linuxmemes

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fl42v, in An unbiased comparison of linux distributions' setup

If that’s a first install, then sure. Otherwise… There was a speedrun installing arch under 2 min…

bitwolf,

How does that work? Do they count user interaction time only by pausing the timer during package downloads?

Or do you need fast internet to play?

fl42v,

Not that I remember finding any rules, so that’s mostly just messing around; technically you can quickly setup your own mirrors in LAN, although I don’t remember if that was done. Stuff was mostly about knowing what to type and blindly pre-typing next commands while previous are still in action

AeonFelis,

The fact that speedruns for installing Arch even exist kind of proves the point.

rurutheguru,

Might just be an old comic. The above was true a few years ago, but not so much anymore.

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah now its like archinstall, check some boxes, maybe google some packages to install at setup and you’re done.

hex,

i installed endeavouros really quickly

shea, (edited )

oof i wish it was that easy. that’s the simple version of what i spent the last 2 weeks doing. On Windows I’d consider myself a power user. I get a lot of work done, quickly, and besides that I would say I’m pretty tech literate over all. But arch is just ridiculously difficult to understand how to use unless you’re already very familiar with linux. I feel like any wrong move i make is gonna break my setup. i got my comptia A+ , which while very basic, definitely goes to show I’m not some random luddite

Sanctus, (edited )
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

I installed Linux mint on a trusty old thinkpad. Used it probably 5 times over the course of a year. Then installed arch on a newer T480s I received from work. I am a complete novice. It is literally that easy. You download the arch installer, follow the wiki on the 2 or 3 commands needed for internet, then type archinstall. Thats it. You literally dont even have to install anything else, especially if you choose desktop instead of minimal like I did. I have no idea what anyone is talking about it being difficult. Its easy.

kogasa,
@kogasa@programming.dev avatar

What is ridiculously difficult to understand?

sharkfucker420, in Foolishness
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

Gotta delete the French language pack

nifty, (edited ) in Your average Wine enjoyer
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

I hate comments that are like “oh if only Linux could run Whatever” etc. You can have more than one computer (or partition), and you can have more than one OS. Windows isn’t going to divorce you if you spend time with Linux.

arc,

You can use Linux and Windows at the same time with WSL. Works extremely well for people who develop Linux but also need Windows stuff.

nifty,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

Hmm, WSL has created more issues for me than I’d cared for. I don’t think it’s an ideal solution.

arc,

I don’t think any solution is ideal but imo it’s better than dual booting.

fossilesque,
@fossilesque@mander.xyz avatar

WSL enters the chat.

arc,

It works great too. Day to day I’ll be building Linux code, running IntelliJ under X, installing docker containers and doing other stuff all from a Windows desktop.

TheGreenGolem, (edited )
@TheGreenGolem@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Similar. WSL is fucking good, at least for me. It was a surprisingly good move from MS.

MashedTech, (edited )

No, but it sure is annoying having to switch in the middle of doing something especially when you’re working. (Also, there’s that pesky thing that happened to me as well where windows doesn’t play nice with the Linux boot partition and fucks it up) So there’s always going to be a main os. If you’re fortunate enough you can use an old laptop for windows. Or, if your computer is powerful enough run an windows VM. For me, Gnome Boxes offered a really easy to use experience of running windows. It worked out of the box, no special tweaks.

sagrotan,
@sagrotan@lemmy.world avatar

I installed Garuda on my wife’s gaming machine last autumn, dual boot with Windows. I haven’t seen her using Windows since then, and she said she hasn’t. She loves it btw, says, even better graphics in some games. And KDE is an eye candy anyways.

MashedTech,

If you don’t turn on windows of course you won’t have problems.

uranibaba,

If I ever dual boot again, Windows will be on it’s own HDD.

eya, in Linux users when
@eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

chrome?

BeigeAgenda,
@BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah the mouse just passed over Firefox.

victorz,

They have that installed already. Likely that is their main browser.

valveman, in Your PC will thank you...

Well, as a Linux user myself, I used to do this kind of thing when I was getting started and was too damn hyped about FOSS and everything. Now, I simply ask people what they want from a computer and how much are they invested into tech.

Do you want things to be as simple as possible? Use Mac or Windows.

Do you want to learn more about how things work under the hood? Use Linux.

Gaming? Use Windows (and yes, although I’m a proud Proton user, some games just won’t work, like Valorant and PUBG).

