Good, it's been long enough for GPU manufacturers to ensure proper Wayland support and with the exception of EOL Nvidia cards (Kepler and older I think), everything mostly works on Wayland. wlroots + Nvidia still has some issues like flickering but AFAIK that's mostly been solved.
The issue with popular distro's like Ubuntu defaulting to X11 for certain hardware is it allows companies like Nvidia to de-prioritize Wayland support. Even in the best case, Nvidia's Linux docs are still written assuming Ubuntu + Xorg which is very unhelpful.
I bet we'll finally see proper Wayland-focused documentation and more Wayland compatibility updates from Nvidia within a year or two just because Ubuntu changes the default.
To be honest, I don't think it's going to be the Ubuntu community (or even the whole Linux desktop community) that's going to pressure nvidia to support wayland.
I'm inclined to agree with you about it being time to make life difficult for nvidia, but that's mainly because I totally disagree with much of what else you said. Running nvidia with Wayland is a bloody nightmare, I've been gritting my teeth for the last year or more and I'm about ready to go back. I just have an application that relies on it and some particularly terrible tearing problems on X11 for some reason. But on Wayland, with nvidia, so many little and big things are still totally broken, and oftentimes the failure is not graceful, but stateful and problematic, and I'm someone who knows what I'm doing.
As a long time Xorg user, I am finding it very hard to switch to Wayland. I’ve tried twice over the years and each time it only lasted about a day before I got too frustrated and went back to Xorg.
The biggest annoyance by far is all the little scripts I’ve created over the years which use `xdotool` magic for sizing, positioning, and minimizing-and-restoring.
My other annoyance is Wayland has no `easystroke` like application, and having used StrokeIt on Windows for years, then easystroke on Linux for many more years, I just can’t use a computer efficiently without it.
This week I tried Wayland with Nvidia again on Arch and it was terrible, I experienced lag, bad performance and weird glitches like a jumping cursor.
I admit that I only played with this for an hour or so. Maybe I didn't do some of the necessary configs to get a good experience, I just followed the Arch wiki instructions.
When I first switched to Wayland it took me a bit to catch on that many programs were running under XWayland, including Firefox/Chrome and anything Electron-based. You can run xprop in terminal then click on a window to determine if that's the case.
What DE did you use?
I have been using KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland) on arch, with proprietary Nvidia drivers, and, I'm seeing no issues, even games run good.
Yeah, that is my experience as well everytime I try Wayland. There is always something that makes it unusable for my use case - be it remote desktop or user experience due to issues like you describe, or some other reason. I have resorted to sticking with X11 for as long as possible, I will try Wayland again when X11 is not an option anymore.
Wayland has been hit and miss for me on Intel and AMD graphics over the years but has progressively gotten better and more stable.... Until an update on Ubuntu 23.10 a week ago randomly stopped snap application launching under Wayland, forcing me back to Xorg. I consider myself fairly Linux savvy but I still have no idea how to fix that.
Wayland on Debian has been rock solid for me for several years now (and much better than Xorg ever was to be honest) using Intel GPUs in my experience. I haven't tried AMD/nVidia however. I use Flatpak which is another point of difference vs your setup using Snap. I can't really see myself going back to xorg TBH.
I wish Nvidia would work nicely with Sway. I fully understand the Sway developers' dislike of Nvidia considering how hostile Nvidia was for many years. I suppose nowadays Sway should work with Nvidia but you still have to use the `--unsupported-gpu` option and enable kernel modesetting.
As an end user, is there any immediate usability gains to be had with Wayland today? I understand X is old and crufty, but if I embraced the switch do I gain anything? Or more it sets the stage for future improvements kind of thing?
Are there any good Linux desktop communities y’all recommend joining?
I want to setup a passwordless workflow with a Linux desktop environment, but I’m honestly lost between “Wayland” vs “wlroots” vs “X”. I only understand that Wayland is the preferred “display server” and “X” only exists for legacy.
And this is only the display server. I have not even delved into the other components.
Right now, I have setup a basic desktop environment.
