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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Why Wayland adoption to have official support in programs is so slow? (wayland.freedesktop.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Wayland seems ready to me but the main problem that many programs are not configured / compiled to support it. Why is that? I know it's not easy as "Wayland support? Yes" (but in many cases adding a flag is enough but maybe it's not a perfect support). What am I missing? Even Blender says if it fails to use Wayland it will use X11.

When Wayland is detected, it is the preferred system, otherwise X11 will be used

Also XWayland has many limitations as X11 does.

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[–] bhamlin 26 points 3 months ago

Because Wayland is fundamentally very different from the older X protocol, and many programs don't even directly do X. They leverage libraries that do it for them. Those libraries are a huge part of the lag. Once GTK and Qt and the like start having a stable Wayland interface, you'll see a huge influx of support.

A big part of the slowness is why Wayland is a thing to begin with. X hid a lot of the display hardware from apps. Things like accessing 3d hardware had to be done with specialized display clients. This was because X is natively a remote display tool. You can use X to have your program show its display somewhere else. Wayland won't do that because that's not the point. Applications that care will have goals for change. Applications don't care will support it once someone else does it for them.

Right now, the only things that would benefit from Wayland are games and apps that make heavy use of certain types of hardware. Half of those don't care about linux, while the other half is OK with X and xwayland.