this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Systemd monolith - worst thing to have ever happened to Linux
Wayland monolith - best thing to have ever happened to Linux
There seems to be misunderstanding about what Wayland is.
Wayland is set of protocols. They are implemented by wayland servers (compositors) and wayland clients (applications) themselves. There is no single "wayland binary" like in the X11 days. Servers or clients may choose to implement or not implement a specific protocol.
X11 is a protocol too. Xorg is the binary you are talking about
I think what they meant is that there are people that think: "Wayland is too fragmented, there should be 1 'Wayland Compositor' and the rest should be window managers"
Nope, I meant that the wayland compositors are inflexible monoliths that are so tightly integrated into a DE that they can't be replaced. Xorg might be bloated, but it follows the UNIX philosophy closely enough that each part of the stack above xorg can be trivially replaced.
I guess my interpretation was too charitable.
Nothing in the protocol prevents you from splitting the server from the window manager, just everyone implementing the wayland server protocol didn't see any benefit in splitting it out.
Thanks I didn't know that. Arcan seems to have kept WM's separate.
Thanks I didn't know that. Arcan seems to have kept WM's separate.
Oh my god! It's like hearing the same on hold greeting again and again. WE KNOW!
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that Wayland compositors are forced to be inflexible monoliths that need to be so tightly integrated into a DE that they can't be replaced.
Edit: I've just learned that it's not forced, but that every compositor used by popular DEs is an inflexible monolith by choice.
In xorg the server, wm, and compositor all do their own thing and can be replaced trivially. It took me like 5 minutes to replace xfwm4 with i3, and that included the research.
They're also all shit and dysfunctional as hell. Xorg forever. Systemd good too.
MacOS 7 forever, in the same way
hey, many of us dislike both equally! (specially the push to become the only alternative)
Oh you had me going in the first half. Sly devil you. Wayland still doesn't work on the fleet of equipment we have.
If they had named it systemd-x11 people would hate it.
I think wayland has potential but in it's current state it's just half baked. Once more protocols get merged, ~~maybe in a decades time~~ Wayland should be quite flexible and robust.
That's how I feel as well. IMO it's ridiculous that Fedora wants to remove xorg completely from the repos in the next version.
It is ridiculous. Nothing like says f you to a large percentage of your user base like pushing out a solution that doesn't work for them.
The wildest thing is that current xorg package is maintained by the community and they're still removing it completely because "xorg is taking up too much dev time".
More like over baked but still only half done.
It does have potential. I think anyone denying that is simply wrong. the issue with wayland is purely how slowly it moves and the fragmentation. Now the fragmentation is actually in large part due to how slowly it moves. There are numerous WIP protocols that will greatly decrease fragmentation when all are merged.
I can't wait because it seems like it will happen in the short future of one or two decades xD