In my mind, the key difference between X11 and Wayland is that X11 was originally designed for "physical implementation" (0:50), albeit with client applications running on the "server" (mainframe) and the display server running on the client workstation (a "thin client"), whereas Wayland assumes the client applications and display server are on the same hardware (1:07). For most desktop users this allows Wayland to perform better, but it can't handle the case when they are not.
This is an issue that bothers me about Wayland. It boils down to throwing away network transparency. I *like* running remote Xsessions on my LAN. The connection is made secure by running it in an SSH tunnel. Tons of people do this, but the Wayland developers just keep telling everyone that it's so vulnerable (not mentioning SSH), and don't want to do it. I don't hate Wayland, but this is functionality a lot of people care about. I care about it. I would often log into X locally on one VT, then on a different VT I would have a different greeter where I could log into a separate Xsession on my headless server.
It's actually possible to run wayland remotely via tools like waypipe. There is very little stopping wayland from being run remotely, as it primarily just works on a single unix socket. Pretty much all you need is for wl_buffer objects to be transferrable, which, as wayland is completely asynchronous, is completely doable due to there being no timing constraints in the protocol. The buffer objects represent all your window surface data, for example the simplest method is just some shared memory with the data for every screen pixel in the buffer. There are also other ways to do buffers, notably on the GPU to save pcie bandwidth when both the application and compositor are rendering on the GPU, but regardless, it's just a series of bytes which you can send over a network connection.
Thank you very much for your comment! I’m trying to learn the skill of explaining concepts as simply and clearly as possible. It seems it worked this time. :)
For clarity, the server and client are abstract notions that apply to software, not hardware. The server and client may be run on the same machine or multiple machines. This means the server and client can run on the same machine. The server can also run on a remote, or networked, machine and this is the distinction. This means you can run the server (it is always software) on a networked machine and a client (also software) can run on a separate machine, utilizing a network of machines to transmit information between them.
"Both are written in C" This is incorrect as Wayland is a standard, not an implementation like Weston, Mutter, etc. A Wayland compositor can be written in Rust like in Cosmic DE, can be compiled to web assembly like Greenfield, or any other Turing complete language as long as it complies to the standard.
I meant to say “primarily” written in C. The Wayland protocol itself is written in C, but you’re right that Wayland compositors can be written in various languages. For example, Hyprland uses C++, and others use Rust, as you mentioned. Thanks for pointing that out! I should have been more specific about this.
@@juliaifrankThis is not quite right... The Wayland protocol is a standard defined in XML. There is however an open-source reference implementation called libwayland which is written in C.
Great simple video on Wayland an X11, like the charts and explanations, ur very gifted speaker, I really enjoyed ur explanations very simple and direct, that's a rarity on utube keep up the great work.
Hi Julia! I like your style and decision to represent the exposed information in the process of revealing it by hand on paper. It triggers a different complex of perception mechanisms, even it looks the same as, for instance, animated version at first glance. Also the used conceptual approach to stick to the simplicity. Keep up the great work!
Hi! Thanks for sharing your opinion. I was looking for a simple way to reinforce what I was trying to explain. From my own experience, I usually understand better if there is some kind of visual that goes along with the explanation to help anchor the ideas. So I decided to give it a try. People seem to like it, which I’m really glad to hear. Your feedback really motivates me to keep creating! 😊
This is great content. Heard so much about Wayland especially via the Linux unplugged podcast, but really have not put my mind to checking it out further.
Thank you so much for your feedback! Believe it or not, I’m making another batch of videos in a similar style. All because of the success of this one and feedback like yours. :)
Given how wayland is supposed to be the new better thing that's supposed to fix all the x11 issues it really isn't thought through enough. Just look at how they abruptly had to pause new feature development to think about accessibility features because they clearly haven't thought about them and the way wayland is designed simply doesn't allow many accessibility features to work at least not in the initial design so they will have to make workarounds. Also adding new features can literally take multiple years because protocols have to be accepted by majority to be accepted. There's literally proposals for super basic desktop features that took 2 years to get accepted. Just a protocol not the implementation. And not to mention it's a protocol so every compositor has to reimplement everything. Yes there are libraries like wlroots but that still doesn't change the fact every compositor is completely independent and has different features and differing protocol versions. So you have one compositor implementing text input v2 but a different one implementing v1 and v3. This is the real situation and it makes things absolute PITA because you're trying to figure out why something doesn't work on one compositor when it works on another just to realize they don't implement the given protocol. So for the time being I'm simply not dealing with wayland. X11 despite it's shortcomings is still the king and will be for a while.
How can I connect with you? Legally blind software dev here who just switched to Linux from macOS. I feel so snubbed by contemporary Linux developers. Accessibility was better in the 90's than today, as at least terminal fonts were reasonable size. Now the v6 kernel supports large console fonts, but they aren't installed by default, so boot screen is terrible. Nothing to do with Wayland, but Wayland has it's own issues, especially not supporting consistent dark theme across all apps (really, it should force GTK apps into the user's theme, not the other way around), and cursor sizes and fonts in Qt apps being way, way too small. Screen readers can't communicate properly (there's a Rust project to build a new screen reader for Linux that I'm hoping to contribute to), and I'm building my own read-on-demand screen reader, because I absolutely must have it to use my computer. No one thinks of these things, then they blame us for bringing up these issues because it gives them headaches. Do they want Linux to be only for hardcore ableist nerds, or do they want mass adoption? I pick the latter. What's good for accessibility is good for all users!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I can definitely feel your frustration, and I completely agree that accessibility must be taken seriously if pushing for mass adoption. Wayland is still a work in progress in many aspects, and the only way to push for improvement is by speaking up, just as you’ve done. If you’d like to connect further, feel free to reach out through the contact page on my blog or on Instagram. The links are in my TH-cam page description and also in each of the video’s descriptions.
