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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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40 years later, X Window System is far more relevant than anyone could guess (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago by jaypatelani@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Think about it, do you really want to have X11 going forward the next decades?

If the alternative is a new system that literally does nothing? Sure!

Want to present a menu for windows? Wayland: "lol, do it yourself".

Want to position a window? Wayland: "lol, do it yourself".

Want to remember that a window has a position? Wayland: "lol, do it yourself".

Want to add a global keyboard shortcut? Wayland: "AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

X11 may be old and whatever you want, but it works and it's battle-tested. Wayland can't even launch a full desktop session in my machine, which is even less than the failure Pulseaudio was back in its day and that's saying something. And even if it did somehow launch, I probably would not be able to use anything serious like a media player or multiple workspaces on it.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

If the alternative is a new system that literally does nothing? Sure!

You should read about Wayland. Doing nothing is absolutely wrong.

X11 may be old and whatever you want, but it works and it’s battle-tested.

It doesn't work. There are parts of X11 which are broken. And you reply to a reply where I already listed 2 huge points, which are not even the only ones. And you ignore that X11/Xorg code is totally spaghetti, huge and has lot of old code that not everyone understands, because it has ton of workarounds to make it somehow half baked working on modern times. Nobody wants to work on the code, doing more than basic maintenance. And you should think about the future too, not just about yesterday and today on your personal computer. Think bigger. X11 is just not enough anymore going forward, for the next coming decades.

Wayland can’t even launch a full desktop session in my machine, which is even less than the failure Pulseaudio was back in its day and that’s saying something.

Are you on Gnome? Did you install Wayland on top of a running X11 system and did not configure it correctly? X11 doesn't work on my machine too, because everything is Wayland configured. So whats your point? Off course one is not a 100% replacement. There will be changes, and both are incomplete and are not working 100% perfectly. The point of Wayland is not being 100% compatible with the setup you have for Xorg/X11. There are things like reading from keyboard on any application that is running is a security risk in X11. Wayland prevents that. Which in turn means that some programs (even important ones) won't work. And they are working on a solution.

I switched to Wayland just end of last year and one of the reasons is that X11 does not handle multiple monitors well, if they have different sizes and refreshrates, especially if you add G-Sync and probably FreeSync on the other monitor. X11 is broken at that front.