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What are some things X11 can do that Wayland still can't? (piefed.zip)

submitted 2 days ago by mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip to c/linux@programming.dev

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The biggest thing I can think of is that X11 is more flexible when it comes to specifying custom resolutions; which some people use to output 240p on CRT TVs for emulation. AFAIK, there is currently no real equivalent for xrandr on any Wayland compositor.

I've also noticed that Grsync's password prompt is broken on Wayland. Thankfully, it has a feature that lets you preview the command it's about to run, so that you can copy and paste it into a terminal.

Being a KDE user on EndeavourOS, I use Wayland everyday. I switched over a few years ago for Waydroid, but now X11 isn't even an option for me with the current release of KDE.

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[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Users do have choice, X11 still exists, there’s lots of distros to choose from, but Wayland is the culmination of 40 years of learnings from the X11 project.

Linux hosts with desktop managers/window managers were loved by security testers and threat actors for how darn easy it was to get spyware running - logging all keystrokes, recording the whole screen, etc. X11 gave all apps the keys to the kingdom regardless of security policy.

Wayland is vastly more secure. Sure, there’s work to be done to build out a few edge cases - they’re known and have been in discussion for years at this point - it just takes time.

X11 had 40 years, Wayland had only had 18. With most mainstream distros switching display server, we should have the remaining sticking points ironed out in the next couple of years.

[–] mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Users do have choice, X11 still exists

Not if you want to use KDE on Arch or derivatives.

It is nice that Wayland is more secure, and that's one of the reasons I started using it before my DE started mandating it. But, it'd be nice if I could keep most of that security, while having the option to enable certain things that are disabled for security by default where I need them.

Going back to X11 and its total lack of security isn't an ideal option, and I can't even use my preferred DE with it on my preferred distro.

[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Not if you want to use KDE on Arch or derivatives.

SonicDE is in the AUR. For people who want continued X11 support for KDE, it looks like this is the project to follow (and vote on in the AUR to promote it to the main packages repos).

[–] mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 1 points 11 hours ago

While I don't plan on going back to X11 anytime soon on my main system, I think I'll vote for this anyway. People have valid reasons for continuing to use X11, and I'm sick of KDE's "father knows best" attitude.