Flying_Hellfish, (edited )

Gaming? Use Windows (and yes, although I’m a proud Proton user, some games just won’t work, like Valorant and PUBG).

I love proton on my steamdeck, and I’d like to try to go linux vs having to stay on win10 with no updates on my gaming computer. But outside of some games not working, a lot of hardware/accessories don’t have official support either. As far as I can tell, goxlr, streamdeck, and other hardware/software I use daily, have no official support, which for items I use that often makes it pretty much a non-starter on migrating.

Huschke,
Flying_Hellfish,

Thank you. I saw there is a community goxlr project on github as well. For me, not having the official support is frustrating. I spend a lot of time messing around with community projects for my homelab. I don’t want that effort transferred over to my daily driver.

What I’m really waiting for is a decent/cost effective AMD laptop I can scoop up to put linux on.

Million,

Yeah linux handles many games fine with proton and stuff, but there are too much things you give up.

Razer mouse with multiple side buttons? No GUI for setting that up, download some other hotkey software and make a custom profile on that. Open razer for RGB control.

Corsair headphones? No software, not able to get task bar icon about battery level.

Sometimes play racing games? Too bad there is no drivers for your wheel, except one that was made by some guy 5 years ago that got 60% of the features working, and to change settings you have to edit text files.

A new multiplayer game comes out that doesnt work on linux and all your friends are playing? Soon you find yourself just booting straight to windows instead of sometimes hopping on windows to play some game.

Connect a ps4 controller and linux sets it as default audio device and there is no GUI option to disable that, just gotta switch back when connecting the controller.

Boot to OS and open steam, no games are installed? Oh right you need to go mount the drive first. Watch a 10 minute youtube video where some dude explains how to auto mount drives.

Want to create a bootable windows USB and the tool that came with the OS tells you the usb stick is in use and that it needs to be unmounted, do that and then it tells you there is no usb there, because ya unmount it. Try another software but it wont select the iso file. Try google for help, top answer is “borrow your friends windows computer”

I like linux and learned a lot when using it, and will use it in the future on machines that dont need anything extra. But for my habits it just felt silly to be there, and constantly switch back to play games, or stay on linux and have a worse experience doing something, like driving games.

I am also real tech savy person and can overcome most of these hurdles, but most of my friends would never be able to overcome some of these things. I also found that many questions about linux on some forums are answered with stuff like “why on earth do you want that? Just dont do that or do something else” and that was kind of a bummer as well.

ricdeh,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

I think that your priorities are horrible. If the things you listed are enough to get you to abandon GNU/Linux, then FOSS might really not be for you. Also, you describe yourself as tech savvy, but I find that doubtful judging from the experiences you recounted and the non-technical way in which you write.

dotMonkey,

Those sound like real problems anyone could experience to me whether you’re tech savvy or not. Unsupported devices and software

Million,

I dont really understand what you mean about my priorities being horrible. My priority is for my PC to do what i then and there need it to do, if it is to display my headset battery lever or create bootable usb media.

And I didnt say abandon, I said i like linux and will use it.

I told you that i am tech savvy, but instead of taking my word you decipher my message and say it is the opposite?

I am not the god of tech, but if a person who writes their own wifi drivers is 10 on the scale, and my father who can barely use a non smart phone is 1, i am a solid 8 on the tech savvy scale.

Slay queen.

mlg, in Completely untrue nowadays...
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

CUPS is absolutely amazing compared to windows printer drivers which had whole ass critical CVEs several times already.

Even Apple uses CUPS

aard,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

CUPS is horrible, and also had its share of critical vulnerabilities. It is just better than the LPD mess we had before.

It is not a Linux specific thing - it was developed when there still were a lot of UNIX variants around. Apple was a very early contributor, and had quite a bit of influence in making it successful.

c10l, (edited )

It’s no surprise Apple uses CUPS. They wrote it, after all.

Edit: TIL Apple didn’t write CUPS themselves but they bought the company that did it pretty early in the game. Here’s a LWN article from the time, exposing some of the worries that came with the news of the acquisition: lwn.net/Articles/242020/

aard, in :wq!
@aard@kyu.de avatar

I always get annoyed when I’m on some system and nano pops up and I need to figure out how to kill that thing.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Very intuitive - Ctrl + X… unlike vim.

Moshpirit,
@Moshpirit@lemmy.world avatar

Why not just using Micro? Ctrl + Q. Intuitive af

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, sure, that works as well.