Agree this has to be thought before, but they started with the basics. Wayland is thought from the ground up to be easy expandable. We are not there, but the path is easier than it was on X11 so I think it will not take long to fix this issues and even make them better. Even if X11 is not the default, will not be removed from the distributions until this is fixed.
3:30 Is it possible that you're mixing up display managers (xdm, gdm, lightdm, sddm etc.) with window managers (kwin, compiz, fluxbox)? There's also desktop environments (Gnome, KDE, lxde, Enlightenment etc.). Of all those categories, some already work under Wayland or Xwayland. Some don't. Cheers!
Thank you for leaving a comment! As for the light diffuser, I’ll think of something. Is it the light reflection in my glasses that is bothersome or something else? I just want to understand how to improve my videos. Thanks!
There is this translucid paper used for cooking (cant remember the name) that years ago can be used un front of light src since it tolerate high temps, is just a simple craft. Is white and come un rollos (like aluminium ones).
I always wonder how software that's been around since the 80's (and thus ran well enough on 80s hardware) could be replaced or optimized in such a way that it would have a significant impact on modern hardware.
I’m researching this topic right now and trying to understand how/why is Wayland better suited for the modern hardware. I am planning to make a video about it very soon. Thanks for leaving this comment! It just confirms that some people are thinking about it too.
While I loved the technical content, I especially appreciated the tone, the clarity, and the pace of the video. Thank you for your effort in educating me.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the video and found it helpful. Your feedback means a lot and motivates me to keep creating more content. Thanks for watching!
That was well explained!... If Wayland is the future and it eliminates the need for a separate window manager for a display server, does that mean it will eventually make all those window managers like Xfwm, KWin, IceWM, Compiz etc obsolete?.... Need more videos like these! Thanks!
Thanks for the compliment! Wayland is designed to be the future of display servers. It can and will certainly impact the use of traditional window managers like Xfwm, KWin, IceWM, and Compiz, but many of these projects are adapting to work with Wayland too (some window managers are being adapted or rewritten as Wayland compositors (e.g. KWin, Mutter), and XWayland serves as a compatibility layer to allow X11 applications, including window managers, to run on Wayland as a temporary solution). It’s an evolving space, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. I’ll definitely keep making more videos like this. Stay tuned!
@@juliaifrankno, X11 Windows managers DO NOT Run on xwayland On wayland the desktop environment's compositor is responsible for managing and compositing the Windows There are wayland compositors like Hyprland which can provide window tiling features and can do really cool effects and animations and are fully customizable and they it is fully stand alone, you can just run "Hyprland" on a TTY and everything starts up
This was very informative and clear. Thank you for providing such quality content. PS: BTW this is just a tangent but you look really similar to my college professor
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad you found the content helpful. And that’s funny about the college professor-I’ve never heard of having a doppelgänger before :-) What is she teaching?
The algo brought me here and I liked it! I like your first-principles style of teaching (not surprised you’re a physics student), and appreciate the straightforward delivery without dumb memes and annoying background music. PS: usually it’s physics PhDs moving to finance, not vice versa, so you have done that backwards too! 😄
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the video and my teaching style. I wanted the content to be the focus, hence no music etc. So I’m happy to hear you appreciated that decision. I hadn’t realized the finance-to-physics path was backwards until you mentioned it, though I was aware that it is typically the other way around. 😁 Thanks for your thoughtful comment! 😊
@@juliaifrank Hi, you make a great job. I have a problem on my linux mintin the morning I remove things from my start application and now I don't have dark mode and all what is displayed is wrong. I thing that have todo with the x11 but I can't fixed. I restart the lightdm service but nothing. Have you any idea? Sorry for disturbing you.
I think what often confuses users is that the X Windows system appears to throw the concept of client and server on its head. A server manages a resource, such as a printer. A client is a user, who through a the use of a software package, such as a word processor, wishes to use that resource. In the 1970s one would use a dumb terminal to run programs on a mainframe or mini computer, which manages the resources of CPU, memory and storage, ie a server. With a graphical workstation the resource, in this case the display/keyboard/mouse, is now local, and with X the client, a GUI software such as a word processor, could be on a remote machine. As you can now see, the concept of which is client, and which is server, depends on context, ie which resource you are talking about.
Best comment ever in this context, sooooo many books and teachers does not deep unterstand or enforce to note this logical reverse approach, this was long ago my first struggle with X. So many thanks for the clarification for next generation of programmers😊😊
Thank you for clarifying what is x11 and Wayland and what does both programs do. I might came across some of those hiccups you mentioned. I tested Fedora 40 KDE and Manjaro KDE last month and had some trouble with my dual monitor setup and the painting application Krita. Krita became laggy and crush several times, which wasn't the case before with x11. But that could be a resolved with a patch or update of KRITA. The monitor situation is worse. In general both displays are mislabeled and in consequence of that, I had to mark the secondary monitor as primary to get the task bar on the correct monitor. After a reboot, the settings are gone and had to set back manually. Under x11 my Wacom Tablet works just fine and I just had to install a program for the GUI. It seems that this option is not in place under Wayland. I read about plans to create such a GUI, but that doesn't help right now. I know that you aren't responsible for this, I just wanted to point it out to your audience. Would be interesting to know if this is only a me-problem or does this issues affecting more people.
