One thing I saw in comments about the removal of xorg server is that some might not see how much work is/was to maintain xorg server. I understand is hard to see from outside, but maintaining xorg server with the standards we have in RHEL is not a small beast. Let me share some:
It’s not only software vendors but Wayland itself lacks some crucial features. For me it’s auto-type and screen magnification - both are showstoppers for me.
Autotype is already solved - ydotool, wtype and dotool exists (and possibly others as well).
Screen magnification is already present in KDE (Meta + +, Meta + - to zoom in/out). There’s also a magnifier tool (KMag). There may be similar functionalities in other DEs.
My issue is the lack of an overall GUI automation tool, ie, like AutoHotkey. X11 had PyAutoGUI, but there’s no such AIO equivalent for Wayland yet, and the PyAutoGUI devs don’t seem to be interested in Wayland support - it’s neither on their road map, nor have they even answered any Wayland questions on their Github page, which is disappointing. But this isn’t Wayland’s fault, when other tools have shown that automating the GUI is possible, we just need someone to put together a complete package like PyAutoGUI / AHK.
Autotype is already solved - ydotool, wtype and dotool exists (and possibly others as well).
These tools work by creating a virtual keyboard so they don’t let you send input to a specific window. The input goes to whatever happens to be focused at the moment. This makes them less reliable than the X11 equivalents and unusable for tasks where you need to guarantee that the right window gets the input.
feel free to check out map2, I’m currently working on version 2 which will do lots of the stuff you need when it’s ready, but currently the API might still change and docs are active WIP
still, it can already do most stuff I need it for :)
If that’s the case, then stick to Xorg for now. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s in your best interest for distros to ship with Wayland out of the box.
Do you want software you use to be compatible with Wayland now or later? If your answer is later, then you have to wait for vendors to catch up, even though Wayland got auto type (already exists) and screen magnification by then. This is why I never understood this push against Wayland. People, your only alternative to Wayland is dead and unmaintained. If you push against Wayland as the default option, you only make your transition in the future more painful than it needs to be.
Also, I think it’s still a software vendor problem. If your software can’t work with the only desktop protocol with a future, then you must contribute to the protocol to create a way to make it work. If you don’t do that, then shit happens, your software breaks, and you had 10 years to contribute to the protocol to fix it. Your risk management was once again exceptional at avoiding doing the necessary work to eliminate a long known risk.
I really wanted Wayland to work for me. I just bought a new ASUS laptop (and ASUS has a great Linux compatibility track record, mind you!), 7th Gen Ryzen+Radeon, all AMD. I figured, let’s use Wayland on this one.
I installed KDE Neon, updated the kernel (some stuff is broken on the LTS kernel, no big deal, easy fix), switched to the Wayland session, everything was fine…until I opened any chromium-based app. Crashed kwin, killed the session completely, it recovered, but in a new session. Switched to X11, everything works. Maybe if I grabbed a newer mesa from a PPA it would work, but:
Crashing the window manager killing the session is awful and doesn’t happen in X11
Chromium shouldn’t crash the compositor at all
Even if it’s AMD’s new graphics drivers being buggy, that still shouldn’t kill the session!
And I know, technically KDE could (and afaik, is) implement session management so that doesn’t happen. But to my knowledge, literally 0 WMs/DEs can recover the session after a compositor crash currently, and that’s a big deal.
If you still want to give Wayland a try, take a look at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/wayland#Electron. Electron still defaults to X11, even though Electron supports Wayland. It’s a bit annoying to set the command line parameters for apps that bundle Electron, but maybe it works for you.
Not the same as “on demand zooming”, which let’s one stick with a high, native resolution, but zoom in when required (e.g. websites with small text that can’t be zoomed via browser’s font size increase; e.g. referencing some UI stuff during UI design, without having to take a screenshot and pasting + zooming it in e.g. GIMP).
What? Strg + Mousewheel, you can even set the option to only zoom text. At least on firefox. No clue what kind of browser you are using which is not capable of that.
Yeah, that browser zoom. And I too used / use Firefox.
I’m not saying these kind of sites are common, but nevertheless I’ve encountered them occasionally. Back then, the most pragmatic workaround was to use desktop zooming of Xfce.