As long as I get to use modifier keys, almost anything is fine with me. We don’t live in the 70s, that was 50 years ago. If backwards compatibility is what they’re after, I’m sorry but I think they overdid it. Plus, you can just add them, the defaults don’t need to be changed.

voidMainVoid,

Why is Ctrl-X intuitive? Shouldn’t it be Ctrl-Q (for “quit”)?

mihnt,
@mihnt@lemmy.world avatar

CTRL+eXit

voidMainVoid,

In most apps, Ctrl-X means “cut”, not “quit”. Especially when it’s a freakin’ text editor!

I will grant you that it’s more intuitive than vi, but that is a very, very low bar.

GoosLife,

Ctrl-X in Nano is arguably more nonsensical, considering that vi was made in an era long (decades) before many of the conventions we know today came about. They were figuring it out in real time. And the criterium here is much simpler: it must be available on all keyboards so no fancy keys. That’s all.

On the other hand, when nano decided to use Ctrl+X for eXit, Apples Ctrl+X/C/V had already been brought over to Windows and Apple, and was also the de facto way for most Linux apps to handle these inputs although I do think it came before any “official” efforts to standardize these shortcuts in desktop environments.

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

It doesn’t have to be X, just the fact that it uses modifier keys is enough. It could be Q or anything else, just please, for the love of god, we live in the 21st century now, all keyboards have modifier keys, please, add modifier keys shortcuts as well.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

And it’s also an X, like any GUI app in any OS.

Reddfugee42,

I know I always try GUI methods in console

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

That’s normal for people that didn’t grow up in the 70s and 80s and GUI wasn’t the first thing they knew. I was a teen in the late 90s and early 00s, so yeah, we had GUIs for almost everything.

We’re basically trying to do catchup with the cool kids, but let’s face it, they live somewhat in the past regarding modifier keys and vi/vim.

UnfortunateShort,

Because it also sends the kill signal in every terminal I’ve witnessed yet… And you have it right on screen the second you start Nano.

GoosLife,

Can you please elaborate on the first part? It is not standard Linux terminal behavior to send the KILL signal on Ctrl+X.

UnfortunateShort,

Actually, you are right. I will stand by my point that Nano tells you what to press, but I wonder where I got the stuff about Ctrl+X… I am very positive that I have used it at some point (outside of Nano), but maybe my brain is playing tricks on me 🤔

mvirts,

I’m over here using Ctrl c all over the place to kill stuff…

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, you could use that as well.

mexicancartel, (edited )

Because nano just shows how to exit, as well as some other basic functions at bottom

dipshit, (edited )

gg/un2x?-d/like

FTFY

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m not planning on googling that 😒.

dipshit, (edited )

result: Very intuitive like vim.

  1. gg - top of the file
  2. /un - find “un” place cursor at u
  3. 2x - remove 2 characters
  4. ?- - search backwards for the character -
  5. d/like - delete everything up until the characters like

See, intuitive!

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

I don’t do that much search and replace in any terminal based text editor to actually use that on a regular basis. If I need edits like that, I use a GUI text editor.

dipshit,

Sure, I just hate moving from mouse to keyboard every few seconds as I code.

mvirts,

Same. As a vim user I now can’t quit nano.

jol,

Nano literally tells you all the shortcuts to your face.

aard,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

It shows a message which wastes valuable screen estate, especially on low resolution terminals, containing a message I have to read every single time because the keys are not in muscle memory, and never will because the bindings are stupid.

On systems I have control over the reaction to nano popping up is exiting, removing it, making sure the package system blocks reinstallation attempts, and go back to what I was initially doing in a sane editor.

nixcamic,

My man, most of us aren’t connecting to our mainframes on VT20s these days. Even on my phone screen the three extra lines nano takes over vi aren’t a problem.

Also if you have the time to go through all that you have the time to learn ctrl+x.

jol,

Sometimes I’m on call and all I have is my 3DS! Stop assuming by maximum screen resolution :'(

nixcamic, (edited )

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/acee93ba-b3e4-40b5-8986-f7647eb1c59e.png

I know you kid but even the 3ds fits a decent number of lines on screen.

jol,

You have so much pent up emotion over a text editor. Life can be so much more my friend!

dadarobot,
@dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

First day on linux?

jol,

You know the bell curve meme? I’m just beyond this.