Wayland must support ssh protocol enabling to use application GUI of remote computer ( the way X supports for ssh -X ) ... and it's just one of the most basic features list missing in wayland The apprehension for Wayland is for being half baked and being pushed down the throat with arrogance ! But I highly appreciate your video which effectively explained basic difference in behind the scene operation of display manager ... my 💯 for your effort
Thanks for sharing! Comments like yours are important for pushing improvements. I try to stay neutral when talking about Linux. I usually love trying new stuff. But I get that sometimes people can get overly excited about new tech and miss out on the issues. It’s not always the Wayland team’s fault, I believe , but users’ overly excited take on the new stuff. Feedback like yours is needed to making things better. Hopefully, they’ll take it seriously and make the necessary changes.
Wayland is fundamentally not network transparent, while network transparency was the cornerstone of X11. In that sense Wayland is significant step backwards
Its funny how some people saying that wayland is an outsider to the linux ecosystem and that thr x11 devs hate it Even tho x11 devs are the ones making wayland
I think Flatpaks are pretty safe since they run in a sandboxed environment. This basically means each app is isolated from the rest of the system, so it can’t mess with files or settings. Even if something goes wrong with the app, the damage is contained within its own little bubble. As for Flatpak vs. AUR, Flatpak works on a bunch of different Linux distros, making it pretty versatile. AUR is meant for Arch Linux and is all about user-contributed packages.
@@juliaifrankalso AUR is unsafe because anyone can submit build scripts including malicious ones that can Run as Root, its highly recommended to check the PKGBUILD file of the package before running it
Flatpaks are great for apps like Discord, Spotify, etc, that don’t need direct system integration, but for things like some programming IDEs and applications like Steam the permissions can be kind of funky if you have the Flatpak. Apps like Flatseal can help with that, giving you the option to change permissions of every Flatpak application you have installed individually.
Thanks, I installed Mint on a different drive today and hope to be able fully migrate from Windows at the latest when support for W10 ends next year (even though Mint doesn't use Wayland yet)
I didn’t mention Nvidia specifically in this video. But if it helps to answer your question, Wayland is a display server protocol, and Nvidia is a major graphics card manufacturer. Historically, Nvidia’s proprietary drivers had some issues with Wayland support, but generally speaking, the compatibility between Nvidia drivers and Wayland has been improving. Sometimes, users might switch to X11 if they encounter specific issues or need certain features not yet fully supported on Wayland with Nvidia.
I've been with ubuntu exclusively since version 20 and have seen Wayland mentioned in tons of release notes off and on, scattered everywhere... and I'm a bit afraid (or ashamed) to admit that I never knew exactly what the heck it does, until now. Thank you!
No need to be ashamed at all! I was in the same boat for quite a while until I finally took the time to dig into it. Once I felt I had a clear and simple high-level understanding of Wayland ( without concerning myself with technical details ), I decided to turn that into a video. I’ve learned from the feedback that I missed/misunderstood some finer details, but I hope I was able to convey the general idea. Thanks so much for commenting, and I’m happy the video helped!
Wayland definitely has a lot of potential and improvements over X11. It’s going to be interesting to see how things develop. For now, it’s a bit of a showdown between the two display servers! 😊
Wayland has been increasingly adopted by major Linux distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and openSUSE. While it’s not yet universal, it’s steadily becoming the default in more systems.
I switched to Wayland a few months ago and it is Fully Ready and better than X11. For some reason, when I use my External monitor even with the Internal Monitor disabled, its Not Perfect. If I play a game it is great, but the desktop and scrolling performance is strange, I get around 130 fps (out of my 240fps target), but with the Internal display only it stays locked to 165 fps and it is astonishingly smooth. This really is a Minor Nitpick that I'm not even worried about, there is definaley some sort of Driver or Configuration issue going on though.
Generally I would suggest Debian when starting out because of the amount of support. Or something Ubuntu based like Kubuntu or Mint for similar reasons. Arch is great if you are experienced in Linux or are a Windows power user willing to learn via trial by fire, lol.
Thanks for the explanation. I don't know if Wayland is so nice. Lots of Distros provide rather X11 instead of Wayland and I read there are problems with Wayland. Maybe one likes an old well built workhorse better than the newest shiny car made out of plastic and which falls apart after 2 years. I installed yesterday KDE neon on my Dell SFF desktop (i3-9100, 24 GB RAM 2400 MT/s) and that came preinstalled with Wayland. I had nothing but trouble with crashing an thing called plasmashell. On Wayland I got about 50 plasmashell crashes. Annoying but it did not hinder the use of any App. I run Tuxedo OS on 3 other systems and no problem whatsoever. Tuxedo not even considers Wayland but is preinstalled with X11. Not a single problem now in 3 months on no system. So I figured this is not normal plasmashell crashes that often on KDE neon and I then restarted it with X11. Since X11 is standard now on KDE neon (all up to date), I had not a single crash of anything not even once plasmashell. So Wayland most likely is causing issues on Distros. Tuxedo allways tests all updates before releasing them and I realised they use allways X11 and an older version of Ubuntu kernel. I believe the KDE Plasma versions are the same between my KDE neon system and my other Tuxedo systems. KDE neon seems to provide the latest and greatest from Plasma and Ubuntu alike and Tuxedo is more conservative and provides a bit older versions in order to assure system stability and functionality. But now with X11 I had not a single hic up with my KDE neon system.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It’s true that Wayland can still have some issues depending on the distro and hardware, and X11 might be a better fit in certain cases. Hopefully, as Wayland matures, these problems will become less common. Appreciate the insight!
pretty new to linux but so far most packages ive installed when given a choice usually have compatability issues with wayland, plus LXDE still uses X11 and so does everything else, im x11 for now simply because im tired of everything in linux taking 15 steps as is lol
Hey! From my understanding, yes, Zorin OS 17 uses Wayland by default, but you can still switch to Xorg if needed. Hope that helps! Here is the link to the forum about this. forum.zorin.com/t/the-trouble-with-wayland/36189
I was once very new to Linux too. Back then ( 3 years ago ) it seemed so mysterious and complicated. I am also still learning about Linux a lot ( and trying to share in a simple way what I learned), but I’m no longer as confused as before ;)
Why not improving X11 instead of building a complete different server. protocol, etc? So far my wayland experience was a nightmare and I had to go back to X11. "New" doesn't necessarilly mean "better"!