Boot up VM or PC -> presented with a terminal to ”login” -> input user -> input password -> load basic terminal (i guess this is called a “tty” (?) -> type command to load desktop environment -> do stuff
What I am looking for is:
Register yubikey with user and password as fallback. Reboot PC and leave yubikey connected.
As PC boots up, it will automatically see yubikey corresponds to user on machine, and proceeds to load in desktop environment. No more manual process as described above. Can “do stuff” much faster.
Can even use the yubikey for subsequent operations in user space (ie, sudo authentication).
Would be cool to have a security feature that will lock the session if it has been removed; or have ability to fallback to manual password entry (in case hw auth is broken).
I have been able to do this in macOS to a certain degree of success with TouchID. But every time I update the machine, Apple update process resets the pam modules.
> Are there any good Linux desktop communities y’all recommend joining?
I don't know of any (phoronix.com, maybe? it slants more towards hardware enthusiasts than desktops so probably not, but it tends to be interested in things like drivers), and I'd be surprised if they existed for the interesting parts of the graphics stack. In the old times (2010) X was the only option and it handled display. There has been a huge push since AMD got serious about open source graphics to redesign the graphics subsystem to be more linux-y by transforming it into something a bit more like a Jenga tower of components stapled together (wayland is one of them) that coordinate to replace X.
The coordinating body seems to be freedesktop.org but it takes a lot of investigating to figure out what it is they are doing at any given time. It happens very slowly though so knowledge picked up can stay current for a decade or more.
The new component based world has a couple of key nodes where the work happens - the kernel (DRM subsystem specifically) for drivers, freedesktop.org for technical compatibility coordination, mesa3d.org for the heavy lifting libraries, Red Hat for pipewire that picks up the slack that Wayland fumbled, then the morass of compositers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_display_servers#Waylan...) that are the user-facing part and where most people will interact with all this. They all have their own communities but IMO it is unclear which will take the lead outside the majors like KDE and Gnome. swaywm so far but I don't think it has a community anywhere as such.
> but I’m honestly lost between “Wayland” vs “wlroots” vs “X”. I only understand that Wayland is the preferred “display server” and “X” only exists for legacy.
A minor clarification: Wayland is a protocol, not an implementation. X11 is also theoretically a protocol, but the only implementation anyone seems to care about is the Xorg server. Because a lot of compositors (the wayland-world piece of software that actually implements the display server) need similar core functionality, wlroots was created as a library that provides a lot of the needed code and which gets used by the actual compositor (ex. mutter for GNOME, kwin for KDE, and sway for sway).
I'd recommend giving openconnect a try. It was originally meant for Cisco VPNs, but has also supported GlobalProtect for a while now. It integrates with the NetworkManager GUI if you use that.
It worked flawlessly with the GlobalProtect VPN we had to use at my last job. A few folks ended up switching to using openconnect on Mac too. The official client seems to be quite bad on both platforms.
Sceptical, because 24.04 doesn't work at all by default with my new Nvidia ThinkPad laptop. Opposed to fedora fc40, which works just fine, even with hibernation and suspend
Just a friendly warning to folks who might think these updates work.
They did not work on my system. If you have a working workstation with NVidia hardware on Ubuntu LTS, keep waiting. Chrome no longer works for me on this mess.
<insert “and this point I’m too afraid to ask” meme>
Can anyone explain how Wayland and X(?) relate to Linux?
Like what’s the windows equivalent?
I’ve used Ubuntu desktop a few times, I keep liveUSB versions of mint, Suse, and Ubuntu on my ventoy, but I just don’t understand what the deal is with the constant discussion of Wayland and X…
Windows includes both display hardware handling functionality and a GUI framework to run on top of it. All of that is part of the OS that Microsoft provides
A Linux system is assembled from several parts that aren't all that related to each other beyond the API interfaces exposed/used
The Linux kernel brings a lot of core OS functionality, including display hardware handling, and a framework to expand that with hardware-specific drivers
The kernel does not bring a GUI framework. That has to come separately. X and Wayland are both approaches to filling that gap on Linux systems
X is basically how GUIs have worked on most Linux/Unix systems for the last few decades. There's some weird cruft from the assumptions used when the X framework was designed
Wayland is trying to get rid of the cruft and align better to how computers are used today. But it has to fight against X's inertia, and it's been a long road to Wayland being "daily driver" usable
On a similar vein, CMD and PowerShell are equivalent to the Terminal as the command line interface shell.