Spzi, in Linus does not fuck around

I would not work with or even for someone with such an attitude, not even for money. Ok, do it yourself, bye. Got better places to be.

planetaryprotection,

Are kernel maintainers not unpaid volunteers?

Spzi,

That’s kind of two of my main points:

  1. Treat your volunteers well, or why should they continue volunteering?
  2. Kernel maintainers have plenty of other opportunities.

I don’t know if they are volunteering or being paid. The other person said they are being paid.

Either way, no one deserves being talked down to like that, even if they made a mistake. It’s a matter of respect and self-respect. And as a skilled person like a kernel developer, it should be trivially easy to find other work in a more appropriate environment.

That being said, maybe I’m missing something. Torvalds has been known to be like that for a long time (although that seems to be over now). And still, Linux has been developed over decades. So apparently, skilled people flocked around Torvalds, or maybe rather his project. Not entirely sure why, but I’m taking it as a hint I might be missing something.

fosforus, (edited )

Generally speaking: not these days, and not for a long long time. Mauro, for instance, worked for Red Hat at the time. It’s of course possible to be unpaid and work for Linux, but I believe it’s much more likely that one is employed by a big tech corpo and they maintain the kernel as part of their work.

possiblylinux127, in Yeah, very sorry that this app is Windows only, would love to switch to Mac

Honestly MacOS is not great. At least with windows machines you can boot into a live system.

Honytawk,

And have actual control over the OS.

Seriously, if Apple decides an app is too old, then it flat out doesn’t work. No way to prevent updating either unless it is basically without internet.

Linuxians like to complain about not being able to control Windows, but Mac is like a hundred times worse in that regard. Not to mention ads to all those Apple software on there.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

Apple: “Sorry but your hardware seems to be out of date with our OS! Please buy another 3000 dollar laptop that’s only worth 1000!”

Me: “But it still runs?”

Apple: “Does it, though?”

Me: “Well not anymore… Thanks.”

onlinepersona,

Not to defend Apple, but doesn’t windows 11 demand you buy new hardware for it to be installed? Something about a TPM?

aBundleOfFerrets,

You can turn that off (unofficially) no such luck on mac

franklin,
@franklin@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah you need an Intel 8th gen or a ryzen processor in order to use it without a workaround. Something from the last 6 years.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t need 8th Gen. It’s just that 7th gen specifically doesn’t work. I’m pretty sure older Intel chips are fine. TPM isn’t on your CPU.

franklin,
@franklin@lemmy.world avatar

Correct, I was trying to keep it simple but yes more specifically you need a TPM 2.0 capable system

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

Does Windows still allow your applications to function update after update if you decide to stick with Windows 10? Yes. Can you just stay on W10 and expect things to keep working? Also yes.

I don’t have to worry about the newest version of Adobe Premiere not being compatible with this older version of iOS, oops now our promo team and our production team aren’t able to share their files because one bought newer Macs and now has an upgraded version of Adobe that Catalina doesn’t support unless you also buy new machines that are allowed to update through to Monterey.

Apple is fine for home use, but as someone who works operations side IT and has to constantly perform network workarounds to get their equipment functional in a commercial environment, fuck Apple and their “We did the thinking for you uwu™️” nonsense.

cm0002,

And OMG, Apples business support is absolute horse shit

Device management? Good fucking luck. Setting up iOS device management is by far the most painful, migraine inducing, poorly thought out, full of the most asinine restrictions process I’ve ever seen in my life.

Setting up Oracle on-prem software is a cake walk compared to Apples shit.

Windows is a business OS with consumer features, MacOS is a consumer OS with business (poorly executed) “features”

Apple: “It just works!*”

*As long as it’s not a business feature

mac,
@mac@infosec.pub avatar

I’ve seen MacBook’s last for 8+ years and remain performant.

bdonvr, (edited )

They update Macs for a good 8 years or so, which isn’t that bad really. Then you can often just install newer versions with community tools after that.

Edit: I haven’t had one in a few years, apparently that’s not quite true recently as they’re trying to drop x86 support and move everything to ARM

mac,
@mac@infosec.pub avatar

That’s more of an architecture shift as opposed to we don’t support it because fuck you, also Rosetta means most x86 Mac apps will be able to run on the m-series chips.

stufkes,

This. Been using Windows since 95 and Linux since 2008. Mac is the only thing I tried twice (for two years each) and I just cannot get past this mobile-feeling of not being able to customise basic stuff. Mac GUI is not intuitive for me. It’s good that people that like it can use it. It’s bad that I don’t have any choice as soon as I am on Apple hardware. I find this meme completely tone deaf. The issue with mac isn’t that it lacks Unix features, it’s everything else.

bdonvr,

What on earth are you on about? You’re completely in control of updates and you can enable the root account and do whatever you want. It’s still UNIX.