Because x11 is fucking older then the average politician, has the craziest spaghetti code, nobody fucking wants to even touch it (a wrong move and it will crumble), it lacks tons of features (heck multiple screen cannot have different refresh rates), it has tons of vulnerability which are unfixable (example: you can switch tty, kill the lockscreen, and just access the computer. Not the best thing. Wayland has a protocol where if you do that, you get a red screen of death, thus protecting your privacy) In few words, it's a one big fucking pile of garbage, which the fact it works alone is pure black magic
FYI = i learnt the hard way , THIS IS STRICKLY ENGLISH FOR THE MOMENT, FOR TESTING = READ INSTRUCTIONS/GUIDANCE. 1 st. I had previous test done on Raspberry Pi4 /400 with no problems.
Thanks for sharing. However, I have no control over when and if ads show up my videos. My channel is currently not monetized yet. Once it is, I’ll have more control over the ads settings. So this situation can be prevented.
In my mind, the key difference between X11 and Wayland is that X11 was originally designed for "physical implementation" (0:50), albeit with client applications running on the "server" (mainframe) and the display server running on the client workstation (a "thin client"), whereas Wayland assumes the client applications and display server are on the same hardware (1:07).
For most desktop users this allows Wayland to perform better, but it can't handle the case when they are not.
This is an issue that bothers me about Wayland. It boils down to throwing away network transparency. I *like* running remote Xsessions on my LAN. The connection is made secure by running it in an SSH tunnel. Tons of people do this, but the Wayland developers just keep telling everyone that it's so vulnerable (not mentioning SSH), and don't want to do it. I don't hate Wayland, but this is functionality a lot of people care about. I care about it. I would often log into X locally on one VT, then on a different VT I would have a different greeter where I could log into a separate Xsession on my headless server.
It's actually possible to run wayland remotely via tools like waypipe. There is very little stopping wayland from being run remotely, as it primarily just works on a single unix socket. Pretty much all you need is for wl_buffer objects to be transferrable, which, as wayland is completely asynchronous, is completely doable due to there being no timing constraints in the protocol. The buffer objects represent all your window surface data, for example the simplest method is just some shared memory with the data for every screen pixel in the buffer. There are also other ways to do buffers, notably on the GPU to save pcie bandwidth when both the application and compositor are rendering on the GPU, but regardless, it's just a series of bytes which you can send over a network connection.
I've started daily driving linux starting this year and haven't heard a more simple and clear explanation of how display servers work!
Thank you very much for your comment! I’m trying to learn the skill of explaining concepts as simply and clearly as possible. It seems it worked this time. :)
i was searching for years for someone that can explain these technical terms in a non technical way
thanks you so much
You are welcome!
Just a comment to pop this video up in the Recommended section :]
Thank you so much! That’s very kind of you;)
It worked
it's freaking worked 😂
@lazyalpaca7 😁
It definitely worked 😄 and I am happy it worked, because this was interesting video.
This is the best and simplest explanation of wayland I have come across. Thanks Julia.
Thank you so much! I’m really glad you found it helpful.
Very informative and clear presentation. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it.
Commenting so I can see more of this on my feed!
Appreciate you leaving a comment!;)
I just love how you can run a program on one computer and interact with it on another, or even on your tablet/phone
For clarity, the server and client are abstract notions that apply to software, not hardware. The server and client may be run on the same machine or multiple machines. This means the server and client can run on the same machine. The server can also run on a remote, or networked, machine and this is the distinction. This means you can run the server (it is always software) on a networked machine and a client (also software) can run on a separate machine, utilizing a network of machines to transmit information between them.
Thanks for clarifying this!
"Both are written in C" This is incorrect as Wayland is a standard, not an implementation like Weston, Mutter, etc. A Wayland compositor can be written in Rust like in Cosmic DE, can be compiled to web assembly like Greenfield, or any other Turing complete language as long as it complies to the standard.
I meant to say “primarily” written in C. The Wayland protocol itself is written in C, but you’re right that Wayland compositors can be written in various languages. For example, Hyprland uses C++, and others use Rust, as you mentioned. Thanks for pointing that out! I should have been more specific about this.
@@juliaifrankThis is not quite right... The Wayland protocol is a standard defined in XML. There is however an open-source reference implementation called libwayland which is written in C.
Ok, thanks for pointing that out. I might have missed that one.
Great simple video on Wayland an X11, like the charts and explanations, ur very gifted speaker, I really enjoyed ur explanations very simple and direct, that's a rarity on utube keep up the great work.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad you found the video helpful and clear. Your feedback means a lot!
I stopped by to understand Wayland. I subscribed and became your 1000th subscriber. Bragging rights, for us, both!
So you understand Wayland now and became my 1000th subscriber. Bragging rights, indeed! 😄
@@juliaifrank Yep!
Hi Julia!
I like your style and decision to represent the exposed information in the process of revealing it by hand on paper. It triggers a different complex of perception mechanisms, even it looks the same as, for instance, animated version at first glance. Also the used conceptual approach to stick to the simplicity.
Keep up the great work!
Hi! Thanks for sharing your opinion. I was looking for a simple way to reinforce what I was trying to explain. From my own experience, I usually understand better if there is some kind of visual that goes along with the explanation to help anchor the ideas. So I decided to give it a try. People seem to like it, which I’m really glad to hear. Your feedback really motivates me to keep creating! 😊
I'm pretty new to Linux and this description was very easy to understand. Thanks!
