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Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

by dxs on 6/17/25, 7:03 PM with 203 comments

  • by MarkusWandel on 6/17/25, 7:54 PM

    I get it about Wayland. Most of X is legacy cruft and even isolating that into XWayland or whatever it's called for backwards compatibility is better than having it front and center.

    But yes, there are use cases it doesn't cover. Example. My elderly mom uses Linux laptops that I've rigged to (1) always have an SSH connection open to my server machine, with reverse tunnels, and (2) run x0vncserver.

    Modern security people would cringe, but this is the real world. I can open her desktop any time, from 700km away, and fix serious disasters like: She accidentally double-clicked an email and it opened up in a tab that obscures her message list (Thunderbird). This has worked very well to keep her online and happily emailing.

    Where is the equivalent for Wayland? I get the impression that "it shouldn't exist because security" and therefore won't. Luckily, the show's not over yet. I run Fedora. The main spin won't do it any more, but the MATE spin is perfect. It comes up in MATE and it uses X! Still happy. Other laptop installations I have running probably use Wayland and as long as nothing breaks, I don't care.

  • by msgodel on 6/17/25, 9:01 PM

    I love the idea of coming up with something simpler than Xorg or even X11.

    Unfortunately Wayland devs seem to have become user hostile in a way similar to the systemd devs (your use case being incompatible or unsuported is your problem, shut up and let us rearrange the OS etc) on top of the software just not being very good. Basic things like running video terminal emulators just doesn't work as well as it does on X (comparing Xterm on X to whatever on Sway always seemed to have much higher latency on my hardware, even moving the window around seems to lag a frame or two behind where it should be.)

    At this point wayland itself has gotten pretty old, doesn't support what most desktop Linux users need day to day (at least enough to replace X) and is so unpleasant to deal with I don't think I'll be trying it again. It's a shame, the bar isn't that high. Then again maybe X11 is the oldest still in use graphics API for a reason.

  • by lelanthran on 6/17/25, 7:36 PM

    I use Linux Mint, Mate.

    I occasionally write native GUI apps (not electron-based), and for the current automation application I am working on Wayland is an absolute non-starter[1].

    Like the other poster, every few years I would give Wayland a try, but as of today, 17-June-2025, Wayland is still lacking features that I want.

    I have no objection to using it, I just need it to be a replacement for X.

    [1] My application uses X11 FakeEvent. Did not find a similar thing for Wayland.

  • by 63 on 6/17/25, 8:20 PM

    I'll throw my hat in the anti-Wayland ring. I have a 5-year-old graphics card from the most popular graphics card company in the world. And yet, in 2025, I cannot run Sway/Wayland on my Nvidia 3070 for more than 20 minutes without a crash. i3/Xorg works fine.

    Wayland just straight doesn't work and the push to move everyone to it looks ridiculous from my perspective.

  • by trothamel on 6/17/25, 7:15 PM

    I've tried to switch a few times, and keep going back to X. It seems like simple stuff - the big one is that I like to remote into my system and look at the screen, and with wayland, there's no way to look at the side monitor like I can with X11 and x11vnc.

  • by treve on 6/17/25, 8:02 PM

    [project] is bad because it's missing [pet peeve feature] will never get old. Ultimately open source devs work on what they want to work on. Feature-wise Wayland may be worse in some ways than X11 and better in others, but it's winning because people work on it/with it.

    But choice and competition is one of the best things about Linux, so if a small group is upset about losing X11 and self-organize to carry the torch, more power to them. Build a great alternative, and maybe present yourself as a choice rather than being so reactionary. You're not a rebel, you're just in a niche and that's OK.

  • by exiguus on 6/17/25, 9:12 PM

    I understand that change can be challenging, but actively seeking reasons to avoid change is another matter entirely. The criticism of Wayland in this article seems unfounded. Transitioning to new tools can resolve many issues.

    You have a choice: acknowledge that Wayland is faster, more user-friendly, and more secure, or remain tied to technologies from the 1990s.

    Since Ubuntu has adopted Wayland exclusively for its new LTS release, I've noticed over the past few days that much of the criticism comes from Windows users who rely on RDP to configure Red Hat or CentOS with a GUI, or something similar. These users have become accustomed to the lack of security in Xorg to perform their tasks. Now, they must reconsider how they maintain their Linux machines.

    In any case, I was unaware that Wayland was becoming the new systemd. Perhaps this is because I have been using it for more then four years, starting with bullseye (sid) / GNOME, and for about two years with FreeBSD / Sway. I use these systems daily at work without any major issues.

  • by thesnide on 6/17/25, 8:10 PM

  • by jmkr on 6/17/25, 8:22 PM

    A few weeks ago I was looking into `XReparentWindow` because certain things use it (DAW Plugins). I don't think Wayland can do something similar (but I guess XWayland works), GTK and Qt both seem to have their own version.

    Looking more into plugin libraries, a lot of it is based specifically on X, I don't think that's going to be rewritten anytime soon.

    I've felt for a while stuck between X and Wayland. Same with Pipewire and Jack/Pulse.

  • by yongjik on 6/17/25, 8:09 PM

    Well, it's my understanding that Xorg still cannot do per-monitor fractional scaling these days, have they fixed it? That was the major selling point of Wayland for me, as an occasional linux desktop user.

    Retina MacBook Pro was released in 2012, about 13 years ago. Personally, I don't think Xorg is in a position to sneer at its competitor for being "beta in quality" after "15 years into making."

  • by palata on 6/17/25, 8:17 PM

    I don't get the Xorg vs Wayland fight. Feels like it mostly coming from people who don't contribute to either of them.

    If you like Xorg, use Xorg. If you like Wayland, use Wayland. If you're not happy about an issue, contribute to it.

