Some interesting Linux industry news for you here, as the long road towards Wayland by default everywhere is taking another big step with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) removing the Xorg server and other X servers (except Xwayland) from RHEL 10 and the following releases.
From their announcement by developer Carlos Soriano Sanchez posted November 27th:
We want to recognize the significant effort all these organizations and individuals have made, especially the rest of the upstream community, without whom this project would never be so mature. This effort gave us the confidence to first make Wayland default for most use cases in RHEL 8, followed up with the deprecating of Xorg server in RHEL 9, with the intention of its removal in a future release. Earlier this year (2023), as part of our RHEL 10 planning, we made a study to understand Wayland’s status, not only from an infrastructure perspective, but also from an ecosystem perspective. The result of this evaluation is that, while there are still some gaps and applications that need some level of adaptation, we believe the Wayland infrastructure and ecosystem are in good shape, and that we’re on a good path for the identified blockers to be resolved by the time RHEL 10 is out, planned to be released on the first half of 2025.
With this, we’ve decided to remove Xorg server and other X servers (except Xwayland) from RHEL 10 and the following releases. Xwayland should be able to handle most X11 clients that won’t immediately be ported to Wayland, and if needed, our customers will be able to stay on RHEL 9 for its full life cycle while resolving the specifics needed for transitioning to a Wayland ecosystem. It’s important to note that “Xorg Server” and “X11” are not synonymous, X11 is a protocol that will continue to be supported through Xwayland, while the Xorg Server is one of the implementations of the X11 protocol.
Red Hat and their engineers have their fingers in many pies across the Linux space, so this is a pretty big move, and one they say will enable them to "tackle problems such as HDR, increased security, setups with mixed low and high density displays or very high density displays, better GPU/Display hot-plugging, better gestures and scrolling, and so on" — which of course will end up benefiting everyone because that's how open source works.
Have you fully switched over to Wayland yet?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: tohurIn my mind, the only thing Xorg needed fixing on was a better / more supported way to not run as root. Outside of that, they did all the work to make it modular during the development from XFree86. The problem is that people don't like maintaining old stuff, and want to play with new toys. That's all Wayland is. It'll be a new toy, until it isn't, then someone else will declare that it's crap and no one should be using it and then we'll be in the exact same boat as before...Quoting: reaperx7I love how Red Hat loves to push (force) people to buggy and incomplete software touting it as "stable" when the truth is far from reality.
Wayland is nice, but the fact that every compositor does everything inconsistent with each other, and often conflicts with how Xorg/XWayland does things, with pretty much everything the original developers intend, pretty much leave me saying "this isn't a good idea".
Honestly, nothing was wrong with Xorg, in my opinion. It works as intended like Windows GDI+. Yes there were some security flaws, but really, what was wrong with Xorg? I honestly see Wayland as a solution in search of a problem, not the other way around. If there was consistency with the compositors this wouldn't be a problem, but Plasma has their own problems, Gnome wants to be the rebellious child, Enlightenment is their own thing, Weston is sitting in the corner rocking back and forth thinking its a tea pot, and God knows what else the rest are doing running around the house aimlessly, but nothing is consistent while Xorg is sitting at the table, well behaved and saying "Oh so I'm not that important anymore? Have fun with the miscreants!" as it sits it's tea and reads the newspaper.
If you think Xorg is well "behaved" and not an issue you do not live in reality.. xorg is a utter mess and needs to go. frankly since swapping to Plasma wayland my PC performs much better
There are definitely things that Wayland does okay, but nothing they do that is special over X11, and end up still needing compatibility layer to X11...
Performance wise, I notice very little difference between Xorg / Wayland. Like somethings feel a little smoother, other things feel slower. I definitely notice things just not working right in Wayland though. Weirdly, I had an issue where the Synology Drive app didn't want to work in Xorg, but would in Wayland... after a reboot, it was fine though.
I think that isn't true. The reason we need something new is simple: Xorg was released in 2004. Pretty much everything is different now and with software, once it starts doing things that weren't concievable when it was designed, things start falling apart. "Modularity" isn't a checkbox, it is a relative thing. What a module was supposed to be was also thought up in 2004, so that is also inadequate. In 204, screens were 480p, screensharing did not exist, security was not really a designconsideration, VR was still science fiction and Linux desktop Linux was still very obscure. Stating that creating something new was just because people wanted something new is not really fair IMO.
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slaapliedje Dec 7, 2023
Quoting: AdutchmanHaha, in 2004? Monitors (which is why they were always more expensive than TVs) were definitely not 480p. I had a 1600x1200@85 monitor by then. Still have that same screen.Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: tohurIn my mind, the only thing Xorg needed fixing on was a better / more supported way to not run as root. Outside of that, they did all the work to make it modular during the development from XFree86. The problem is that people don't like maintaining old stuff, and want to play with new toys. That's all Wayland is. It'll be a new toy, until it isn't, then someone else will declare that it's crap and no one should be using it and then we'll be in the exact same boat as before...Quoting: reaperx7I love how Red Hat loves to push (force) people to buggy and incomplete software touting it as "stable" when the truth is far from reality.
Wayland is nice, but the fact that every compositor does everything inconsistent with each other, and often conflicts with how Xorg/XWayland does things, with pretty much everything the original developers intend, pretty much leave me saying "this isn't a good idea".
Honestly, nothing was wrong with Xorg, in my opinion. It works as intended like Windows GDI+. Yes there were some security flaws, but really, what was wrong with Xorg? I honestly see Wayland as a solution in search of a problem, not the other way around. If there was consistency with the compositors this wouldn't be a problem, but Plasma has their own problems, Gnome wants to be the rebellious child, Enlightenment is their own thing, Weston is sitting in the corner rocking back and forth thinking its a tea pot, and God knows what else the rest are doing running around the house aimlessly, but nothing is consistent while Xorg is sitting at the table, well behaved and saying "Oh so I'm not that important anymore? Have fun with the miscreants!" as it sits it's tea and reads the newspaper.
