A set of merge requests were opened that would effectively drop X.Org (X11) session support for the GNOME desktop and once that code is removed making it a Wayland-only desktop environment.

Going along with Fedora 40 looking to disable the GNOME X11 session support (and also making KDE Plasma 6 Wayland-only for Fedora), upstream GNOME is evaluating the prospect of disabling and then removing their X11 session support.

Some concerns were raised already how this could impact downstream desktops like Budgie and Pantheon that haven’t yet fully transitioned over to Wayland. In any event we’ll see where the discussions lead but it’s sure looking like 2024 will be the year that GNOME goes Wayland-only.

    • @[email protected]English
      -3•1 year ago

      Considering how many things Wayland apparently still lacks that need to be implemented in each compositor separately a last release in February sounds like a half-dead project.

      • FOSS Is FunEnglish
        8•1 year ago

        Sway is based on wlroots and therefore does not need to implement the complete Wayland specification itself. Many other Wayland window managers are also based on wlroots and therefore share a common base (compositor).

        Furthermore Sway’s git repo has activity up to a couple of days ago: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/commits/master

      • @[email protected]
        2•1 year ago

        Dude, why are you so annoying about this topic? sway is a very good tiling window manager that IIRC two years ago was able to do things X11 based window managers will never be able to (different VRR on multiple monitors) and its basically the reference manager for wlroots, a library implementing the Wayland functionality. I’ve been using Wayland exclusively since about 2021 and I can say all my stuff now works better than under X11. Does it mean everything under the sun works better or is possible? Probably not, but at the same time, the people putting in the work have decided that the old concept was no longer maintainable for them and no one else is willing to pick it up.

        • @[email protected]English
          5•1 year ago

          Dude, why are you so annoying about this topic?

          Because Wayland proponents have been at it for over a decade now pointing at their broken mess saying “look, everything works” and yet somehow the longer these posts stick around the more comments accumulate about things that do not work, and not minor edge cases either but major features like screen recording, games, one of two major graphics cards vendors, remote desktop, significant applications not working,… I am sick and tired of this broken project pretending it is ready to replace X11 over and over and over again.

          If they had acknowledged that it was 20% done, 40% done, 60% done (that is maybe where it is now) it would be different but Wayland developers seem to live in their own bubble where “works on my machine sometimes, with half of all applications” is considered done.

          Today I can install any game, any application on Linux and know it works with X11, no ifs, no “only on that vendor”, no “only on the latest unreleased bleeding edge version”. Why should I give that up for years of Wayland pain just to get back to where I started minus the things Wayland will never implement like network transparency.

          • @[email protected]
            1•1 year ago

            things that do not work, and not minor edge cases either but major features like screen recording, games

            Sure thing. I use Wayland exclusively and have been able to play and stream games no problem. Screen capture, window capture, both work. So I don’t know where these comments are coming from nowadays.

            one of two major graphics cards vendors

            Let me just take this opportunity to say Nvidia can get fucked, I can’t wait for the entertainment Linux 6.6 will bring.

            remote desktop

            Yeah. On the other hand, providing the desktop functionality over network is kind of an edge case: it makes sense to me to keep it out of the core protocol, otherwise even systems that don’t even have network access would need to include it if they implement the Wayland protocol. Nobody is stopping anyone to develop a protocol for secure remote input.

            significant applications not working

            If your significant application includes e.g. Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, X11 won’t help you either.

            Today I can install any game, any application on Linux and know it works with X11, no ifs, no “only on that vendor”, no “only on the latest unreleased bleeding edge version”. Why should I give that up for years of Wayland pain just to get back to where I started minus the things Wayland will never implement like network transparency.

            I don’t have a single case here where something works on X11, but not on Wayland. Except for my old Nvidia Optimus card, but that’s so old it doesn’t even work properly under Xorg anymore it feels like. But since I don’t game on it anymore it doesn’t matter, chip is 10 years old at this point and I just don’t buy Nvidia anymore.

            You’re most likely not using X11 network transparency anyways. At first approximation, no one is. What most people rather do is forward X over SSH. For Wayland, waypipe exists and covers the same use case.

      • CommunistEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        The project you’re looking for is called wlroots, everything will be based on it eventually, the only compositors that aren’t are gnome and kde and that’s because they made their compositors BEFORE wlroots existed.