Add Wayland compatibility

[fish4terrisa-MSDSM]

I understand that X11 and wayland is different, especially on the design of them. However, I wonder if it's possible to bring some wayland compatibility to X11. I mean like in wayland the compositor is like the combination of x11 server and the window manager in x11, then what if we can make x11 also act as an wayland compositor(maybe with the help of wlroots it'll be easier)
So on the wayland side, the apps(probably those only have support for wayland) will see a normal wayland server. On the X11 side, maybe we can find a way to convert the wayland windows into x11 windows, and let the x11 window manager manage and decorate them. It'll definitely be a bit tricky, and it might be also buggy, but it will definitely improve the compatibility.
It's like Xwayland, but in the opposite direction. I know that weston do support running nested in x11, but the problem is it's still a whole desktop environment far from what Xwayland do in wayland envrionment.
Also wayland uses many different things, like they have their own gl and vulkan extension, and some of them uses GBM or something. Is it possible for X11 to make use of them in the future? I understand that using the usual x11 extensions and glx like intended is probably easier, but the problem is that some vendors are dropping x11 support or neglecting it even if they do have x11 support(e.g. Qualcomm). Given that Xlibre is not gonna to gain the same popularity it use to have before wayland very soon, these kind of things will keep happening. It'll be great if Xlibre can use these wayland-related things so it wont be impossible to use Xlibre on some devices just because the vendor for some reason want to drop x11 support.

[Samueru-sama]

See https://github.com/orgs/X11Libre/discussions/74

[fish4terrisa-MSDSM]

See https://github.com/orgs/X11Libre/discussions/74

Better be discussed here in issues. That discussion seems already a bit off topic tbh.

[ghost]

Why bow to vendors at all? If I'd absolutely need to run such a program I'd do it in a Wayland VM, just as for Windows.

[dec05eba]

See https://github.com/orgs/X11Libre/discussions/74

Better be discussed here in issues. That discussion seems already a bit off topic tbh.

It was previously an issue but enrico moved it to discussions

[kkmzero]

Application developers are porting to Wayland-native because that's where Linux world goes currently with all the users - your customers. If big Linux boys would one day decide to deprecate C and two years later take C compilers away in favor of joke known as Rust, you as application developer would have to port your code or discontinue support for whole platform. Same goes for hardware vendors. So it's not just "some reason", there's actually very logical and pragmatic decision behind all this. In any case, compatibility layer for Wayland makes no sense because you can just use Wayland. If your preferred operating system (or Linux distro) does not allow you to run both then you should ask them to handle it. X11Libre is not sitting on Wayland's codebase trying to kill it and telling everyone that you are evil luddite if you use it in 2025, you are completely free to use Wayland.

[fish4terrisa-MSDSM]

Application developers are porting to Wayland-native because that's where Linux world goes currently with all the users - your customers. If big Linux boys would one day decide to deprecate C and two years later take C compilers away in favor of joke known as Rust, you as application developer would have to port your code or discontinue support for whole platform. Same goes for hardware vendors. So it's not just "some reason", there's actually very logical and pragmatic decision behind all this. In any case, compatibility layer for Wayland makes no sense because you can just use Wayland. If your preferred operating system (or Linux distro) does not allow you to run both then you should ask them to handle it. X11Libre is not sitting on Wayland's codebase trying to kill it and telling everyone that you are evil luddite if you use it in 2025, you are completely free to use Wayland.

Your answer doen't make any sense. Yes, you can switch to wayland, but what if you dont want to and want to stick with x11? I dont see a point of why against Xlibre becoming more compatible to software on wayland side. It's normal for vendors and others to choose to use wayland, but it's also fine to be wayland compatible and use their work with x11, although it might not be expected.

Not, I'll never go to use wayland(due to it's bad design, hard to debug and many other reasons), and I'll stick with x11. There's nothing wrong to allow people use x11 and also be able to use wayland without having to use another wayland server. Why I have to swtich my desktop environment just to use some stupid software only support wayland? Hell no.

[fish4terrisa-MSDSM]

Why bow to vendors at all? If I'd absolutely need to run such a program I'd do it in a Wayland VM, just as for Windows.