Glad it helped!
Short and clear.
When done!
Thank you for your feedback!
I love how you graphically illustrate your ideas here, thanks a lot!
I’m glad you liked the video. Thank you for the feedback! :)
This is great content. Heard so much about Wayland especially via the Linux unplugged podcast, but really have not put my mind to checking it out further.
Thanks for this content, subscribed
Thank you too!
Great explanation! Very nice breakdown of Wayland. Keep it up!
Thank you!:)
Finally, there is someone who doesn't assume I should know everything . Great explanation!
Thank you very much for leaving the feedback!
Very good explanation, it's the first time I get the difference 😅
Thanks! I’m glad you found it helpful:)
So simple and easy to understand. Julia, you are genius to explain complicated concepts, in an easy way.❤
Many thanks for your kind comment!🙏🏼
Gratefull is found this channel, nice introduction
Thank you so much for your feedback!:)
Thanks for simple explanation
You are welcome!
Good presentation!
Thank you!
awesome content, immediately subscribed ❤️
Thanks for subbing and commenting! Appreciate it.
Thanks for talking "nerdy" to us! I enjoyed your video.
😁 thank so much for the feedback!
@@juliaifrank YW! I'm looking forward to more content in the future.
Brilliantly explained! Good that the video has appeared in my recommended. Maybe consider recording something about systemd and init :)
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Believe it or not, I’m making another batch of videos in a similar style. All because of the success of this one and feedback like yours. :)
Given how wayland is supposed to be the new better thing that's supposed to fix all the x11 issues it really isn't thought through enough. Just look at how they abruptly had to pause new feature development to think about accessibility features because they clearly haven't thought about them and the way wayland is designed simply doesn't allow many accessibility features to work at least not in the initial design so they will have to make workarounds. Also adding new features can literally take multiple years because protocols have to be accepted by majority to be accepted. There's literally proposals for super basic desktop features that took 2 years to get accepted. Just a protocol not the implementation. And not to mention it's a protocol so every compositor has to reimplement everything. Yes there are libraries like wlroots but that still doesn't change the fact every compositor is completely independent and has different features and differing protocol versions. So you have one compositor implementing text input v2 but a different one implementing v1 and v3. This is the real situation and it makes things absolute PITA because you're trying to figure out why something doesn't work on one compositor when it works on another just to realize they don't implement the given protocol. So for the time being I'm simply not dealing with wayland. X11 despite it's shortcomings is still the king and will be for a while.
How can I connect with you? Legally blind software dev here who just switched to Linux from macOS. I feel so snubbed by contemporary Linux developers. Accessibility was better in the 90's than today, as at least terminal fonts were reasonable size. Now the v6 kernel supports large console fonts, but they aren't installed by default, so boot screen is terrible. Nothing to do with Wayland, but Wayland has it's own issues, especially not supporting consistent dark theme across all apps (really, it should force GTK apps into the user's theme, not the other way around), and cursor sizes and fonts in Qt apps being way, way too small. Screen readers can't communicate properly (there's a Rust project to build a new screen reader for Linux that I'm hoping to contribute to), and I'm building my own read-on-demand screen reader, because I absolutely must have it to use my computer. No one thinks of these things, then they blame us for bringing up these issues because it gives them headaches. Do they want Linux to be only for hardcore ableist nerds, or do they want mass adoption? I pick the latter. What's good for accessibility is good for all users!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I can definitely feel your frustration, and I completely agree that accessibility must be taken seriously if pushing for mass adoption. Wayland is still a work in progress in many aspects, and the only way to push for improvement is by speaking up, just as you’ve done.
If you’d like to connect further, feel free to reach out through the contact page on my blog or on Instagram. The links are in my TH-cam page description and also in each of the video’s descriptions.
new? the project is 12 years old....
Agree this has to be thought before, but they started with the basics. Wayland is thought from the ground up to be easy expandable. We are not there, but the path is easier than it was on X11 so I think it will not take long to fix this issues and even make them better.
Even if X11 is not the default, will not be removed from the distributions until this is fixed.
@@yaolet It's new compared to X11, which is 37 years old
3:30 Is it possible that you're mixing up display managers (xdm, gdm, lightdm, sddm etc.) with window managers (kwin, compiz, fluxbox)?
There's also desktop environments (Gnome, KDE, lxde, Enlightenment etc.).
Of all those categories, some already work under Wayland or Xwayland. Some don't. Cheers!
No, she didn't get into display managers at all.
Excellent video! It's makes me happy that content like this exists.
Thanks a lot! I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed it.
Great content! Subscribed.
Thank you very much!:)
Good to have found this, better explanation than others out there
Thank you! I’m glad you found my explanation helpful )
Thanks for explaining Wayland so well.
You’re welcome! I’m glad it helped.:)
short, to the point and easy to understand. Thank you!
Thank you. Glad it helped!
This helped me so much, thank you very much for making this easy to understand!
You’re very welcome. Glad it helped!
Watching this on Wayland (I use Arch btw)
really nice explanation. great timing
Thank you!
I hope more applications support Wayland in the future
Great explanation, more topics would be appreciated ✨
Thank you! I’ll work on more topics very soon. :)
Well presented. Thank you. Tip: Purchase (or make) a light diffuser for your ring light.
Thank you for leaving a comment!
As for the light diffuser, I’ll think of something. Is it the light reflection in my glasses that is bothersome or something else? I just want to understand how to improve my videos. Thanks!
