying Wayland in Ubuntu 20.04 was not actually with graphics, that worked well for me with my Radeon card. My issue was with my Logitech T650 trackpad, since Wayland also handles pointer events and scrolling and such. I can't remember exactly what was bugging me about it, but it was annoying enough that I switched back. (Xorg still isn't great with this trackpad, but it's usable.) And my apologies to the community, but I also didn't have the energy to figure out the details enough to file a bug report, as switching back to Xorg solved my problem. I will try to revisit this and see if it's still an issue in 21.04.
Still broken with Nvidia cards. Works fine with Nouveau drivers. If you want wayland with good performance from your cards it's best to look for AMD graphic cards/gpus . That said I use it just fine on a laptop with nvidia video that is ancient (2014 build date) and Ubuntu 21.04 works great on it. I updated from LTS to give the new pipewire and wayland stuff a shot and it's fine. Makes a good little multimedia server with VLC, unified remote on my phone, and some custom lists
I’ve tried using waylaid on 20.04 and it completely broke Firefox on snap (though it worked if I downloaded it from mozilla’s). So, I know it can be a bit painful to change these things. But I think the bottom line is: wayland is the future. It needs to become the default at some point. There will certainly be some kinks to be ironed out for a while, but we’ll get there.
I tried it on my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme) and it was horrible. Firefox would freeze. Kubuntu themes don’t work properly. Resizing apps would cause freezing. Switching back to x11 and it all works totally fine.
This was 2 weeks ago on kubuntu 21.04 beta.
But I’m on manjaro now and for some reason I have less issues on my laptop than I had with ubuntu 20.04.
Considering I probably have to fool with X every six months or so, a lot will depend on what you mean by "ready."
Personally, I'm not ready for Wayland. It doesn't solve any problem I have. And might create problems I don't have. If I was in the market for new problems I'd probably try Arch again ;)
I've been using Wayland for over a year now without any big problems. I even use fractional scaling (which causes XWayland screens to be blurry) but most of my applications run natively anyway, so it's not a big deal.
I've been using it with an AMD RX580 driving a 32" 4K monitor for a couple of years now and it just about works perfectly for my needs, including playing a few games through Steam. The only issue I have is that for some reason I occasionally cant alt-tab to the keepassxc window under gnome after I start it up. If you use Linux on the desktop and don't otherwise require an nvidia card (cuda, etc) it is worth while to switch to an AMD card or to spec one for a new build.
I have been following the Ubuntu homepage for about 15 years, and it's so interesting how they went from prominently promoting every CTA around downloading the desktop version, to now, where I had to spend 5 minutes trying to find a link on their site to the ubuntu.com/desktop site.
Somewhat related: I’ve been using GNOME 40 on my Arch-based desktop and it’s really slick. It’s making the switch from macOS a little less painful. Looks like it didn’t make into this release.
Completely unrelated: I just discovered Rofi (extensible Spotlight-ish launcher for Linux) and it’s lovely, especially when bound to Super+Space.
I mean gnome 40 came out weeks ago. Not going to be in Ubuntu for a while. (Ubuntu does tend to lag on the Gnome front, which does give a chance for theme and extension devs to catch up)
Anybody know what happened to that idea? It's been a long time desire of mine to have a secure Linux laptop without needing to enter my password twice during startup and I was hoping to get it with this release, but when I tried the beta the installer did not allow it.
Easy LDAP/AD support and TPM encryption were the two showstoppers whenever I asked IT departments at previous workplaces to provide me with a Linux laptop, as their engineers did not know how to set them up but they had compliance check-boxes they needed to fill in regardless of utility (antivirus being a third one but it turns out these days AV companies actually provide Linux builds). Now that the LDAP/AD stuff is sorted out, fingers crossed for TPM encryption.
Many years ago I have installed a 6.06 Ubuntu and was instantly charmed by the unexpected colors, unusual wallpapers and African themed sounds. Ubuntu had been my distribution of choice ever since. I'm somewhat sad that they have significantly scaled back their rich African theming since, but I still love them.
For my most recent install I used Debian with nonfree firmware. It worked quite well, and I don’t have to deal with “snaps” or worry about what new shenanigans Canonical is up to. I recommend it.
Thank you to Canonical for keeping Ubuntu a free and open source operating system with long term support! With the death of CentOS (replaced by an unstable upstream of RHEL) it means a lot to the Linux community.
