So let’s talk about this Wayland thing
So let’s talk about this Wayland thing
Wayland. It comes up a lot: “Bug X fixed in the Plasma Wayland session.” “The Plasma Wayland session has now gained support for feature Y.” And it’s in the news quite …
Wayland. It comes up a lot: “Bug X fixed in the Plasma Wayland session.” “The Plasma Wayland session has now gained support for feature Y.” And it’s in the news quite a bit lately with the announcement that Fedora KDE is proposing to drop the Plasma X11 session for version 40 and only ship the Plasma Wayland session. I’ve read a lot of nervousness and fear about it lately. So today, let’s talk about it!
Wayland+Plasma 5.27 feel pretty close to usable, so I’m hopeful that with Plasma 6 I can finally just pick Wayland and stick with it and not have to back to X11.
(With my usage and a NVIDIA card)
11If Nate thinks that wayland only on Plasma 6 is the way to go then I feel like we as a user should trust him.
Currently I use AMD hardware and for me KDE + Wayland is fantastic experience. Some crashes here and there, with which I'm fine with.
My brother is running Fedora Kinoite + Wayland with Nvidia and he is total noob when it comes to Linux. He is happy and never complained about his system.
So, I would only assume for normal use case wayland is already in good shape currently. It is only going to get better with plasma 6.
Fedora 40 is still 7 months away.
6If Nate thinks that wayland only on Plasma 6 is the way to go then I feel like we as a user should trust him.
Well... that is not what he is saying. X11 will be supported for a long time still. In fact KDE has not even set a deadline for ending support for X11*. It will definitely not end with the release of Plasma 6.
The point is that not adapting software to Wayland is a mistake. It may be a pain, but X11 is virtually abandonware. The developers have moved on (to Wayland) and there are no new versions coming out -- unless someone forks it, of course, but that would probably be another mistake, as the codebase is an unsustainable mess.
This implies that, yes, when most software projects have got their applications working on Wayland, X11 will be phased out as a platform Plasma works on, but there is no date for that yet.
-- * Other projects are less coy. Fedora is considering removing support X11 from their very soon, maybe in their next releases. This is what sparked the discussion. Not KDE.
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Interesting take from Nate.
I appreciate that he posted his perspective.
9Weird how this (and only this) link always opens in private browsing mode in Firefox Android / Fennec
7Are you using the Jerboa client? I think they recently introduced an option to open links in a private tab which is on by default for some reason. It confused me too until I found the setting.
10this!)
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One problem that has long plagued X11 is that any app can snoop on any other app, including things like keystrokes and displayed information, even from within containers like Flatpak. (This is understandable, since it was designed at a time when spyware was rare, so there was no need for isolation more fine-grained than the user level.)
IIRC, Wayland didn't address that problem in its early days, but in these modern times of surveillance capitalism, I suspect it has been getting more attention. It would be nice to see it solved.
7has long plagued X11
The risk existed but did it plague X11? I never heard about any app logging keystrokes and sending theme somewhere. Where there any attacks using this? I don't think normal uses had to worry about it.
11The risk existed but did it plague X11?
Yes, and it still does. Practically every X11 installation is vulnerable.
(If you're nitpicking my use of the word plagued, though, note that I am talking about the vulnerability, not the exploit.)
I never heard about any app logging keystrokes and sending theme somewhere.
That's because of a variety of external factors, including:
- X11 desktops aren't common enough to be priority malware targets, yet.
- People who run only open-source software typically get it from trustworthy channels, like their OS distro's package repository.
- Devices likely to attract malware, such as game consoles and mobile phones, have avoided X11. (Android phones and Steam Deck are examples.) This is no accident; lack of app isolation was a factor in that decision.
I don’t think normal uses had to worry about it.
We've been lucky so far, in that our circumstances have kept us mostly safe. However: Linux malware is on the rise. Commercial games, both on their own and through anti-cheat systems, are making opaque software more common on our desktops. Flathub is working on paid apps, which could likewise create malware opportunities that weren't there before. The Epic Game Store has already been caught collecting data from other apps, so the intent is clearly present already.
It's generally just a matter of time before exploitable systems become exploited systems. We would do well to close the door on unauthorized key logging, clipboard snooping, screen scraping, and input injection.
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I replaced my Nvidia with an AMD graphics card last year. Ever since ive been using Wayland on KDE Plasma without any issue. I have 2 VRR Monitors connected with different refresh rates, which felt clunky on X11 and now feels fluid and just brilliant to use. I don't use X11 Sessions at all anymore and only have XWayland for stuff that requires it
2So I guess this means KDE will stop working on Nvidia GPUs with the Nvidia drivers.
-25No it means that a single distro won't, by default, use X11. You are free to install it yourself if you choose to use that specific distro.
It doesn't say anywhere that KDE won't support X11...
Also the fact that Nvidia works so badly in so many scenarios on linux is 80% of the fault of Nvidia, not KDE....
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