What’s the difference for a real user between using X11 or Wayland nowdays? I haven’t found anything useful on the internet, so I’m asking you. Internet articles on the topic (and about WMs too) seem to be advertising slop since they explain anything but the real things. Also, if anyone used the XLibre fork, I would love to hear about your experience with it.
I’m a bit surprised you didn’t find much searching the web, because this is one of the most hot topics in Linux and everyone has an opinion and discussions are endless.
I use Wayland for years by now and it improved vastly during that time. One of the advantages over X11 I appreciate is the better handling of multiple monitors, with different resolution, refreshrate and VRR in effect. This was simply not possible in X11 in this form. I like its more secure by design, in relation to keyboard input. X11 can read all keyboard input by any application at any time. Wayland works different here, but for the time being I enabled X11 compatibility for this in KDE, until a all applications support Wayland fully.
Think twice before abandoning X11. Wayland breaks everything! is more of an anti Wayland posting, but its good to have a view from all angles. So I post it here.
Have in mind that Wayland improved in recent years drastically. Searching the web is either full of Ai nonsense or old content about the old state of Wayland. Also it depends which desktop environment you are using, because some are better at Wayland than others; notably KDE is on the front regarding Wayland. So even if some Wayland features are already developed, does not mean that all desktop environments supports them already.
it’s 2026. OP probably only found useless AI slop articles after a couple searches before getting discouraged and asking here
You can’t imagine how sad your comment makes me feel.
I realized this later in my reply too and answered that to myself. Should have read it in full before pressing the reply button, as my thoughts changed a bit during a research phase. I realized its Ai bullshit all over the place when doing research to give links.
Jesus, there’s so much FUD in that gist. A lot of information out of date and emotional tone to the brim. Makes you wonder who’s putting that much time and effort to support an outdated system like x11 and what they gain from that.
The reality is that the main desktop managers, and by extension the most popular distros are abandoning x11, so that’s just a silly hill to die on.
I like how you slightly poison the well there ("more of an anti Wayland posting) rather than pointing out that Wayland has very real problems even after >10 years of development.
You accuse me of poison? What nonsense is this? The author is anti Wayland and the entire post is about reasoning why you should not use Wayland. This is anti Wayland, not my opinion, no poisoning, nothing. I don’t agree with that person but still included it here, so we can see others perspectives too. I did not include any opinion or judge of me about that article, so nobody is poisoned by my opinion before reading it.
Why don’t you do that? As you clearly know more than me.
The authors’ point of view does not matter. You’ve poisoned the well by presenting the data collected as potentially “tainted” by a bias that, even if true, does not change the data presented.
So yes - clearly and very obviously poisoning the well. Textbook really.
The link you provided actually did that. But they are “anti-wayland”…
Edit: and I’ll push back hard on the “anti-wayland” language as well. This is propaganda-style speech. People can “not like things” and disagree. But labeling somebody “anti-x” diminishes their opinions and ideas.
Wayland breaks everything is right in the title. Did you even look into the link before you accuse ME of propaganda? I did not poison the well and left my opinion out. The article IS anti Wayland, and that is not my opinion and does not reflect my opinion. You should stop right there.
Edit:
But you expect ME to do it, when I ask you to do the same?
You’re just anti-X11.
You just attack me personally the whole time with wrong accusations, instead bringing arguments for or against Wayland and X11.
Edit: You call me doing propaganda, you call me poisoning the opinions of others, you call me anti X11. Just because I call the article Anti Wayland. That’s it, that is your basis. Even though I provided that link to have a different view in the mix our discussions too. I ask you, would you not consider the article I linked being Anti Wayland? Strange because it ONLY speaks about its problems (some not even true anymore), but not about its strengths. Also you call me anti-X11 (to me personally), but you say its propaganda speech if I say Anti Wayland (about the article).
I very clearly attacked your argument (not you) as “Poisoning the Well”. Sounds like you’re not familiar with logical fallacies, I highly recommend reading up on them.
Yes - that was me doing to you what you did to the author to show by example. You took that as an insult which is why I say calling the author of that article “anti-wayland” is well-poisoning. You’ve set the tone that the article is not to be taken seriously because of a perceived bias on the part of the author. You “besmirched” their reputation to, by association, attack the argument. This is practically the definition of Poisoning the Well.
Yes - that was the fallacy. The “well-poisoning” if you will. If you simply said “Here is an article that points out some of the problems with Wayland” or something to that effect I wouldn’t have taken any issue.
And X11 does not have problems? Atleast post the issues you still have today(!) with wayland so people can make an informed opinion.
“I like pancakes”
Internet morons: “Oh so you hate waffles and anyone who eats them???”
As an average user, I notice input issues, multi-monitor issues and incorrect animations in Wayland. X11 just works fine. But somehow pointing out problems with Wayland always gets you downvoted because it’s “newer and more secure”.
Multi-monitor issues surprises me, considering multi-monitor support is kind of a sellingpoint for wayland. I don’t think animations being incorrect has anything to do with wayland itself though, it’s up to the individual compositors to handle that.
Specifically, it’s windows opening in the wrong screen. In some full-screen Wine games it means games crash when you move them.
And for animations, if I use touchpad 3-finger touch to switch desktops, the animation is reversed.
That’s not the reason why he got downvotes. In fact, he didn’t even mention what problems Wayland has. Contrary to him, I even posted a huge link with massive listings why Wayland sucks. I also pointed out 2 problems in my comment he is replying to.