A distant friend of mine was a Sailor of a big cargo ship around 2007 (i think), he had just a crappy Satellite connection. But he wanted an easy Linux next to his XP, so he ordered a FREE! ubuntu-cd to the next port, it was there, he is now a Dev specialized in shipping-load-unload-software.
I wonder if there's a significant alternative to the current audio system in Ubuntu 20.04 -- PulseAudio+ALSA are awful? For a year now, I've suffered with the most frustrating breakdowns getting sound to pump out of the right interface without causing my machine to burn 200 watts to "compute" something. I love Linux, I love Ubuntu, I use it everywhere, but this little daily-frustration quietly drives me back to my increasingly closed macbook.
I’ve been away from Linux for a while. So Microsoft is involved here, and Google’s Dart/Flutter is also a key foundational component? Am I understanding that right?
How's Wayland + Gnome working for fractional scaling in HiDPI screens? Last time I tried some applications like Chrome, Firefox and others would be all blurry.
I tried Wayland on 20.10 a few month ago and concluded it wasn't ready for daily use. The worst thing is that it would RANDOMLY cause Gnome to restart while closing all my applications. Also the cursor was jumpy and laggy sometimes (especially when opening context menus). Is anyone aware if these issues still happen?
> Firefox, OBS Studio and many applications built with Electron and Flutter take advantage of Wayland automatically, for smoother graphics and better fractional scaling.
I think it's great that Firefox is bundled with Ubuntu, but I have to manually update Firefox each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
Other than that, I love the OS. I use it as my daily driver since it has a good community around it, and if you're having trouble, there is a good community-powered Q&A site for it.
I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Firefox (from the default Ubuntu repo) is updated frequently. It might lag behind the official release by a few days, but I can live with that. Currently at 87 [0], so I expect 88 (which Mozilla released a few days ago) any day now.
> but I have to manually update it each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
How so?
I use the default Firefox on Ubuntu 20.04 and it's updated through apt like almost all other applications/libs I've installed and it stays pretty up-to-date.
E.g. Firefox started offering version 88.0 on the general release channel three days and there ISN'T YET a corresponding update to the package repo, however I expect it'll most likely pop up there within the week.
> but I have to manually update Firefox each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
What? It is updated just like any other software by using the package manager
Firefox in Linux distributions is updated by the distributions, not by an app-specific updater. It may take few days after official release - distributions can start building after Mozilla announces release, they cannot prebuild it few days in advance - but it will be updated.
> I have to manually update Firefox each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
> I think it's great that Firefox is bundled with Ubuntu, but I have to manually update Firefox each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
This is par for the course on some distros. Fedora, for example, has its own repository for Firefox that is sometimes behind the mainline release of Firefox (although in my experience it's usually only a few days).
The advantage of the process is that the Fedora Firefox repo actually has its own QA testing, so they occasionally catch some things that might impact Fedora users specifically, that otherwise might go unnoticed if I were to switch to the Firefox flatpak.
[+] [-] suby|5 years ago|reply
I'm curious to know what state Wayland is in nowadays, especially regarding how well it works with Nvidia cards. The last time I tried it out was around 2017ish when Fedora enabled it by default. It was 100% not ready then as it wouldn't even boot into the desktop with my nvidia card.
Is it actually ready now? Does it work with nvidia cards? Does GPU acceleration work with nvidia cards? Are apps launching via xwayland gpu accelerated / working as expected? It sounds like OBS and some screenshot programs work now which is nice.
[+] [-] Tomdarkness|5 years ago|reply
If you use one of the "big" compositors like GNOME or KDE I believe they have sort of added EGLStreams support so you can use it on NVIDIA but it's not perfect. If you use a more niche one, e.g sway, then it won't work on the NVIDIA proprietary drivers because they don't support GBM.
There is some news recently that NVIDIA may be coming around and are in the progress of implementing GBM support in their drivers, but it's not confirmed.
You can also use the nouveau nvidia drivers but from what I understand the performance is trash in 3d applications using modern cards, it seems more orientated to supporting older nvidia cards.
[+] [-] CraftThatBlock|5 years ago|reply
Additionally, NVIDIA seems to be putting a lot of effort into overall Wayland support (yay!): https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-4...
Hopefully, by next year, Wayland on NVIDIA should be "fully" supported. It's slow progress, but it is moving forward.
[+] [-] gspr|5 years ago|reply
Before christmas I played around with Plasma on Wayland. It mostly works, but there were some weird quirky behavior. I didn't look much into it, since I'm so happy with Sway.