>I just don’t understand what the deal is with the constant discussion of Wayland and X…
Imagine two groups of people squabbling whether it's better to use Stacking Window Manager (used from Windows 2 through XP) or Desktop Window Manager (used from Windows Vista onwards).
Wayland & X provide the graphics interface. Windows no longer has any such separation, but in the old days Windows ran on top of DOS, Linux still splits the GUI & CLI up.
In practice Linux is even more granular, with multiple options at many more layers of the stack.
[+] [-] KingMachiavelli|1 year ago|reply
The issue with popular distro's like Ubuntu defaulting to X11 for certain hardware is it allows companies like Nvidia to de-prioritize Wayland support. Even in the best case, Nvidia's Linux docs are still written assuming Ubuntu + Xorg which is very unhelpful.
I bet we'll finally see proper Wayland-focused documentation and more Wayland compatibility updates from Nvidia within a year or two just because Ubuntu changes the default.
[+] [-] ranguna|1 year ago|reply
We are all but a drop in the nvidia ocean.
[+] [-] SuperNinKenDo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mmh0000|1 year ago|reply
The biggest annoyance by far is all the little scripts I’ve created over the years which use `xdotool` magic for sizing, positioning, and minimizing-and-restoring.
My other annoyance is Wayland has no `easystroke` like application, and having used StrokeIt on Windows for years, then easystroke on Linux for many more years, I just can’t use a computer efficiently without it.
[+] [-] aeyes|1 year ago|reply
I admit that I only played with this for an hour or so. Maybe I didn't do some of the necessary configs to get a good experience, I just followed the Arch wiki instructions.
I hope it's better on Ubuntu.
[+] [-] tomnipotent|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] KingMachiavelli|1 year ago|reply
TBH Archlinux and NixOS have the easiest Nvidia experience because IIRC I think Ubuntu still defaults to Nouveau?
[+] [-] daynum|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] oliwarner|1 year ago|reply
And let's not pretend that Wayland implementations are without bugs. But it feels closer than I believed possible.
[+] [-] dario_od|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Ballas|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] janice1999|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kiwijamo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] saurik|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] porphyra|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|1 year ago|reply
I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.
[+] [-] kaanyalova|1 year ago|reply
https://github.com/swaywm/sway/blob/3334d11adc926c0f6d86afc4...
[+] [-] Zambyte|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 0cf8612b2e1e|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] teaearlgraycold|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xyst|1 year ago|reply
I want to setup a passwordless workflow with a Linux desktop environment, but I’m honestly lost between “Wayland” vs “wlroots” vs “X”. I only understand that Wayland is the preferred “display server” and “X” only exists for legacy.
And this is only the display server. I have not even delved into the other components.
Right now, I have setup a basic desktop environment.
Boot up VM or PC -> presented with a terminal to ”login” -> input user -> input password -> load basic terminal (i guess this is called a “tty” (?) -> type command to load desktop environment -> do stuff
What I am looking for is:
Register yubikey with user and password as fallback. Reboot PC and leave yubikey connected.
As PC boots up, it will automatically see yubikey corresponds to user on machine, and proceeds to load in desktop environment. No more manual process as described above. Can “do stuff” much faster.
Can even use the yubikey for subsequent operations in user space (ie, sudo authentication).
Would be cool to have a security feature that will lock the session if it has been removed; or have ability to fallback to manual password entry (in case hw auth is broken).
I have been able to do this in macOS to a certain degree of success with TouchID. But every time I update the machine, Apple update process resets the pam modules.
[+] [-] nine_k|1 year ago|reply
So this likely works under Wayland and X equally, provided the right yubikey: https://adl1995.github.io/passwordless-logins-with-yubikey.h...
