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My issue with Wayland is just that not everything supports it. I tried switching to Wayland this year and immediately I ran into issues with software that weren't compatible, like Steamlink would not stream over Wayland, but switching back to X11 it streamed just fine. At least in my experience, Wayland itself is not the problem, but developers not supporting Wayland is the problem. The moment I run into just one program that I want to use that doesn't work with Wayland, I am going to permanently switch back to X11. I think most users think that way. Most don't want to switch back and forth to use a program, if a single program doesn't work they will just revert to X11 and stay within X11.

When I was new here, it was XFree86 vs Xorg. (Showing my age).

There will be new technologies yet. And not all of them will successfully supplant/obsolete the older. Some of the older may even come back, despite (/ because of) the efforts made to eliminate them.

what the issues with Wayland are.

LMLLMTFY...

Here’s a concise summary of the main issues people have with Wayland:

• Compatibility: Many legacy X11 applications and workflows (e.g., screen recording, remote desktop, and some games) don’t work seamlessly under Wayland, requiring patches or workarounds.
• Screen Sharing/Recording: Wayland’s security model restricts direct screen access, making tools like OBS, Discord, or Zoom less reliable for screen sharing or recording.
• Multi-GPU/NVIDIA Support: Historically, NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers had poor Wayland support, though this has improved recently. Multi-GPU setups can still be problematic.
• Customization: Wayland compositors (like Weston, Sway, or GNOME’s Mutter) are less flexible than X11 window managers, limiting advanced user customization.
• Remote Desktop: X11’s network transparency (e.g., ssh -X) is missing in Wayland, requiring alternatives like RDP or VNC.
• Input Handling: Some users report issues with input latency, touchpad gestures, or keyboard layouts, especially in niche setups.
• Maturity: While Wayland is stable for most users, edge cases (e.g., hybrid graphics, VR, or professional audio/video tools) may still face bugs or missing features.
• Why it matters: Wayland aims to modernize Linux graphics with better security and performance, but the transition has been slow due to these pain points. Most major distros now default to Wayland, but power users and professionals often still rely on X11 (or XWayland for compatibility).

*shrug*. I guess that'll do.

I'm >9000% more enthused for XLibre, and I utterly disregard the gaslighting associations some insist we believe about it, like community developed XLibre's the fascist one, not Wayland spearheaded by a monopolistic corporation with nazi roots. XD

Edit:

::: spoiler PS, then I asked...

wayland's more bloaty, and complicated, right? what with its extra compositor layer atop the server layer before the window manager layer, or whatever it is, right? (I dont really understand it... the complicatedness is more than i've got my head around, since not all methods of using it seem to have the same ontos/topos).

Your frustration is understandable—Wayland’s architecture can feel more complex than X11’s, but the "bloat" and "complication" are often misunderstood. Let’s clarify the layers and why it feels this way:

X11 vs. Wayland: Layer Comparison X11 (Simpler, but Monolithic)

• Single Layer: X11 combines the display server, window management, input handling, and compositing into one monolithic system.
• Pros: Easy to understand (one thing does everything).
• Cons: Security risks, poor performance, and inflexibility (e.g., compositing was bolted on later). Wayland (Modular, but Distributed) Wayland splits these responsibilities:

1. Compositor (e.g., Weston, Mutter, KWin, Sway):

• Replaces X11’s "server" role.
• Handles rendering, input, and compositing directly.
• Acts as the "display server" and the "window manager" in one.

2. Clients (Applications):

• Talk directly to the compositor via the Wayland protocol (no middleman like X11’s server).

3. Protocols (e.g., wlroots, xdg-shell):

• Define how clients/compositors communicate (e.g., for window management, screensharing).

Key Difference:

• In X11, the "window manager" is a separate program (e.g., i3, Openbox) that talks to the X server.
• In Wayland, the compositor is the window manager (e.g., Sway = compositor + window manager).