I hear people say Gnome is fine on Wayland.
As for Nvidia: can't help you with that, sorry.
[+] [-] momothereal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulirwin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aflag|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philliphaydon|5 years ago|reply
This was 2 weeks ago on kubuntu 21.04 beta.
But I’m on manjaro now and for some reason I have less issues on my laptop than I had with ubuntu 20.04.
[+] [-] brudgers|5 years ago|reply
Considering I probably have to fool with X every six months or so, a lot will depend on what you mean by "ready."
Personally, I'm not ready for Wayland. It doesn't solve any problem I have. And might create problems I don't have. If I was in the market for new problems I'd probably try Arch again ;)
[+] [-] skerit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fanatic2pope|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbayeta|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmaster1440|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2pointsomone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwr|5 years ago|reply
Is this really aligned with Canonical's (and Ubuntu's) philosophy and goals?
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikkelam|5 years ago|reply
I can totally imagine this costing several would-be-users
[+] [-] jagger27|5 years ago|reply
Completely unrelated: I just discovered Rofi (extensible Spotlight-ish launcher for Linux) and it’s lovely, especially when bound to Super+Space.
[+] [-] 1337shadow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kentiko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] watt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trissylegs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _odey|5 years ago|reply
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-2...
Anybody know what happened to that idea? It's been a long time desire of mine to have a secure Linux laptop without needing to enter my password twice during startup and I was hoping to get it with this release, but when I tried the beta the installer did not allow it.
Easy LDAP/AD support and TPM encryption were the two showstoppers whenever I asked IT departments at previous workplaces to provide me with a Linux laptop, as their engineers did not know how to set them up but they had compliance check-boxes they needed to fill in regardless of utility (antivirus being a third one but it turns out these days AV companies actually provide Linux builds). Now that the LDAP/AD stuff is sorted out, fingers crossed for TPM encryption.
[+] [-] Andrew_nenakhov|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|5 years ago|reply
There is a GPO template. I think I'm in love.
[+] [-] Spivak|5 years ago|reply
Release notes might be more useful for this crowd.
[+] [-] leephillips|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbrwn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
A distant friend of mine was a Sailor of a big cargo ship around 2007 (i think), he had just a crappy Satellite connection. But he wanted an easy Linux next to his XP, so he ordered a FREE! ubuntu-cd to the next port, it was there, he is now a Dev specialized in shipping-load-unload-software.
[+] [-] aliljet|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fisting|5 years ago|reply
https://res.cloudinary.com/canonical/image/fetch/f_auto,q_au...
Definitely changing that after install, I don't want to be greeted by a giant parcel of pubes when I log in.
[+] [-] hctaw|5 years ago|reply
Ubuntu/Ubuntu Studio is a decent enough distro for audio production, so it would be sad if this was broken.
[+] [-] vladstudio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] z5h|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcocampos|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b1gtuna|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pawelduda|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyberlab|5 years ago|reply
I think it's great that Firefox is bundled with Ubuntu, but I have to manually update Firefox each time a new release comes out because the version that's installed is a canonical-controlled version that stays 'stuck' on a old version and doesn't have an auto-update mechanism.
Other than that, I love the OS. I use it as my daily driver since it has a good community around it, and if you're having trouble, there is a good community-powered Q&A site for it.
[+] [-] rhblake|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/firefox
[+] [-] Lev1a|5 years ago|reply
How so? I use the default Firefox on Ubuntu 20.04 and it's updated through apt like almost all other applications/libs I've installed and it stays pretty up-to-date. E.g. Firefox started offering version 88.0 on the general release channel three days and there ISN'T YET a corresponding update to the package repo, however I expect it'll most likely pop up there within the week.
[+] [-] diffeomorphism|5 years ago|reply
What? It is updated just like any other software by using the package manager
https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/firefox
I actively don't want random app-specific auto-updaters; I want one package manager.
[+] [-] madars|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vetinari|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muterad_murilax|5 years ago|reply
Doesn't Snap solve this?
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|5 years ago|reply
This is par for the course on some distros. Fedora, for example, has its own repository for Firefox that is sometimes behind the mainline release of Firefox (although in my experience it's usually only a few days).
The advantage of the process is that the Fedora Firefox repo actually has its own QA testing, so they occasionally catch some things that might impact Fedora users specifically, that otherwise might go unnoticed if I were to switch to the Firefox flatpak.
[+] [-] regularfry|5 years ago|reply