? It's not bow to vendors. It's about be compatible. Vendors make the devices run the system... You cannot just ignore them. A VM wont solve the performance issues on devices caused by worse driver support.
Also why bother to use a linux vm just to use wayland? I can understand why use windows vm since wine isnt perfect, but if in the future people are forced to use vm just to run wayland software, it's so pathetic(although clearly wayland is leading it to this way. Probably one day users will be forced to use a vm just because reasons like "some software is for gnome's wayland and it cannot run properly on kde and for some reason these two DE cannot coexist anymore"...)

[kkmzero]

Why I have to swtich my desktop environment just to use some stupid software only support wayland? Hell no.

Ask people at RH, GNOME, Wayland, Canonical, etc. We could've had X.Org but they decided for us. A lot of users are happy so who cares, right? I don't understand why this should be a problem for XLibre to fix. I already had to switch between X and Wayland sessions for 2 years because certain applications would crash on Wayland. That's just a sad reality other people created.

It's different situation on Wayland's side because they want to replace X.Org, so it's reasonable to demand support for X applications via XWayland. XLibre does not seek to replace Wayland afaik.

How about this: Ubuntu is going to remove GNU Coreutils from default install and replace it with Rust alternative. So should I now go cry to GNU people that they should include some form of compatibility layer that symlinks to these new Rust uutils or whatever? Why should I reinstall package for core utilities - GNU people must fix this! Again in this situation, it's reasonable to ask for compatibility from Rust uutils and not vice versa. You see where I'm going with this?

[roryyamm]

I think X11Libre should bring the 12to11 utility under its wing and give it some work. Currently it's being slowly worked on in an independently-hosted git repository. If XLibre managed to have both X11 and Wayland support, that could keep it going well into the future (or at least give it another 5 years)

[Samueru-sama]

Yeah 12to11 should at least be mentioned in the README here, works great:

[callmetango]

@Samueru-sama

• Install the thing: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/12to11-git
• Run it RENDERER=egl 12to11

And that's it. This creates the wayland socket that apps will use automatically performance is great [...]

Very nize! I wasn't aware that 12to11 is already in AUR.

in fact when testing Eden I had better fps using 12to11 on i3wm than using the app directly on sway lol

But.. but... but... Wayland is the future! 😆 😉

Issues I've run into:

• The mouse cursor has a weird square shadow when using egl renderer
• SDL apps do not work, they say wayland is not available for some reason.

Ok, these should be reported to the 12to11 devs.

One question: Did/do you run 12to11 on Xorg or on XLibre already?

[Samueru-sama]

One question: Did/do you run 12to11 on Xorg or on XLibre already?

XLibre.

[callmetango]

@Samueru-sama The best! Could you please add your screenshot to Liberated Screens · X11Libre · Discussion #211 and some context like "Eden running on 12to11 on XLibre" or a few more words like in your explanation above?

[Samueru-sama]

@Samueru-sama The best! Could you please add your screenshot to Liberated Screens · X11Libre · Discussion #211 and some context like "Eden running on 12to11 on XLibre" or a few more words like in your explanation above?

Not sure it is really worth it, the issue that needed 12to11 wasn't eden itself but lsfg-vk and that was fixed as well xd

[callmetango]

Not sure it is really worth it, the issue that needed 12to11 wasn't eden itself but lsfg-vk and that was fixed as well xd

Believe me: It really is worth it! The original reason, i.e. the error in lsgf-vk is not important. What is important is the fact that you have made a game - Eden - run on 12to11 and XLibre.

[Strahinja]

If big Linux boys would one day decide to deprecate C and two years later take C compilers away in favor of joke known as Rust, you as application developer would have to port your code or discontinue support for whole platform.

This isn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all, despite what the aggressive campaign by big tech claims. Even in such ludicrous event that big tech manages to convince FSF and Clang project to drop support for C, both GCC and Clang/LLVM are using Free licenses, and could be forked by the community, similar to this fork of X.

Worth checking out as counterexamples to the line of thinking from the quote, and of not "bowing" to big tech "trends": histories of MATE and Cinnamon.

On topic: it is ultimately up to X11Libre developers to decide if they should divert energy which could otherwise be spent on the main goal of this fork, which is the continuation of X11/X.Org, to the non-goal mentioned in this issue. I think many people who prefer software having as little of big tech taint are already using alternative solutions, for example dwm instead of DEs such as GNOME or Plasma, etc. One can always fork versions of GIMP, Inkscape, Qt, Gtk... which do work with X11 anyway, and go from there.

PS: I use OpenBSD BTW.

[kkmzero]

This isn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all,

Yes of course. What I was trying to illustrate is that for many developers/orgs/companies there is a very valid reason to go with "mainstream" and it's not that they might want to do it or that they might enjoy doing it. The only reason why I even touched Wayland was because I was thinking "welp, if everyone is going to drop X.Org support, I might as well port applications and libraries to use Wayland or I'll abandon the whole Linux platform". Money and time was flushed down the drain for nothing, thanks Wayland. You know well that the messaging around X.Org was for years nothing else but "it's dead" and "everybody is going to switch asap". That was a very strong signal to many developers that X.Org is on life-support and if you want to have your software on Linux, you better use Wayland now. Who could predict we will get XLibre?

This is the perspective that nearly no one considers. Many users are happy because stuff works for them on Wayland so they rejoice. No one gave a rat's ass about developers, especially driver vendors, game developers and/or cross-platform application developers in general. I would even claim that the whole Linux userspace ecosystem is nowadays very hostile towards developers and certain companies/orgs really want to lock you down to depend on their tech, whether it's GTK or systemd or whatever else. So I used this hyperbolic example with C and Rust, not because I think it's realistic but just to illustrate that big boys make stupid decisions and many developers have to deal with it, have very valid reasons to go with their decisions and that not every project has the luxury of saying "No". If you ship on Windows for at least 20 years or you know someone else who does, you can recognize this situation because Microsoft has long history of introducing new tech (and abandoning it few years later) and you know developers have to deal with it while cursing all the way through.

[maxwell-kalin]

There is already stuff that only works on Wayland...
So people using such software need Wayland.

If you boomers don't support Wayland X-Libre will split the Linux software space more than Wayland and choose it over your corpse of a project

[kkmzero]

There is already stuff that only works on Wayland... So people using such software need Wayland.

If you boomers don't support Wayland X-Libre will split the Linux software space more than Wayland and choose it over your corpse of a project

Good. Now go try your emotional manipulation and fear mongering somewhere else you manipulative ghoul.

[maxwell-kalin]

XD

[maxwell-kalin]

Was kinda spitting facts but you can't help a cult like you right wingers lol

[kkmzero]

I'm not even right-wing, what are you talking about? Demons in your head got you babbling nonsense. Please do not derail issue with your trolling, I'm not going to respond to you from now on to keep it clean here.

[Strahinja]

"welp, if everyone is going to drop X.Org support, I might as well port applications and libraries to use Wayland or I'll abandon the whole Linux platform".

People who are passionate about Unix will value that ideal more than propaganda. Free licenses have the advantage of enabling the developers to take a different route if needed. There are numerous examples of this among the Free software community.

Various distributions of GNU/Linux have different policies regarding systemd, Wayland and similar technologies pushed by big tech. Being passionate about Unix, and not wanting to use something slowly morphing into just another Windows, I have completely abandoned GNU/Linux altogether for OpenBSD. Following the OpenBSD community for a while now, I am not sure whether they will adopt X11Libre or not. They value freedom, security and clean and simple code above anything else, and they don't shy away from forks (they have Ungoogled Chromium in ports), but this issue is more complex than that.

Regarding trolls, just ignore them.

[kkmzero]

Being passionate about Unix, and not wanting to use something slowly morphing into just another Windows, I have completely abandoned GNU/Linux altogether for OpenBSD.

Yes. I was using OpenBSD and FreeBSD for few years and I was very happy. Fantastic systems imo. The problem that I was describing is more in the line of business rather than passion project. You can hate Windows but if you want to make some money you have to ship for it because that's where users are, that kind of thing. If it would be up to me I wouldn't even bother with Linux at this point but people use it and developers can see it, especially after all this talk online about Win10 reaching EOL, Win11 being terrible and people switching to Linux.

If I may ask, what would be your take on FreeBSD? Do they have similar approach as OpenBSD or NetBSD developers? From what I understand, they work closely with corporations but I haven't seen them making some really dumb decisions yet, for example replacing core utilities with unfinished implementation in Rust or switching to half-baked software to score good corporate servant points. I don't watch development of these systems that closely. In other words, if I'm mad about where Linux is heading, would it make sense to switch to FreeBSD?

[Strahinja]

if I'm mad about where Linux is heading, would it make sense to switch to FreeBSD?

I haven't yet tried FreeBSD, but from what information is available online (example), their policies on the security and quality of the included code differ from OpenBSD (they are more lax).

[callmetango]

This will be moved to the X11Libre · Discussions · GitHub since it is a discussion.