There is this translucid paper used for cooking (cant remember the name) that years ago can be used un front of light src since it tolerate high temps, is just a simple craft. Is white and come un rollos (like aluminium ones).
@@Gurundiaocinac Thanks for the idea!💡
Great vid thx for the explanation. My friend asked me what Wayland was the other day and I struggled for an explanation. Ima send him this video 😎
You’re welcome and thanks for sharing! 😉
I always wonder how software that's been around since the 80's (and thus ran well enough on 80s hardware) could be replaced or optimized in such a way that it would have a significant impact on modern hardware.
I’m researching this topic right now and trying to understand how/why is Wayland better suited for the modern hardware. I am planning to make a video about it very soon. Thanks for leaving this comment! It just confirms that some people are thinking about it too.
Really good and simple explanation
Thank you for your feedback!!
Loved the explanation. ❤
Thank you!😊
Very good explanation, thank you!
Thank you! I’m glad it was helpful.
I'm ur 667th subscriber
👍😀
Great teacher. Thanks a million.
Many thanks for your comment! I’m glad the video was helpful.
While I loved the technical content, I especially appreciated the tone, the clarity, and the pace of the video. Thank you for your effort in educating me.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the video and found it helpful. Your feedback means a lot and motivates me to keep creating more content. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for the video. Its on-point and interesting :)
Thank you for leaving the comment! It helps a lot to know how people feel about the way I try to communicate ideas and explain things.
That was well explained!... If Wayland is the future and it eliminates the need for a separate window manager for a display server, does that mean it will eventually make all those window managers like Xfwm, KWin, IceWM, Compiz etc obsolete?.... Need more videos like these! Thanks!
Thanks for the compliment!
Wayland is designed to be the future of display servers. It can and will certainly impact the use of traditional window managers like Xfwm, KWin, IceWM, and Compiz, but many of these projects are adapting to work with Wayland too (some window managers are being adapted or rewritten as Wayland compositors (e.g. KWin, Mutter), and XWayland serves as a compatibility layer to allow X11 applications, including window managers, to run on Wayland as a temporary solution).
It’s an evolving space, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. I’ll definitely keep making more videos like this. Stay tuned!
@@juliaifrankno, X11 Windows managers DO NOT Run on xwayland
On wayland the desktop environment's compositor is responsible for managing and compositing the Windows
There are wayland compositors like Hyprland which can provide window tiling features and can do really cool effects and animations and are fully customizable and they it is fully stand alone, you can just run "Hyprland" on a TTY and everything starts up
@@coffee-is-powershe never said that x11 wm’s run on xwayland
@@lobotomy-victim No, she said "X11 applications, including window managers to run on wayland" which is completely wrong
@@coffee-is-power it’s not, you can run x11 window manager on wayland
Thank you very much for explaining. Please keep up the good work.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your support. More videos are on the way!
This was very informative and clear.
Thank you for providing such quality content.
PS: BTW this is just a tangent but you look really similar to my college professor
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad you found the content helpful. And that’s funny about the college professor-I’ve never heard of having a doppelgänger before :-) What is she teaching?
Straightforward and informative, kudos! I use Arch btw. 😛
Thank you! :) I use Fedora.
The algo brought me here and I liked it! I like your first-principles style of teaching (not surprised you’re a physics student), and appreciate the straightforward delivery without dumb memes and annoying background music.
PS: usually it’s physics PhDs moving to finance, not vice versa, so you have done that backwards too! 😄
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the video and my teaching style. I wanted the content to be the focus, hence no music etc. So I’m happy to hear you appreciated that decision.
I hadn’t realized the finance-to-physics path was backwards until you mentioned it, though I was aware that it is typically the other way around. 😁
Thanks for your thoughtful comment! 😊
Thanks for this great Video. Thanks for your work
You are very welcome, I’m glad you found it helpful. Thanks for commenting!
@@juliaifrank Hi, you make a great job. I have a problem on my linux mintin the morning I remove things from my start application and now I don't have dark mode and all what is displayed is wrong. I thing that have todo with the x11 but I can't fixed. I restart the lightdm service but nothing. Have you any idea? Sorry for disturbing you.
I came here to learn Wayland and ultimately actually I learned Ubuntu 24.10 for NVIDIA, that is stunning for me. Absolutely what I love to know.
thank you and looking forward to more videos like this hehe
Thank you for leaving the comment! :)
@@juliaifrank you're always welcome
0:19 It's no battle imho. Wayland is a development/transition of X to a newer, more modern and effective solution.
I think what often confuses users is that the X Windows system appears to throw the concept of client and server on its head.
A server manages a resource, such as a printer. A client is a user, who through a the use of a software package, such as a word processor, wishes to use that resource. In the 1970s one would use a dumb terminal to run programs on a mainframe or mini computer, which manages the resources of CPU, memory and storage, ie a server. With a graphical workstation the resource, in this case the display/keyboard/mouse, is now local, and with X the client, a GUI software such as a word processor, could be on a remote machine.
As you can now see, the concept of which is client, and which is server, depends on context, ie which resource you are talking about.
Thanks for this clarification!
Best comment ever in this context, sooooo many books and teachers does not deep unterstand or enforce to note this logical reverse approach, this was long ago my first struggle with X. So many thanks for the clarification for next generation of programmers😊😊
Fantastic video!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it:)
Thank you for clarifying what is x11 and Wayland and what does both programs do.
I might came across some of those hiccups you mentioned.
I tested Fedora 40 KDE and Manjaro KDE last month and had some trouble with my dual monitor setup and the painting application Krita.
Krita became laggy and crush several times, which wasn't the case before with x11.
But that could be a resolved with a patch or update of KRITA.
The monitor situation is worse.
In general both displays are mislabeled and in consequence of that, I had to mark the secondary monitor as primary to get the task bar on the correct monitor.