[+] [-] roenxi|1 year ago|reply
I don't know of any (phoronix.com, maybe? it slants more towards hardware enthusiasts than desktops so probably not, but it tends to be interested in things like drivers), and I'd be surprised if they existed for the interesting parts of the graphics stack. In the old times (2010) X was the only option and it handled display. There has been a huge push since AMD got serious about open source graphics to redesign the graphics subsystem to be more linux-y by transforming it into something a bit more like a Jenga tower of components stapled together (wayland is one of them) that coordinate to replace X.
The coordinating body seems to be freedesktop.org but it takes a lot of investigating to figure out what it is they are doing at any given time. It happens very slowly though so knowledge picked up can stay current for a decade or more.
The new component based world has a couple of key nodes where the work happens - the kernel (DRM subsystem specifically) for drivers, freedesktop.org for technical compatibility coordination, mesa3d.org for the heavy lifting libraries, Red Hat for pipewire that picks up the slack that Wayland fumbled, then the morass of compositers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_display_servers#Waylan...) that are the user-facing part and where most people will interact with all this. They all have their own communities but IMO it is unclear which will take the lead outside the majors like KDE and Gnome. swaywm so far but I don't think it has a community anywhere as such.
[+] [-] bramhaag|1 year ago|reply
Searching "YubiKey" brings me here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/YubiKey#Linux_user_authenti.... It seems to describe your exact use case.
Of course it has a lot of info about Wayland vs. X too, etc.
[+] [-] yjftsjthsd-h|1 year ago|reply
A minor clarification: Wayland is a protocol, not an implementation. X11 is also theoretically a protocol, but the only implementation anyone seems to care about is the Xorg server. Because a lot of compositors (the wayland-world piece of software that actually implements the display server) need similar core functionality, wlroots was created as a library that provides a lot of the needed code and which gets used by the actual compositor (ex. mutter for GNOME, kwin for KDE, and sway for sway).
[+] [-] porphyra|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jsdavo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] chenxiaolong|1 year ago|reply
It worked flawlessly with the GlobalProtect VPN we had to use at my last job. A few folks ended up switching to using openconnect on Mac too. The official client seems to be quite bad on both platforms.
[+] [-] fyrn_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anymouse123456|1 year ago|reply
They did not work on my system. If you have a working workstation with NVidia hardware on Ubuntu LTS, keep waiting. Chrome no longer works for me on this mess.
[+] [-] Am4TIfIsER0ppos|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fooker|1 year ago|reply
Not sure if this fundamentally does not work yet or if I’m missing something.
[+] [-] boppo1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nolongerthere|1 year ago|reply
Can anyone explain how Wayland and X(?) relate to Linux?
Like what’s the windows equivalent?
I’ve used Ubuntu desktop a few times, I keep liveUSB versions of mint, Suse, and Ubuntu on my ventoy, but I just don’t understand what the deal is with the constant discussion of Wayland and X…
[+] [-] sjsdaiuasgdia|1 year ago|reply
A Linux system is assembled from several parts that aren't all that related to each other beyond the API interfaces exposed/used
The Linux kernel brings a lot of core OS functionality, including display hardware handling, and a framework to expand that with hardware-specific drivers
The kernel does not bring a GUI framework. That has to come separately. X and Wayland are both approaches to filling that gap on Linux systems
X is basically how GUIs have worked on most Linux/Unix systems for the last few decades. There's some weird cruft from the assumptions used when the X framework was designed
Wayland is trying to get rid of the cruft and align better to how computers are used today. But it has to fight against X's inertia, and it's been a long road to Wayland being "daily driver" usable
[+] [-] Dalewyn|1 year ago|reply
The closest is probably Desktop Window Manager.
On a similar vein, CMD and PowerShell are equivalent to the Terminal as the command line interface shell.
>I just don’t understand what the deal is with the constant discussion of Wayland and X…
Imagine two groups of people squabbling whether it's better to use Stacking Window Manager (used from Windows 2 through XP) or Desktop Window Manager (used from Windows Vista onwards).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_window_manager#Micros...
[+] [-] SAI_Peregrinus|1 year ago|reply
In practice Linux is even more granular, with multiple options at many more layers of the stack.
[+] [-] wmf|1 year ago|reply