Are you talking about iOS/iPadOS? macOS is nothing like this and I have no idea what you’re on about.

mac,
@mac@infosec.pub avatar

Yeah I think most people have experienced an iPad or iPhone but not a Mac so they assume it’s the same walled garden. What they don’t realise is Mac has been a solid choice for power users, developers and creators of all varieties for over 10 years, this means the community and app selection is honestly ridiculously good.

mac, (edited )
@mac@infosec.pub avatar

The only place I’ve ever seen ads on my MacBook is in the App Store, the iCloud section of settings and on Apple’s website, all of which it makes sense for the adverts to exist. Oh wait I may have seen one as a precursor to a YouTube video but sans ad-blocker that is standing regards of OS.

Chewy7324, (edited ) in I don't need a declarative operating system for my home server... but it would be fun...

Yeah, especially after discovering microvm.nix [1] I’m tempted to switch from Proxmox to NixOS.

Edit: The VMs/LXCs are declared with Nix anyway.

[1] github.com/astro/microvm.nix

kraynyan,

All my other VMs are NixOS…this is VERY appealing

takeda, (edited )

Thank you for posting this. I was looking for a way to be able to deploy just an app on a VM.

Lettuceeatlettuce, in Pick wisely
@Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml avatar

Hannah Montana Linux, the only true distro.

felbane,

The only distribution that’s Been There All Along.

cupcakezealot, in Oh no ...
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

this is the future

  1. join fediverse
  2. get linux
  3. post on unixsocks
  4. overthrow capitalism er uh i mean … uh… gotta go
callyral,
@callyral@pawb.social avatar

please link to this unixsocks community

cupcakezealot,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar
Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

!unixsocks

I linked the community so people can find it easier.

sleen, in AMA

What’s the cp command?

Sheeple,
@Sheeple@lemmy.world avatar
brckd,

it sends your files directly to the communist party of china

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

It does creepy pedo things on your files.

acockworkorange,

Except for PDF files, they’re kindred spirits.

0x4E4F, (edited )
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yes, they’re the only exception, though there are efforts to get them working with the cp command.

possiblylinux127, in I don't...

Wayland is so much better than X. You don’t have to use it but its simplicity means most of the Linux community is going to.

nintendiator,

Sure, if you call “simplicity” to literally not doing anything so that every coder has to implement the graphics stack on every program on their own.

possiblylinux127,

Well no, its handled by the desktop and libraries.

Chobbes,

What’s so much better about Wayland than X? I mean, I’m not really a fan of X and the security nightmare that it is, but as a user it’s all pretty plug and play these days. What does a normal user get out of Wayland? Would they even know they’re using it?

I’d love to try it, but it currently won’t work with some software I use, so I haven’t bothered… And honestly I’m kind of confused about how everybody is talking about how amazing Wayland is (and how it seems to suddenly be the one true path for a bunch of distros) when my only experience with Wayland is people talking about how great it is and then not being able to screenshare or whatever… Which doesn’t make it seem great from the outside? That maybe sounds a bit flippant, but I genuinely don’t understand why “normal” people are so excited? I mean, I can see people caring about features like HDR and maybe that’s easier to build into Wayland than ancient X11, but I’d be more excited about the specific feature than Wayland itself which may make implementing these things easier?

possiblylinux127,

Wayland cuts out all of the dead features and allows content to be drawn to the screen more directly. This means that there is a simplified architecture with great battery life.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Other than that, it doesn’t really bring much to the table currently. Not everyone needs (or wants) HDR and many of the other features that I would like to have are still in the works, so… I don’t really see a reason to use it, at least not now.

acockworkorange,

Don’t you need a HDR monitor for HDR?

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yes, I believe so.

acockworkorange,

I don’t even want to know the price. I bought myself a new monitor for Christmas and I doubt it has that.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Mine are all standard as well, usually 10+ years old. I absolutely have no need for HDR, but I get that some people would like to use that.

Geth,

Support for HDR, variable refresh rate, direct draw and battery improvements sound like a very good list to have, other than the overall leaner build. You personally not caring about it doesn’t change the fact that it’s good to not stagnate when it comes to things like this.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

VFR 🤨… I mean, does anyone actually use that? It flopped for video content, I seriously doubt anyone is gonna use that on a PC.