  • by Yizahi on 6/18/25, 9:07 AM

    Author seems to conflate features unique to X11 with "useful" features or "desirable by many" features. I would try to project minimally, but the long list he provides is not that, at least for some significant number of users, or maybe even for majority (I suspect it is).

    While on the other hand he conveniently ignores that a majority of users do need stuff like working HiDpi scaling, multimonitor use with different scalings, general monitor stability in all scenarios (plug and play from laptop, sleep/hibernate, go to 3D gaming and back to desktop etc.) and other stuff used daily by most users. And which is very brittle or even missing in X-11.

    For professional use, I can live with Linux without graphical server at all. But for entertainment or creative arts use, monitor "just working per spec" is way more important than those thin client X-11 features inherited from mainframes and mostly unused.

  • by StillBored on 6/17/25, 8:35 PM

    Wayland is architecturally garbage. Not for technical reasons, but social ones. Although social isn't the right word to describe a technology that encourages toolkit/DM/etc fragmentation which in turn breaks core functionality in the wider application ecosystem. Some of this isn't the fault of wayland directly, but it makes it worse. AKA by design there isn't a standard way to iterate windows and detect buttons/lists/various control types/etc which massively complicates if not outright breaks screen readers, while at the same time continues to fragment simple things like theming (and copy/paste is even worse than it was 10 years ago) if an application isn't using the blessed GUI toolkit. And in say fedora, the gnome folks seem to be designing to a device type that doesn't exist, its terrible out of the box with multiple monitors/etc while at the same time being terrible on touchscreen devices. I don't run it that much, but was showing my daughter who is perfectly competent in windows and macos (she carries both around all day!), how to navigate gnome, and jut shocked how absolutely none of it is intuitive to someone who has 'expert' level knowledge of all the common OS/phone UI's. Sure it looks slick, because its not cluttered with 'garbage' like you know, maximize buttons, scroll bars, and other things one might click on with a mouse. All the while doing cool things like reflowing the terminal text whenever the scrollbar appears/disappears. Its this complete lack of supervision/understanding. Sure on a phone touchscreen scroll bars might get in the way, but on a large screen laptop with two 30"+ 4K monitors?

    And frankly, as someone who works closely with some of these distro's, I think there is a silent majority who have the same opinion but aren't willing to pay the political tax in their ecosystem for standing up and pointing out the emperor is naked for fear of sounding like a Luddite and being sidelined.

  • by marcodiego on 6/17/25, 8:08 PM

    Having this specific guy becoming the lead/creator/maintainer of Xlibre, strengthens my argument about the kind of people who are against the Xorg->Wayland replacement.

  • by Thoreandan on 6/17/25, 7:41 PM

    I'm waiting for BoringX or OpenX or, well, any other fork. Search for 'xorg drama'.

  • by MrArthegor on 6/17/25, 7:32 PM

    I agree completely with this post. It’s the eternal issue in the GNU\Linux side, reinvent the wheel instead of enhance the existing, and submit half backed solutions and claim it’s the full replacement to the previous solutions

  • by shmerl on 6/17/25, 7:26 PM

    > What I don't like is ANY, I repeat ANY software solution that champions mediocrity.

    Then it should be proven that proposed alternative to Wayland is not mediocre or worse in issues Wayland is solving. Overall the post looks very shortsighted in looking at these issues from very narrow perspective, seemingly not realizing problems that need solving are much wider and not limited to one use case.

    Wayland surely is not perfect and needs development (which lately seems to be moving at better pace), but I'm not convinced at all proposed alternative is better.

  • by devmor on 6/17/25, 7:33 PM

    I agree with the sentiment of this post in general (annoyance with Wayland being shoved down my throat, despite missing core features of Xorg) but I am rather concerned about Xlibre's future as a project. The README being stuffed with reactionary political dogwhistles is downright weird and doesn't inspire confidence in longevity.

  • by Lariscus on 6/17/25, 8:03 PM

    [flagged]

  • by MarkusWandel on 6/17/25, 7:55 PM

    I should add, we also have a use case for X at work. Run gigantic EDA tool by submitting it to a compute server via LSF. It all works, just like magic; the right cookie is passed, X is remoted, it opens up, no fuss. What's the Wayland way?

  • by ysofunny on 6/17/25, 9:39 PM

    Wayland has always smelled to me like a corporate grab... but I'm known to be a bit paranoid (understatement)

  • by anglesideangle on 6/17/25, 7:58 PM

    As someone who actively uses a wayland compositor and has done so since switching to linux ~4 years ago, I often feel like I live in a different world from the authors of articles discussing its usability. Just to discuss a few points made about wayland's supposed inferiority:

    > Wayland cannot do (or do well) tons of things:

    > VNC server

    > remote desktop

    I don't regularly use either of these so I cannot attest to whether they work on wayland.

    > SSH X forwarding

    https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe

    > custom keyboard bindings

    I currently have caps lock bound to esc

    > numerous accessibility options

    This is likely true

    > legacy software

    xwayland

    > absolute desktop positioning

    Once again, I'm running absolute desktop positioning right now

    > screen sharing and recording

    I just installed and ran obs, told it to use screen capture as a source, it recorded fine

    > CAD/EDA tools

    CAD software only runs on windows anyway. For KiCad, it's seemingly blocked on a window positioning protocol, which wayland will hopefully adopt soon

  • by daft_pink on 6/17/25, 8:49 PM

    I’m really curious what distros will offer this?

  • by GuestFAUniverse on 6/17/25, 7:56 PM

    If you don't bother about any app being able to spoof on your pressed keys: go, use Xorg.

    But why stop there, and cope with a multi-user environment? Just boot into single user mode and "chmod a+rwx / -R". A lot of other /problems/ solved too.

    /S