this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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It's not clear to me after reading the article. Maybe I'm out of the loop but...
What's Wayland? And why is this significant?
Wayland is a "display server," which basically means it manages the way GUIs show on the screen. X (most recently X11/Xorg) was the standard for over 30 years, but it was designed for computers 30 years ago. Modern concepts like scaling and high refresh rate displays need extensions to it, but it's really complicated and hard to work with, so a lot of improvements that need to be made can't be made. It's also fundamentally insecure, as every window has access to both the contents and the input of any other window. Wayland is a modern replacement that focuses on security and expandability, and basically everything is working on switching to it. There are growing pains, but it's constantly improving, and most distros use it by default now.
Thnx!
There are 2 display servers for Linux. X11, which is really old and doesn't support newer things such as HDR and the "new" kid on the hlock, Wayland. KDE, Gnome and such that make the UI you interact with on Linux utilize X11 or Wayland to render everything on the screens.
Edit correction by LinuxSBC x2
Display servers, not window managers. Window managers are built on top of X11 or Wayland.
Appreciate the correction. Honestly haven't delved with desktop Linux much though I plan on swapping from Windows again. Know things over the years, but miss the mark on some things. I corrected my original comment for accuracy.
Thanks, though your correction is also incorrect. Display managers, like SDDM, GDM, or LightDM, are the login screen. They're called "display managers" for historical reasons, but they also run on top of the display server.
Aw shucks thought I put server not manager lol.
Anecdotally, this thread reminded me of a time I circumvented my high schools filtering via using X11 to display Firefox on their Macs from a laptop I was using as a server haha.
Hey that explanation helps. Thanks.
It sounds like Wayland is the new thing and it's been around long enough that everyone plays well with it, so it's going to be the default moving forward.
Yeah it's been getting there over the years. This stuff takes time to replace since it's huge and important to get it right. For reference, the initial release was 15 years ago for Wayland.
Saw the other comment about Linux and did some searching. Found it on Wikipedia; appears to be a window system for Linux or a protocol that enables a window system for Linux? Don't know enough about this stuff, but here's the link I found: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(protocol)