After a reboot, the settings are gone and had to set back manually.
Under x11 my Wacom Tablet works just fine and I just had to install a program for the GUI.
It seems that this option is not in place under Wayland.
I read about plans to create such a GUI, but that doesn't help right now.
I know that you aren't responsible for this, I just wanted to point it out to your audience.
Would be interesting to know if this is only a me-problem or does this issues affecting more people.
Thank you for sharing your experience in detail! I’m sure some people can relate.
Great explanation, thank you.👍
Thank you for your feedback! Much appreciated! :)
Thank you! That was short and sweet. Perfect! 👍🏻😎
Glad you liked it! :)
Thank you for this.
My pleasure!
Helped me understand, thank you!
You are very welcome! I’m glad it helped.)
Wayland must support ssh protocol enabling to use application GUI of remote computer ( the way X supports for ssh -X ) ... and it's just one of the most basic features list missing in wayland
The apprehension for Wayland is for being half baked and being pushed down the throat with arrogance !
But I highly appreciate your video which effectively explained basic difference in behind the scene operation of display manager ... my 💯 for your effort
Thanks for sharing! Comments like yours are important for pushing improvements. I try to stay neutral when talking about Linux. I usually love trying new stuff. But I get that sometimes people can get overly excited about new tech and miss out on the issues. It’s not always the Wayland team’s fault, I believe , but users’ overly excited take on the new stuff. Feedback like yours is needed to making things better. Hopefully, they’ll take it seriously and make the necessary changes.
Waypipe exists
@croxymoc3254 Thanks for pointing this out!
WayVNC is available and can be run headless.
Wayland is fundamentally not network transparent, while network transparency was the cornerstone of X11. In that sense Wayland is significant step backwards
Its funny how some people saying that wayland is an outsider to the linux ecosystem and that thr x11 devs hate it
Even tho x11 devs are the ones making wayland
My KDE Neon with RTX 4070 ti s refuses to load on wayland 😢
What version of the NVIDIA drivers are you using? I heard the latest version fixes a lot of issues.
What are your views on Flatpaks are they safe
Flatpak vs AUR?!
I think Flatpaks are pretty safe since they run in a sandboxed environment. This basically means each app is isolated from the rest of the system, so it can’t mess with files or settings. Even if something goes wrong with the app, the damage is contained within its own little bubble.
As for Flatpak vs. AUR, Flatpak works on a bunch of different Linux distros, making it pretty versatile. AUR is meant for Arch Linux and is all about user-contributed packages.
@@juliaifrankalso AUR is unsafe because anyone can submit build scripts including malicious ones that can Run as Root, its highly recommended to check the PKGBUILD file of the package before running it
Flatpaks are great for apps like Discord, Spotify, etc, that don’t need direct system integration, but for things like some programming IDEs and applications like Steam the permissions can be kind of funky if you have the Flatpak.
Apps like Flatseal can help with that, giving you the option to change permissions of every Flatpak application you have installed individually.
Thanks for answer!!
But flatpaks which are not maintained by original company itself like VLC flatpak
Are they safe to use?
Thanks, I installed Mint on a different drive today and hope to be able fully migrate from Windows at the latest when support for W10 ends next year (even though Mint doesn't use Wayland yet)
Welcome to the Linux community ;)
You mention Nvidia and wayland, are there times you would need to switch away from one or the other?
I didn’t mention Nvidia specifically in this video. But if it helps to answer your question, Wayland is a display server protocol, and Nvidia is a major graphics card manufacturer. Historically, Nvidia’s proprietary drivers had some issues with Wayland support, but generally speaking, the compatibility between Nvidia drivers and Wayland has been improving. Sometimes, users might switch to X11 if they encounter specific issues or need certain features not yet fully supported on Wayland with Nvidia.
I've been with ubuntu exclusively since version 20 and have seen Wayland mentioned in tons of release notes off and on, scattered everywhere... and I'm a bit afraid (or ashamed) to admit that I never knew exactly what the heck it does, until now. Thank you!
No need to be ashamed at all! I was in the same boat for quite a while until I finally took the time to dig into it. Once I felt I had a clear and simple high-level understanding of Wayland ( without concerning myself with technical details ), I decided to turn that into a video. I’ve learned from the feedback that I missed/misunderstood some finer details, but I hope I was able to convey the general idea. Thanks so much for commenting, and I’m happy the video helped!
@@juliaifrank it definitely helped well enough that you earned that click on the subscribe button! Keep up the great work!
Thank you
Wayland def sounds like the way to go
Wayland definitely has a lot of potential and improvements over X11. It’s going to be interesting to see how things develop. For now, it’s a bit of a showdown between the two display servers! 😊
Excellent.
Thank you!
great video
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback.
How widely has Wayland been adopted?
Wayland has been increasingly adopted by major Linux distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and openSUSE. While it’s not yet universal, it’s steadily becoming the default in more systems.
I switched to Wayland a few months ago and it is Fully Ready and better than X11. For some reason, when I use my External monitor even with the Internal Monitor disabled, its Not Perfect. If I play a game it is great, but the desktop and scrolling performance is strange, I get around 130 fps (out of my 240fps target), but with the Internal display only it stays locked to 165 fps and it is astonishingly smooth. This really is a Minor Nitpick that I'm not even worried about, there is definaley some sort of Driver or Configuration issue going on though.
Thanks for sharing your experience! What distro are you using? I’m curious.
@@juliaifrankFedora 40 kde
@@kyledupont7711 I use the same distro too 🙂
Can you suggest debian vs arch which to use?!
