LeFantome

There is this really strange perception amongst Wayland critics that it had low market share and nobody was using it.

The majority of Linux desktop users are on Wayland and we still have people posting that nobody is using it or even that it “doesn’t work”.

Wayland switched to the default in places where it was already popular and is becoming required in places where few are switching away from the default.

I fully agree with you. I have converted a few “regular user” Windows desktops to LMDE in recent months. They are all quite happy and the “tech support” required has been almost zero.

The OP made “Wayland first” a criteria which disqualifies LMDE as it will default to X11 for perhaps another year.

While I agree with their Wayland comments, I think LMDE (and Mint in general) are great new user distros. Both offer “comfortable” UX for Windows users. A new user probably does not care about Wayland vs X11. Mint has made it clear that the future is Wayland and may even go Wayland by default in 2026 and they will auto migrate users when they do. They are just being conservative in terms of declaring it ready. Is that a bad thing?

I have a box that uses XFCE on Wayland via Labwc. I would not recommend it for a new user. XFCE is only 100% when in x11 at this point. Probably one more release and they will be ready for regular users to go Wayland.

I am a massive Wayland fan by the way and would normally say go Wayland all the way. But if you want to run XFCE or Cinnamon, Xorg is still the way to go (for now).

To keep it simple, I will agree with most of your post. But two things I think are misleading enough to be inaccurate.

It is incorrect to say that “PopOS is not Wayland first”. COSMIC (the PopOS DE) is Wayland only and is shipping on System76 laptops already. It comes out of beta for the rest of us on December 11th. PopOS is “the most” Wayland desktop at this point. I also disagree with your LTS comments as it all relates to the COSMIC transition (completed) which is totally irrelevant for new users at this point. PopOS has an LTS release next month and will follow the Ubuntu LTS schedule after that. COSMIC is a great option for new users and a bit less complex than KDE. So, maybe even the best option.

The other one is recommending a Debian desktop if you do not want people to switch away. Most people are going to find the aging packages on Debian a problem for desktop use. Plasma 6 on Wayland has already improved quite a bit from the version shipping in Debian 13 and the difference will be significant a year from now. At least that is my experience.

An acceptable Debian desktop might be LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition). It is still X11 first for another year though. So, by your criteria, Debian is a poor recommendation.

Disclosure: I use Debian sometimes. I do not use PopOS. I like Cinnamon, Plasma, and COSMIC.

Change Canada to what?

Until X11 has all the features that Wayland has, X11 people should stop bragging about it.

You are the one preaching and yelling.

Stay on X if you want. As you say, that is the freedom Open Source provides. I use ancient hardware. To each their own. If I was still using XFCE, I would still be using X myself*.

But if you are going to voluntarily stay behind, stop complaining that the bus left without you.

Wayland users are in the majority. By the time Mint (Cinnamon) flips to Wayland (2026?) and GTK5 is released (2028?) it will be over 90%. Almost all GNOME and Plasma users are Wayland now and that must be 60% already (without even counting Hyprland, Sway, COSMIC, or Niri).

We already have Wayland only distros (eg. RHEL10). GNOME will not even be the first Wayland only DE (COSMIC). The ship has sailed.

• I have one box that uses XFCE on Wayland but if I wanted to use XFCE as my main desktop, I would probably use X. My daily drivers are Niri and Plasma Wayland.

It is pretty hard to improve if you are not allowed to change anything.

Yes, the design of Wayland means that some of the techniques that work on X will not work on Wayland (on purpose). So yes, some apps have to be adapted to use the techniques that do work on Wayland. And no, changing Wayland to support the old ways is not the answer (because they were changed on purpose).

Wayland has been criticized for taking away previous capabilities before providing new ways to do things. That is a fair critique, though somewhat par for the course when replacing old tech. But at this point, almost everything necessary is possible and Wayland users are in the majority (the massive majority soon).

At this point, it really is the apps developers responsibility to support Wayland properly. I mean, they do not have to of course but that means their app will be broken for 80% of Linux users on two years (and more than half today).

Hilarious. With confidence, I will let people read both our posts and draw their own conclusions.

“Putting words in my mouth. I didn't say monopolies are illegal, you just made that up to be snarky.”

The person you responded to said that a majority preferring one option out of many was not monopolistic behaviour. Your “snarky” answer was “you’re wrong”. (Spoiler: he wasn’t). That you want to go from that to whining about me is cute.

For the benefit of any thinking people reading this far, antitrust laws make the abusive application of market power an illegal behaviour. They do not outlaw market success. Being unpopular with @entwine is not illegal either.

If you are going to invoke “antitrust laws” to whip out “you’re wrong”, you should make sure you know what you are talking about.

First, let’s assume we are taking about the USA to make this manageable.

Let’s start with a baseline: monopolies are not illegal. Let’s say that again: monopolies are not illegal. If that is your point, “you’re wrong”.

There are many legal monopolies. The government even runs or “licenses” some of them. The US postal service comes to mind.

Second, let’s define monopoly. The word literally means “single seller”. It is only accurate to use it when consumers only have a single choice or where their choices are so constrained that (as a grouo) they effectively have only one viable choice.

Legally, a monopoly is not really an expression of market share but of market power. When we are effectively forced to buy from “one seller”, there is an illegal monopoly.

So, before go further, let’s acknowledge that Valve has competition. Consumers are not “forced” to buy from Valve. They “choose” to buy from Valve as a “preference”. Very, very different.

Now to antitrust laws. Antitrust means anticompetitive practice. This is what the law actually cares about. These laws are intended to prevent “abuse of power” that protects a monopoly from completion. That is what makes a monopoly (legal by default) an “illegal monopoly”.

In fact, the law does not define “monopoly” at all but rather “monopolization”. Monopolization exists when an entity acts to ensure that there are no viable substitutes available that the consumer can choose instead.

If you want to invoke “antitrust laws”, you have to expose the anticompetitive practice and illegal “monopolization” activity. You have not done that. The fact that Valve is winning in the market is not enough for you to dismiss everybody else as wrong.

I am “pretty sure” that the “pretty sure” guy is correct. What does that make you?

Market dominance is a bad thing. No question.

That said, there is a very big difference between a company illegally creating or protecting a monopoly and a company naturally dominating an industry through consumer preference.

I do not use Chrome because I agrees with your thoughts on market dominance. And, despite recent legal opinions, Google does abuse their position somewhat with search deals and the like. But, at its heart, the issue is that the vast majority of people prefer Chrome and choose it for that reason.

If consumers create (and maintain) a monopoly through preference, it is not up to the government to fix it. There are many viable browser choices that are all able to effectively get to market. People choose Chrome. I do not like it but I do not blame Google for making a browser people like.

Steam is in much the same boat. As a consumer, I have many choices. Most consumers choose Valve. Again, I cannot really be mad at them for being better.

Sometimes, it is up to us.

They are not saying you cannot list elsewhere. They are just saying they have to get your best price.

If Walmart says you can only sell pickles on their shelves if you sell them pickles at your best price, is that anti-competitive?