We Have a Wayland Problem

Today I talk about the lack of stability when it comes to Wayland compositors, why it matters, and why time is the only cure.
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#ramble #wayland #thelinuxcast

[blackphoenix]

Wayland definitely still has some problems but considering it's state even half a year ago, it has come very far. And since the community is so focussed on it we can expect it to get betterand better at exponential rates.

[artemsmushkov]

I'm on Linux for 15 years, and for all those 15 years 2 things never change on Linux: it's state of eternal revolution (pulseaudio, KDE4, GNOME3, systemd, wayland, pipewire, ...) and it's almost ready. And when something is almost almost ready it's time for new revolution!

[DarthVader]

I totally agree man this is the same problem for me. As for JSON, it's just a JavaScript object and objects in JS are Key value pairs. Everything is in quotation marks because you can have a key that contains a space or a dash which would give you errors when working in a programming language.

[brod]

@1:10 "Instead it's to complain and rant like I normally do"
Uahhh yes it's a good morning 🍵

[gregcampwriter]

I take it that DWM in this context isn't Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken.

[ForeverZer]

0:40 The word you were looking for is *port* of i3. Essentially a re-implementation with the same API, configuration, IPC protocol, etc. with the express purpose of being a drop-in replacement for i3 under Wayland. I don't think anyone tries to deny they are similar, being 100% compatible with i3 it is the explicitly stated purpose in its description..

[TakeThisLove]

Not everything in JSON is enclosed in quotes. Only keys are quoted, while numeric types, boolean values, arrays, objects, and null types are not. The quotes around keys and string values serve to differentiate strings from other data types. Although JSON has various applications, it may not be the best choice for configuration files. This is not to say that JSON is flawed, but rather that it may be unsuitable for certain use cases, such as config files

[raiguard]

I've been using sway for over two years and it is one of the most stable pieces of software I have ever used. It is truly phenomenal!

[VioletJewel]

JSON is the way it is because it inherited its syntax from JavaScript (after all, JSON is an acronym for JavaScript Object Notation), and to communicate easily with it (and make it look similar), it makes all "strings" be wrapped in double quotes. You could have numbers and floats (which aren't wrapped in quotes) also - eg, { "myNumber": 42 }, which is distinct from { "myString": "42" }

[ShmuggumsMcGee]

I'm glad to be a floating WM guy, I can just use GNOME or KDE and fall back to Xorg if something on their Wayland implementations doesn't work. Running a Wayland-only WM or DE is not that feasible just yet.

[Karn]

I just started using Linux in January (A new years thing after 30+ years of windows). Still figuring all this stuff out, but I know a couple things. I love the way Hyprland looks, but dear god did I lose a couple days tinkering with the config and with waybar. That is the only reason I switched off it, I don't know if I could ever be happy with it. I'd always be tinkering with it. At least with plasma I'm doing what I wanted, using and learning Linux.

Won't lie, fun as hell configuring Hyprland.

[Linuxdirk]

Wayland has one only one big realß-life issue for me now, since everything else basically works now in my daily routine: It's complex and complicated to do the most basic screen recording with multiple windows, audio sources (coming from and going to different channels) and video sources at the same time.

According to most findable instructions you "just" need to install multiple different portals and daemons and you need to rip off a perfectly working sound system and install pipewire and wireplumber and whatnot, and then - if you're very lucky - it works ... on a good day ... at best with only slightly worse performance.

[bumblesby]

I've spent the last week moving to Wayland from I3. I decided to try Wayfire. I'm on Arch so it is in the AUR right now. It's going OK, but my setup is quite simple compared to yours. I tried Wayfire's shell which has a panel/bar, but moved to Waybar and am much happier with that. I tried a little gaming on Steam, and that seems to be working great. It is a lot of work and learning moving to a Wayland compositor! I'm tired LOL

[christiangabi]

The first Wayland compositor I installed on OpenSUSE was Sway (OpenSUSEway), which was the worst experience for me, 'cause the developers just decided to not support NVIDIA proprietary drivers. I installed Hyprland and it's just perfect. I even have such a tendency to use a Hyprland session than a KDE one.

[johannesjoseph]

Wayland is not ready for my case/workflow, but I wouldn't be surprised if this changes in 5 or 10 years

[mariogutierrez]

Hyprland is 95%+ there for me. Unfortunately, it's the 5% that annoys me. 1) hangs sometimes when logging out 2) steam sucks in hyprland. Steam dialogs get stuck behind each other and you can't start any games 3) waking from sleep hangs system 4) cut copy from terminals to-from GUI apps like firefox is hit and miss.

I'm happily back on X11 and dk (dynamic tiling, xmonad layout, bspwm like configuration) window manager. Stability is more important than bling.

[shatterstone]

It's honestly pretty insane how far Wayland, and especially Hyprland, has come in the last 6 months to a year. I remember it being barely usable when I first switched, where I'd even have issues with Waybar (which I don't really have anymore). But I completely agree with your point about a lack of choice. Hyprland is the best, and there really isn't anything that can compare to it. Sway and Qtile are good (I know because I've used them), and River and DWL also seem to work well, but none of them seem to be close to what Hyprland has been able to achieve, or have a similar pace of development.

[cyberpunkspike]

The problem with Wayland is that it's underspecified, and thus promotes too much fragmentation and undermines interoperability for me to stand by it. The performance benefits never appeared either, breaking all of Linux really should bring clear tangible benefits, and it's been 15 years.

[phonewithoutquestion]

Gnome and KDE are about the most I'd roll with on Wayland at the moment. The more minimal wayland compositors (Hyprland is slick, but not that minimal) like Sway, Cagebreak, DWL and River just demonstrate how immature Wayland still is. Sway comes out on top for stability, but its stock bar/panel is a black sheep. It doesn't play all that nice with some tray applets, I have no clue if this will be fixed.

Honestly wayland today feels like a competition to see what is less annoying to deal with. I'd rather "just use my desktop", ya know?

[archip]

"window manager, as i prefer to call it"

Prefers to use compositor