KDE "dropping" X11 for Wayland on Plasma 6 discussion and the alternatives in that case

Xeyes is almost dead.

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No, itā€™s not! :eyes: Thatā€™s a rumour that is completely untrue. At the very least, Xeyes will live for as long as I live. If Arch drops X support (which is unlikely), Iā€™ll use Debian, if I have to.

Yeah, Plasma is flirting too much with Wayland. I hate that crap, itā€™s not finished (it looks like it will never be finished) and itā€™s not ready for my typical use cases. Now, Plasma 6 will still have X support, but they plan to drop it in about a year or so. A long time before that happens, I need to find a suitable alternative. It will probably be a very custom build of dwm or LXQt. Iā€™m already phasing out Kate, in favour of Emacs. For now, I will continue to use Konsole, as there is really no alternative to that that I can think of.

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On my laptop I started to use Wayland (with Plasma) again a few days ago. It used to have problems when I tried it a few months ago, but recent updates made it much better. So Iā€™m using Wayland now, as long as it works OK. :wink:

Edit: sorry for the off-topic. Iā€™ll quit it now.

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The problem is, it doesnā€™t work OK. An even bigger problem is, there is not even the slightest intention to make it work OK. Try Xeyes, for example. Or try capturing keystrokes from an unfocused window. A lot of my workflow is broken on Wayland without any reasonable alternative.

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Isnā€™t that actually a big security problem with X?

What exactly are you doing that needs this?

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Being able to connect to the internet is also a potential security problem, yet even a security-focused individual like you would question the validity of a web browser that didnā€™t allow you to connect to the internet, right?

It ought to be up to the user to decide whether capturing keystrokes is a ā€œsecurity problemā€ or a feature. A lot of my workflow depends on GUI automation where this is essential.

This is why I will never program in Rust. I donā€™t need my computer to be a nanny that prevents me from doing things some soyftware developer thinks are dangerous. The entire ideology of nanny computers is just insulting as it diminishes manā€™s supremacy over machines. If I am going to humiliate myself like that, I may as well just use an iMac.

Besides, even as a nanny, Wayland is pretty useless. It does not guarantee that you will be free of malicious keyloggers. It just makes it a bit more inconvenient for the developers of such keyloggers. This inconvenience, however, breaks valid use of such features of X.

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Yeah, but it is an inherent security problem nonetheless in the majority of use cases. Simply just staying in the past and not trying to address a security flaw is probably the worst thing Iā€™ve ever heard. Even if the new approach isnā€™t perfect, it sure is more secure. Sadly for you, it sure is a shitty thing.

Rust allows you to do most things anyway. You know, if you decide you want to do the dangerous stuff. Rust especially is a bad example here, because you can go the unsafe path.

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No, the analogy is not perfect. Sure, if Wayland was like Rust and had an ā€œunsafeā€ mode, that would be a redeeming quality that might make me consider using it. Rust has it, because without it, it would be completely useless as a low-level language. Just like Wayland is completely useless as a replacement for X.

Rust sucks in other ways, however, which is beyond the scope of this topic (traits!).

Being able to listen to user input globally is not a security flaw.

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That, my friend, is sadly a highly subjective opinion. For you itā€™s shit, for me it works perfectly for almost two years already and even made a lot of problems go away I had with X. Especially when it comes to gaming and using gamescope.

The world isnā€™t black and white. Wayland is bad for you, but does wonders for me.

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Yes, it depends on the user. For many people having an iPhone works perfectly. Most people are casual users who donā€™t care about low-level stuff. Among them, some have no desire to be in control of their machines, and some are just mentally incapable of appreciating the concept of owning oneā€™s computer.

Wayland is perfectly fine for those people. For me, it is not usable at all, and I canā€™t foresee a future in which I would use it. Luckily X is not going away any time soon. Itā€™s not like Iā€™m married to Plasma. Itā€™s been good while it lasted, but soon weā€™ll have to part our ways.

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You present a valid argument. Thatā€™s one of the reason aficionados like Linux, freedom of choice. I would suppose trying to protect the toddlers from burning their fingers on the ā€˜nastyā€™ stove is common place these days. In my day, stoves were hot and you (or the stove) taught them to not do things that result in burnt fingers.
Soā€¦we could easily call this the ā€˜dumbing downā€™ effect of becoming more mainstream?

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What exactly are you doing with GUI automation? I still donā€™t quite understand the things you would do with that. Simply record keystrokes and mouse movement and play them?

edit: For certain windows that are unfocused?

Yes.

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Plasma runs fine on C2D/GMA devices. Not too long ago, I ran it on a 2007 laptop with these specs. Youā€™d need at least 2.5 GB of RAM, though, for a good experience.

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Gnome just put a thing in their GitHub about removing x11. . . With projected Wayland only as early as gnome 48 (so a year and a half at earliest)

Iā€™ve been on Wayland since gnome 40 hit, 2+ years now. It works great.

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Yes, KDE projects removing X support sometimes during Plasma 6. That is why I have to come up with an alternative DE/WM setup pretty much right away, so that the transition can be smooth. Iā€™ve been ā€œcasuallyā€ using dwm for a couple of years now, and I think I could be quite happy with it. Itā€™s has 2000 lines of C code which I can easily understand, so I can hack on it and add most of the features I need. LXQt is another possibility, and so is Openbox.

The only two things Iā€™m going to miss from Plasma are wobbly windows and magic lamp, but as these are purely aesthetic, Iā€™ll manage without them.

magic_lamp

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Yup, Linux has always had a pretty good reputation for keeping legacy things going for a long time. Debian still supports 32 bit even. Iā€™m sure youā€™ll have options for a long time still.

That being said Wayland is the future and gnome and plasma are the obvious front runners.

Canā€™t you get them with that thingā€¦how was itā€¦compiz?

No idea. It would be great if I couldā€¦ Iā€™ll eventually look into it, if someone knows how to do it, send me a PM or, even better, make a tip thread.

Still not sure about that. More often than not, such claims have been made about things that quickly faded into obscurity.

I havenā€™t used it, but yeah it can certainly do magic lamp and stuff: