Create a wiki page for Wayland/X11 myths

[felipec]

Describe the idea

When discussing with other people the topic of Wayland versus X11, I've often found they believe many things that are simply not true, for example that tear-free rendering is only possible on Wayland.

It's not just one or two misconceptions, there are several, and Xorg developers have made no attempt at correcting them, it almost seems as if they are content with the misconceptions running around.

Because I'm a happy X11 user I didn't care what Wayland supports or doesn't, but when famous YouTuber ThePrimeagen switched to Hyprland and claimed that somehow "fixed screen tearing" that apparently he experienced for 7 years on Xorg, I decided to investigate why people believe this myth.

Turns out there's many myths, which is why I started a series of videos trying to dispel some of those (#289).

So far this is the list:

1. Tear-free rendering is only possible on Wayland
2. Wayland has better gaming performance
3. Fractional scaling only works on Wayland
4. All important software has already migrated to Wayland

But that's based on the discussions I've had with Wayland advocates and the investigations I've done. I'm sure there's many more.

It would be better to have all these in a canonical wiki page so we can all debunk these myths.

It should be done because

Many linux users — especially newcomers — believe myths that have been perpetuated by Wayland advocates and make X11 look worse than it is.

Additional context

My article: Myths about X and Wayland.

Extra fields

• I have checked the existing New Ideas, RFCs Of The Core Team, Ideas Soon To Be Addressed and Someday Ideas
• I have read the Contributing Guidelines
• I'd like to work on this idea

[takagemacoed]

I also see a lot of myths here https://github.com/orgs/X11Libre/discussions/64

[callmetango]

I really like the idea! And as I said in #discussioncomment-14007044 we can link to the wiki page from our website and social media accounts as well. Even create teasers per busted myth etc.

[callmetango]

We should also address such things as Revise Xserver behaviour for issue:"First wheel event to unfocused window is missing with xinput2" · X11Libre · Discussion #295. In short: Issues that are attributed to X11 but arise from the toolkits that use it.

[callmetango]

@X11Libre/wranglers What do you think?

[artist4xlibre]

If such a page is created it should contain only facts; no opinions in any form, so it cannot be mistaken for bashing.

[callmetango]

Yes, absolutely! It has to be based on facts and stick to these facts. And be proven by examples, screenshots, videos, pointers into the code - whatever fits.

[b-aaz]

Same as @artist4xlibre.
It would be good to point to the security aspects of Wayland vs. X too.

[callmetango]

One thing about the Wayland myths: There is already the Gist Think twice about Wayland. It breaks everything! by @probonopd and I would advise to keep the Wayland things there. IMO we should focus on X11 and XLibre since this is our main focus. And we would keep a positive attitude like "Look, it works on X11/XLibre".

[felipec]

Have you discussed with people out there in forums? They believe all sorts of ridiculous stuff such as the project is full of Nazis.

If the project is to succeed, it has to acknowledge the reality of a coordinated smear campaign.

I don't think denying reality is the way to go.

So it shouldn't be "Look, it works on X11/XLibre", it should be "look, it has always worked on X11". The implication as to why people believe otherwise would be obvious.

[callmetango]

Yes, I have read a lot of discussions when researching which distributions took what stance on XLibre. And I know what is going on "out there" and came to a very similar conclusion like you.

"look, it has always worked on X11"

For sure we can do so! My words "Look, it works on X11/XLibre" were an example to provide the general positive sentiment. I just don't want to talk about Wayland on our wiki.

[felipec]

Yeah, you can choose to not talk about the huge purple elephant in the room crushing your guests. It's still going to be there.

[affhp]

Found some myth here:

X does have other flaws such as inability to take screenshots of context menus and dropdown lists
... people coming from Windows and not understanding why Linux lacks certain obvious things, such as taking screenshots of context menus and dropdown lists. And you have to explain to them that it's X11's fault.

https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d1f2277?permalink_comment_id=5710965#gistcomment-5710965

https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d1f2277?permalink_comment_id=5710961#gistcomment-5710961

[callmetango]

Question: How to name the page?

[felipec]

My suggestion was "Wayland/X11 myths", because that's precisely what we would be talking about.

[callmetango]

I would prefer the name "X11 myths" and keep Wayland out of the title. I think we should really focus on X11. Perhaps there could be a comparison with Wayland where necessary, but I would like to do so using only fair means. Objective, factually correct, and comprehensible.

[felipec]

I would prefer the name "X11 myths"

But they are not.

They are myths about Wayland. Wayland advocates created these myths and perpetuate them, precisely to make Wayland look better and X11 worse.

People do believe they should use Wayland over X11 because Wayland has these features, and X11 does not.

That's the whole issue I'm trying to combat.

If you call it "X11 myths" not only is that inaccurate, but it would not attract many people's attention.

As Linus Torvalds said "nobody can hear you being subtle on the Internet".

[callmetango]

Ok, then go for it.