My intention on the previous comment was simply to give some examples of desktop zooming that go beyond the typical accessibility viewpoint (e.g. vision impairment).
It’s not only software vendors but Wayland itself lacks some crucial features. For me it’s auto-type and screen magnification - both are showstoppers for me.
Autotype is already solved - ydotool, wtype and dotool exists (and possibly others as well).
Screen magnification is already present in KDE (
Meta++,Meta+-to zoom in/out). There’s also a magnifier tool (KMag). There may be similar functionalities in other DEs.My issue is the lack of an overall GUI automation tool, ie, like AutoHotkey. X11 had PyAutoGUI, but there’s no such AIO equivalent for Wayland yet, and the PyAutoGUI devs don’t seem to be interested in Wayland support - it’s neither on their road map, nor have they even answered any Wayland questions on their Github page, which is disappointing. But this isn’t Wayland’s fault, when other tools have shown that automating the GUI is possible, we just need someone to put together a complete package like PyAutoGUI / AHK.
These tools work by creating a virtual keyboard so they don’t let you send input to a specific window. The input goes to whatever happens to be focused at the moment. This makes them less reliable than the X11 equivalents and unusable for tasks where you need to guarantee that the right window gets the input.
KMag doesn’t work on Wayland.
feel free to check out map2, I’m currently working on version 2 which will do lots of the stuff you need when it’s ready, but currently the API might still change and docs are active WIP
still, it can already do most stuff I need it for :)
deleted by creator
If that’s the case, then stick to Xorg for now. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s in your best interest for distros to ship with Wayland out of the box.
Do you want software you use to be compatible with Wayland now or later? If your answer is later, then you have to wait for vendors to catch up, even though Wayland got
auto type(already exists) and screen magnification by then. This is why I never understood this push against Wayland. People, your only alternative to Wayland is dead and unmaintained. If you push against Wayland as the default option, you only make your transition in the future more painful than it needs to be.Also, I think it’s still a software vendor problem. If your software can’t work with the only desktop protocol with a future, then you must contribute to the protocol to create a way to make it work. If you don’t do that, then shit happens, your software breaks, and you had 10 years to contribute to the protocol to fix it. Your risk management was once again exceptional at avoiding doing the necessary work to eliminate a long known risk.
I really wanted Wayland to work for me. I just bought a new ASUS laptop (and ASUS has a great Linux compatibility track record, mind you!), 7th Gen Ryzen+Radeon, all AMD. I figured, let’s use Wayland on this one.
I installed KDE Neon, updated the kernel (some stuff is broken on the LTS kernel, no big deal, easy fix), switched to the Wayland session, everything was fine…until I opened any chromium-based app. Crashed kwin, killed the session completely, it recovered, but in a new session. Switched to X11, everything works. Maybe if I grabbed a newer mesa from a PPA it would work, but:
And I know, technically KDE could (and afaik, is) implement session management so that doesn’t happen. But to my knowledge, literally 0 WMs/DEs can recover the session after a compositor crash currently, and that’s a big deal.
If you still want to give Wayland a try, take a look at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/wayland#Electron. Electron still defaults to X11, even though Electron supports Wayland. It’s a bit annoying to set the command line parameters for apps that bundle Electron, but maybe it works for you.
ydotool?
Increase your scaling/decrease resolution.
Not the same as “on demand zooming”, which let’s one stick with a high, native resolution, but zoom in when required (e.g. websites with small text that can’t be zoomed via browser’s font size increase; e.g. referencing some UI stuff during UI design, without having to take a screenshot and pasting + zooming it in e.g. GIMP).
What? Strg + Mousewheel, you can even set the option to only zoom text. At least on firefox. No clue what kind of browser you are using which is not capable of that.
Yeah, that browser zoom. And I too used / use Firefox. I’m not saying these kind of sites are common, but nevertheless I’ve encountered them occasionally. Back then, the most pragmatic workaround was to use desktop zooming of Xfce.
My intention on the previous comment was simply to give some examples of desktop zooming that go beyond the typical accessibility viewpoint (e.g. vision impairment).