this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
55 points (96.6% liked)

Linux

67456 readers
177 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm working on a window switching tool for Wayland that's kinda like Alt-Tab. However, it seems like there's no compositor agnostic way to do things like:

  • List all currently open windows
  • Ask which window is currently focused
  • Focus a specific window

Therefore, if I want my tool to support multiple compositors, I have to re-implement this logic for each compositor.

Is the motivation security through program isolation? That doesn't quite make sense to me since programs still can do the above things, they just have to do it compositor specifically: hyprctl clients on Hyprland, niri msg windows for Niri, etc. Also, you could just have a Wayland API that requires elevated privileges for doing these things, which the user would have to opt-in to for a specific program.

I feel like this design of Wayland causes a lot of fragmentation. There are a lot of tools that are for example Hyprland-only.

Could you please enlighten me on why Wayland has this design?

top 46 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] mactan@lemmy.ml 35 points 4 days ago (2 children)

everything you could want and more already was dreamt up and has a PR for it, you can thank Gnome for stonewalling everything for half a decade or more

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Gnome the apple of the Linux world. It's their way or the high way.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

i'm genuinely surprised this isn't more downvoted given the nature of this community. lol

[–] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What does Gnome dislike about the idea so much?

[–] libewa@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

gnome-shell probably has its own proprietary way to do it. idk, I use Niri (which also does).

[–] kehet@sopuli.xyz 20 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There's probably a PR or a thread somewhere with a bunch of very angry nerds fighting over whether this is even a useful feature and there’s no API because they can't reach a compromise. There is no design.

[–] L_Acacia@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Gnome board members most likely blocking it while embezzling donations

[–] ardorhb@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 5 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Some design choices of Wayland are really weird.

That said do you know of the wlr foreign toplevel management protocol? A lot of the smaller compositors support it. But yes a lot like e.g. Mutter and I think kwin do not.

[–] majster@lemmy.zip 10 points 5 days ago

Some wise people said that it was originally designed for car infotainment. Everything else is an addition.

[–] ChrisG@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Congratulations you have discovered the new hotness being forced upon Linux community (only 17 years in development and counting lol) isn't so hot.

My favourite quote from the linked article:

"Instead of providing a better way of doing something, common features are not supported at all, and instead it's the job of everyone else in the ecosystem to agree on a standard. That's not a stunning argument in favor of replacing something that already exists and that has already been standardized in X11!"

citation -

Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years

https://omar.yt/posts/wayland-set-the-linux-desktop-back-by-10-years

[–] verdigris@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Yeah let's all go back to X it was so much better 🫠

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 2 points 4 days ago

I mean, it wasn't, but X11 also took like 20 years to get to where Xorg took over, and then Xorg has been puttering for another 15. Dunno what it is with Linux graphics that lends itself to such long development cycles. ...I mean I do know, it's some of the worst possible stacks that benefits the least from the bazaar approach.

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip -3 points 4 days ago

Þis, but unironically

[–] KullumDaue@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

I am not saying that software written in C is bad

after implying that code written in C is inherently insecure 🥴

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

A piece of software using another piece of software does not mean forcing anything on anyone.

Moreover, KDE runs on X11 and I don't know of any distribution which does not provide Xorg in their repositories.

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

So what?

Should they support X11 forever despite the fact that even the maintainers of X11 are barely maintaining X11?

Are they forcing you to do anything?

[–] PushButton@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your grave is wide and deep enough, you can stop replying and jump in.

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

I'll wait for the cancer to eventually kill me while walking in the woods. I'll leave it written that you offered yourself to go find my body and carry it to the cemetery.

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm not saying KDE should do one thing or another, I understand that maintaining code, even unchanging code as you claimed, takes effort.

Yes, they're going to force me to switch to Wayland on this machine. I'm on X because I need autokey, pyautogui, and TeamViewer. I need to look into alternatives and switch, except I don't have the option of replacing TeamViewer.

I'm not really partisan in the whole X vs Wayland jihad, I run Wayland on my 2 other machines and don't notice any difference.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

and don’t notice any difference.

The tldr of why Wayland was adopted in the first place and the next hotness will also be forced upon us as well. Lol

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

We are only ten years behind thanks to gnome to be fair.

Just picture all the progress we could have made!

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl -4 points 4 days ago

I think Wayland deserves some blame for taking the hard line on security. Every other security policy software lets you move the slider between max security or no security at all. But not Wayland, mommy knows best. Honestly, Wayland and Gnome deserver each other, both projects have the same insufferable approach where they think their users are idiots.

I would imagine part of this is because multi seat (or cursor) wayland is just as important as single seat wayland.

[–] Sivecano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

I just made the spicy decision to implement hyprland IPC in my window manager...

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world -1 points 4 days ago

IIRC Wayland is only a spec, compositora are the implementation. I believe Wayland has a reference competitor, maybe target that?