Why It Feels More Complicated

1. No Single "Wayland Server":

• Unlike X11’s Xorg, there’s no one "Wayland server." Each compositor (Mutter, KWin, Sway) implements Wayland differently.
• This can lead to inconsistencies (e.g., GNOME’s Wayland vs. Sway’s Wayland).

2. Protocols Everywhere:

• Wayland uses protocols (like xdg-shell, viewporter, screencopy) for features X11 handled implicitly.
• Example: Screen sharing requires explicit protocol support (e.g., pipewire), while X11 just "let apps grab the screen."

3. Less "Magic":

• X11 allowed hacks (e.g., xrandr, xinput) to work around limitations.
• Wayland enforces stricter rules (e.g., no direct GPU access for clients), which feels restrictive.

4. Transition Pain:

• Tools like xrandr, xinput, or Xephyr don’t exist in Wayland. Replacements (e.g., wlr-randr, wayland-debug) are less standardized.

Is It More Bloaty?

• No, but it’s more modular:

• • Wayland itself is a protocol, not a program. The "bloat" comes from compositors adding features (e.g., GNOME’s Mutter vs. minimal Sway).
• • X11’s "simplicity" was deceptive—it was a single binary, but it did everything poorly. Wayland distributes responsibilities more cleanly.

• Example:

• • X11: One process (Xorg) handles everything, often inefficiently.
• • Wayland: The compositor (e.g., weston) does rendering, while pipewire handles screensharing, and libinput handles input.

TL;DR Wayland feels more complicated because:

• It replaces X11’s "one big blob" with explicit, modular components.
• The lack of a single "Wayland server" means behavior varies by compositor.
• Protocols replace X11’s implicit behaviors, requiring more setup for edge cases. But: This modularity is why Wayland is faster, more secure, and more maintainable long-term. The complexity is a tradeoff for fixing X11’s fundamental flaws.

___

I wonder how much of its training data was feeding on all the pro-wayland advertising spiel.

For most ”laymen” Wayland works just fine. I prefer Wayland because it has proper support for fractional scaling, which is a must for monitors with higher resolution than 1080p.

I've been using it on my laptop, and it's been doing weird things that my X11 never did. It's like rescaling or antialiasing or doing something with the fonts in my terminal while I'm using it. But, enough works that I'm gonna stick with it for now.

Also, I'm not able to use my preferred window manager XMonad under Wayland so far. Maybe at some point there will be a way to combine Wayland, KDE Plasma, and real window manager simply. (But, KDE Plasma has been getting more and more hostile to alternative window managers even on X11; I can't been able to cleanly close my user session in months.)

There are little pockets of such things with everything I find. The "init wars" of systemd vs init/initd, Wayland vs xorg, Android vs iOS, Linux vs Windows/macOS, Xbox vs Playstation, Nintendo vs Sega, Vinyl vs everything not vinyl, RCS vs iMessage more recently to name a few.

Wayland has been around for many many many many more years than Wayland has been good enough to use. I think that's about it.

Arch is definitely the most stable and usable distro for me as well. Fedora and suse shit the bed constantly when I used them. I assume arch has the same image problem due to legacy. I know when I first tried Manjaro maybe 7-10 years ago because everyone said how great it was, doing a simple pacman update after install immediately bricked the computer. My experience with endeavor has been perfect, other than the poor spelling of the team.

Note all of the arch stuff above is for servers. I can't stand Linux for laptop use, it's not worth the effort.

My main issue is the lack of xdotool support. It can't ever be supported because of the way Wayland isolates processes from each other.

See https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d1f2277

I'm aware how buggy it was not that long ago when I first tried it, but once I switched my desktop over I need to use wayland unless I want to lock all my monitors to the same refresh rate. It's fine. Not really had any issues in the last 6 months, and also enables HDR and freesync, though not at the same time because there's a flickering issue with HDR and sync.

xx-zones, ext-tray and dbus_annotations are the only protocols I think add anything of value at this point, wayland is pretty close to feature complete, it's on clients for the most part at this point