If you think Xorg is well "behaved" and not an issue you do not live in reality.. xorg is a utter mess and needs to go. frankly since swapping to Plasma wayland my PC performs much better
There are definitely things that Wayland does okay, but nothing they do that is special over X11, and end up still needing compatibility layer to X11...
Performance wise, I notice very little difference between Xorg / Wayland. Like somethings feel a little smoother, other things feel slower. I definitely notice things just not working right in Wayland though. Weirdly, I had an issue where the Synology Drive app didn't want to work in Xorg, but would in Wayland... after a reboot, it was fine though.
I think that isn't true. The reason we need something new is simple: Xorg was released in 2004. Pretty much everything is different now and with software, once it starts doing things that weren't concievable when it was designed, things start falling apart. "Modularity" isn't a checkbox, it is a relative thing. What a module was supposed to be was also thought up in 2004, so that is also inadequate. In 204, screens were 480p, screensharing did not exist, security was not really a designconsideration, VR was still science fiction and Linux desktop Linux was still very obscure. Stating that creating something new was just because people wanted something new is not really fair IMO.
The whole point of it becoming modular was that they could update things as needed, without having to go through a ton of code to fix simple bugs. It was supposed to be to 'future proof' Xorg. It brought us such awesome things as the compositing that everyone is so fond of these days, so we could have wobbly windows, Compiz, etc. Screen sharing is possible in Xorg. Isn't that one of the things that is broken in Wayland? VR works... etc.
Only thing really is the security.
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If anyone still asks "why Wayland instead of X", revisit this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 December 2023 at 5:27 pm UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 December 2023 at 5:27 pm UTC
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Quoting: slaapliedjeScreen sharing is possible in Xorg. Isn't that one of the things that is broken in Wayland?
Works fine in OBS for video capturing, so it's not broken. It needs mechanisms like portals or the like since it's a security related feature.
There is also this wip:
https://planet.kde.org/arjen-hiemstra-2023-08-08-remote-desktop-using-the-rdp-protocol-for-plasma-wayland/
2 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Dec 7, 2023
Quoting: ShmerlPoint of Debian is a moot thing. A lot of people use Sid or testing for desktop purposes. You wouldn't want to use Debian stable for that purpose at all.My opinion on this is very skewed, as I find Debian extremely easy to set up and get going (and especially with the inclusion now of the firmware repo). Then again, I've been using it for so long, it's about as easy to install for me as breathing. Mind you, I'm comparing that to Utah weather, which very often is labeled as 'not safe for old people to be outside.'
But, it's not a newbie friendly distro to use. I'd appreciate Debian testing becoming more officially desktop targeted distro (than Sid). But Debian developers never had enough resources or desire to do that.
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slaapliedje Dec 7, 2023
Quoting: ShmerlIf anyone still asks "why Wayland instead of X", revisit this video:Ha, I point out a few special use cases where Wayland doesn't work for me and some people (not you, you're sane) lose their shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ
There definitely are things that work better in it, like gestures seem to be better supported. I want to like Wayland, I like new things. It's just I keep running into very specific issues with it. One other thing that I don't think will ever be fixed is the ability to restart the Gnome Shell via Alt+F2 and R. Not sure of the technical reasons why, but I think it's because of how mutter is written?
One thing I do find amusing, if you run Debian Sid, and have an nvidia card, the Wayland sessions aren't available (at least without doing some shenanigans). It used to be easily added with just changing a line in the /etc/gdm3/gdm.conf. That hasn't seemed to work lately (though now I've switched to an AMD card in my main desktop).
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About restarting the desktop shell, in KDE at least, It's Alt + F2 and then:
Not needed often, but doesn't feel complicated.
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 December 2023 at 6:04 pm UTC
killall plasmashell; plasmashellNot needed often, but doesn't feel complicated.
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 December 2023 at 6:04 pm UTC
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wvstolzing Dec 7, 2023
Quoting: AdutchmanIn 204, screens were 480p, screensharing did not exist, security was not really a designconsideration, VR was still science fiction and Linux desktop Linux was still very obscure.
It's absolutely true that in 204, security wasn't really a design consideration -- and where did that leave us? Goths, Vandals, the Alamanni, and the Sassanids poured into the empire from all points of the compass. Wax tablets being limited to 480p was the least of our concerns back then.
4 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Dec 7, 2023
Quoting: ShmerlAbout restarting the desktop shell, in KDE at least, It's Alt + F2 and then:Yeah, I was just highlighting another little difference I found between an Xorg session vs a Wayland one.
killall plasmashell; plasmashell
Not needed often, but doesn't feel complicated.
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Quoting: slaapliedjeWhy would you turn off Vsync, also, pretty sure Gnome got to Wayland support long before KDE. Which means they're wanting to drop Xorg support sooner. Also, Gnome is pretty much developed by Redhat at this point... so them wanting to drop Xorg support for RHEL 10 and Gnome wanting to do the same makes a whole lot of sense... if you think Wayland is ready (which I don't think it is).
The reason you turn Vsync off is input lag.. granted you don't notice it in most games but fast paced games you need Vsync off because in competitive games even moderate lag will get you killed. GNOME doesn't allow for you to turn it off in wayland and trust me in wayland you want Vsync off because with it on the lag is terrible.. for my preferred games GNOME is bad bad LMAO.. in KDE wayland there is a setting to allow screen tearing aka turnk off vsync for full screen apps aka games. the overall gaming experience is better on KDE
Last edited by tohur on 7 December 2023 at 11:21 pm UTC
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