Generally I would suggest Debian when starting out because of the amount of support. Or something Ubuntu based like Kubuntu or Mint for similar reasons. Arch is great if you are experienced in Linux or are a Windows power user willing to learn via trial by fire, lol.
Fedora is also a good alternative.
Stable enough while almost bleeding edge (packages are 1 or 2 weeks old)
It's the best from debian and arch
Redhat controversies ahead 🥴
What are your views on thorium browser?
I’ve never used it before, tbh.
Appreciated just keep uploading new content 😊
@@JasmanjotSingh404 will do! Working on three other Linux videos right now;)
Interesting!!
Thanks for the explanation.
I don't know if Wayland is so nice. Lots of Distros provide rather X11 instead of Wayland and I read there are problems with Wayland. Maybe one likes an old well built workhorse better than the newest shiny car made out of plastic and which falls apart after 2 years.
I installed yesterday KDE neon on my Dell SFF desktop (i3-9100, 24 GB RAM 2400 MT/s) and that came preinstalled with Wayland. I had nothing but trouble with crashing an thing called plasmashell. On Wayland I got about 50 plasmashell crashes. Annoying but it did not hinder the use of any App.
I run Tuxedo OS on 3 other systems and no problem whatsoever. Tuxedo not even considers Wayland but is preinstalled with X11. Not a single problem now in 3 months on no system.
So I figured this is not normal plasmashell crashes that often on KDE neon and I then restarted it with X11. Since X11 is standard now on KDE neon (all up to date), I had not a single crash of anything not even once plasmashell.
So Wayland most likely is causing issues on Distros.
Tuxedo allways tests all updates before releasing them and I realised they use allways X11 and an older version of Ubuntu kernel. I believe the KDE Plasma versions are the same between my KDE neon system and my other Tuxedo systems. KDE neon seems to provide the latest and greatest from Plasma and Ubuntu alike and Tuxedo is more conservative and provides a bit older versions in order to assure system stability and functionality. But now with X11 I had not a single hic up with my KDE neon system.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It’s true that Wayland can still have some issues depending on the distro and hardware, and X11 might be a better fit in certain cases. Hopefully, as Wayland matures, these problems will become less common. Appreciate the insight!
pretty new to linux but so far most packages ive installed when given a choice usually have compatability issues with wayland, plus LXDE still uses X11 and so does everything else, im x11 for now simply because im tired of everything in linux taking 15 steps as is lol
Does anyone know if Zorin OS version 17 uses Wayland?
Hey! From my understanding, yes, Zorin OS 17 uses Wayland by default, but you can still switch to Xorg if needed. Hope that helps! Here is the link to the forum about this.
forum.zorin.com/t/the-trouble-with-wayland/36189
Thank you so much, I am about to switch from Windows to Linux for the first time, and every information about the linux world will be helpfull😊
I was once very new to Linux too. Back then ( 3 years ago ) it seemed so mysterious and complicated. I am also still learning about Linux a lot ( and trying to share in a simple way what I learned), but I’m no longer as confused as before ;)
Beauty with brain 😊❤
Thank you for the compliment ☺️
Why not improving X11 instead of building a complete different server. protocol, etc? So far my wayland experience was a nightmare and I had to go back to X11. "New" doesn't necessarilly mean "better"!
Because most of the maintainers are volunteers. And a very old code like xorg is very hard to modernize
All the devs of x11 left to work on wayland, but they still accept merge requests yet no one actually sends them any code
The explanation I received was that in order to modernize X you'd need to change so much that it's easier to just start over with a new project.
X protocol was improved a lot throught decades, but at this point it is really hard to maintain and improve the current X11 code
Because x11 is fucking older then the average politician, has the craziest spaghetti code, nobody fucking wants to even touch it (a wrong move and it will crumble), it lacks tons of features (heck multiple screen cannot have different refresh rates), it has tons of vulnerability which are unfixable (example: you can switch tty, kill the lockscreen, and just access the computer. Not the best thing. Wayland has a protocol where if you do that, you get a red screen of death, thus protecting your privacy)
In few words, it's a one big fucking pile of garbage, which the fact it works alone is pure black magic
Thanks you
You’re welcome:)
Thank you!
You’re welcome!)
Wayland is not limited to C. Smithay, for example, uses Rust.
Yes, I realize now that I should have been more specific. Thanks for leaving a comment!
will old devices not supported by wayland?
The age of the device/hardware shouldn't matter
The issue is with anydesk or TeamViewer etc
Thanks for sharing!
@@juliaifrankcan you do a video explaining the network transparency issue and if there are any working solutions for remote desktop with Wayland
@yogesh193001 Absolutely! Thank you for the suggestions. Watch out for these videos to be published soon. )
I never heard of it before. Thanks. I hear it has issues with Nvidia video cards.
Saudações do Brasil minha cara. I use cachyos btw
Saudações do Canadá! Obrigada por assistir! 😊
FYI = i learnt the hard way , THIS IS STRICKLY ENGLISH FOR THE MOMENT, FOR TESTING = READ INSTRUCTIONS/GUIDANCE. 1 st. I had previous test done on Raspberry Pi4 /400 with no problems.
Thanks❤
Likewise:)
Was going to watch it, but a 2:38 advert before a 6 minute videos wasn't a good return
Thanks for sharing. However, I have no control over when and if ads show up my videos. My channel is currently not monetized yet. Once it is, I’ll have more control over the ads settings. So this situation can be prevented.
@@juliaifrank Meh TH-cam, but I still gave you the like and comment for the algorithm 😉
@DavidW27 appreciate it! 🙂
nice
Thank you for the feedback! 🙂
I reccomend miro or sozi for these presentations
I’ll consider that, thanks!
X was designed when thin clients were the norm, it has been decades since
This is good
I appreciate your feedback!