DirectDraw is an MS specific thing, part of DirectX. How does that fit into Wayland?

The second, I would actually LOVE to get in any frame server, X or Wayland, but that will most probably never happen.

Westlyroots,
@Westlyroots@pawb.social avatar

Variable refresh rate has become the de facto standard of modern gaming now. They aren’t referring to the direct draw API, but the fact that Wayland does not have extra baggage to draw to the screen through a display server. Wayland just draws to the screen directly, saving time and performance.

ExLisper, (edited )

First of all, X is not a security nightmare. There were 0 cases of someone getting hacked because of X exploit. It’s a FUD.

Now Wayland is a fad (haha). It’s not that much better than X and when it was drafted 10 years ago everyone just ignored it. Over the decade it became clear that X is stuck and at some point it will become obsolete so people started looking at alternatives and Wayland started getting some traction. Over time different tools started getting Wayland support, some people started getting exited about it and a kind of new meme developed where using Wayland meant that you’re ahead of everyone else (just like using Arch BTW). In the end it’s just a nice PR stunt. Ask people what specifically is so great about Wayland and they will mention some obscure features most people don’t need and features that it will have ‘soon’. In the long term the move will hopefully be a good thing but as of now if you don’t specifically need the few features it has you can keep ignoring it.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

Well explained 👍.

BananaTrifleViolin,

It is not a 'fad". Major distros have defaulted to Wayland (Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, Debian, Manjaro etc).

X11 is old and designed for use cases in the 1980s. A lot of features have gradually moved out of X11 into the kernel or into other compositor systems. But the core X11 system is still limited by legacy design decisions and needing work arounds (which are complex to build and maintain).

Wayland is built to be the modern system that is built for current usage and needs. A lot of the benefits are not immediately obvious to the end user - a desktop is a desktop. But desktop interface projects like KDE who build user interfaces are hitting X11s limitations all the time, and a lot of effort goes in to working around X11s limits compared to working with Wayland. Effort spent working to work around X11 is time and work that could have been spent elsewhere on other fixes or new features and innovations.

The push to Wayland is deliberate and necessary, but was not always inevitable. Now that it’s being adopted so widely as the default by big distros and projects it is likely inevitable. It has essentially reached critical mass.

I think a lot of people asking “what’s the point” are not the ones working to build systems and distros at the back end. It’s easy for us as end users to take for granted all the work behind the scenes that make our desktops “just work”. But if you’re a volunteer building a compositor fit for 2024, I can see why it’d be frustrating working around the limitations of a system built for 1984.

X11 has served us incredibly well and is a hugely important project. But Wayland is the way forward.

someacnt_,

While I don’t think X11 is great, I do not think wayland compositor is made to be easier to develop with. Wlroots had to be made to make things easier for compositor devs.

ExLisper,

Sorry, I used the term “fad” to make a pun on X flaws being a ‘FUD’ (haha). It’s not a fad in the sense that it will soon disappear. What I meant is that the excitement around it is not funded in actual benefits and it just recently became fashionable to support it.

0x4E4F,
@0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works avatar

When Wayland can do and run everything X11 can, without problems, plus everything it promisses it can do, then I’ll make the switch. Till that time comes, I’m sorry, but it’s just not for me 🤷.

django,
@django@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

One of my favorite features: no tearing when watching movies.

NeatNit,
skulkingaround, (edited )

There are some really major deficiencies in Xorg that aren’t present in Wayland. The main one that made me switch was proper support for variable refresh rate, and the ability to mix and match any fixed or variable refresh rate displays you want.

It’s a super common use case to have a primary monitor with high refresh rate and VRR, plus one or two cheaper monitors that don’t. Xorg doesn’t really support that at all without some really hokey tricks that severely impede usability.

Proper sync support is another one. Yes, you can set tearfree in X but the implementation is crap. You’ll still get tearing in a lot of programs and at least in my experience, it introduces a pretty significant and perceptible input lag, far more than needed to eliminate tearing.

SomethingBurger,

It’s a super common use case to have a primary monitor with high refresh rate and VRR, plus one or two cheaper monitors that don’t. Xorg doesn’t really support that at all without some really hokey tricks that severely impede usability.

I wish Wayland shills would stop spreading this lie. It literally just works. In fact, I’m doing it now on my laptop with a 144Hz 1080p monitor, and an external 60Hz 1440p monitor connected with Thunderbolt, with a dual-GPU setup (iGPU + nVidia, which Wayland doesn’t properly support, yet this is nVidia’s fault somehow even though Wayland compositors run entirely in user space, without interacting with the driver directly).

skulkingaround, (edited )

With VRR? Xorg definitely did not support this as of a year or so ago without running a separate xorg screen for each monitor which prevents you from doing stuff like moving windows between your displays.

Mixed refresh rates worked okay-ish but VRR definitely did not work well in multi monitor setups.

ExLisper,

That’s why it doesn’t make sense arguing about it with Wayland fans. They always find this one obscure feature that X is missing and then claim it’s absolutely essential for everyone to have it. Most people have just one monitor, two equal/similar monitors, a handheld device with one screen or (and that’s the vast majority) simply don’t give a fuck that one of their monitors is working on a lower refresh rate. I’m glad Wayland finally found some traction with gamers obsessed with those things and is being adopted but the constant BS about everyone needing it is getting boring.

skulkingaround,

Mixed VRR is not an obscure feature for one. Most of my friends with gaming rigs have a primary monitor with VRR and use their old fixed rate monitors as secondary displays. Does it make a massive difference to run fixed refresh rate? No but it is noticeable and nice to have. Windows can do it and I paid for the hardware. Without parity on this kind of stuff, Linux is a hard sell to the people who do care about it.

Does it matter to Joe Schmoe? Probably not, but Joe Schmoe probably doesn’t care about Linux to begin with. You have to go for the tech enthusiasts first before you can get it to the masses.

ExLisper, (edited )

1.6% of gamers use Linux. 25% of developers use Linux. Typical tech enthusiast is not gamer. Just because in your bubble people use VRR doesn’t mean it’s important to majority of users. Most Linux users don’t care.

skulkingaround,

1.6% of gamers is still millions of people. Entire industries exist on the back of much smaller customer bases than that. Might as well say we should stop caring about desktop linux completely since the server market dwarfs it.

ExLisper,

I’m not saying we should just ignore it. I’m saying that it took the time it took (a decade) for Wayland to become a thing because most people don’t need it. Some people do and it’s not getting traction but most people can still safely ignore it.

unknowing8343,

Here’s the sad truth that Wayland haters hate: Wayland is way more performant and streamlined. X11 is an overly patched mess.

Everytime I had to install a distro, EVERYTIME I had to do some textfile hacking to avoid screen tearing with X11. Turns out in Wayland that is a virtually impossible bug.

Forget about making touchscreens work properly in X11, specially with a secondary screen.

I also remember all the weird bugs that appear in X11 when you have 2 screens with different scaling. No issue at all with Wayland.

Pretty basic stuff in any modern setup.

Wayland performs perfectly on platforms like KDE Plasma or Gnome. I miss no feature. It just requires that some propietary apps realise its potential. And that is what is already happening and will happen throughout 2024.

Moobythegoldensock,

It’s great on newer hardware, specially phones and tablets. For your 5 year old laptop, it likely is about the same as X11.

Chobbes,

What does it do on new hardware? Not a lot of people are running normal desktop Linux on phones / tablets, are they? Which, totally cool if it works better on those things… but I guess I’m just surprised by how much hype there is for Wayland when X just works for me and would presumably just work for most people’s use cases. Like… who are all of these people that are emotionally invested in display servers, and what am I missing?

I mean, 20 years ago or whatever there was always the pain of black screens and X configs… but it just kind of works now in my experience?

Moobythegoldensock,

For example, Pinetab 2 was developed and tested with Wayland and is more stable on it. Plus way better touchscreen support.

Z3k3, in Hey, have you ever heard of Pop!_OS?

I’ll be honest at this point in my life anthing that pops up it gets a 1 simply for annoying me.

I’m never randomly recommending anything unless asked and if I do when asked specifically about it the app owners sure as shit don’t need to know about it

lobut,

It’s annoying when I start some software to get something done and it’s asking me to do a survey. I’m in the middle of something! What’s wrong with you?!

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

The survey is administered by a cat.

Meron35,

Would you like to rate our app?

❌Not now ❌Yes ✅Not ever

Z3k3,

I think it’s the fact that 3rd box rarely exists that has gotten me this way

TxzK,

The fact that these popups exists in the first place makes me angry

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