this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
229 points (98.7% liked)

Linux

49510 readers
646 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] penguin202124 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As much as I love Wayland, they really should keep support for those who have to use X11.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 minutes ago

By the time GTK5 appears, a vanishingly small percentage of Linux users will need X11.

I run Wayland on 2009 hardware now.

As toolkits abandon X11, it is going to pressure other operating systems to move to Wayland as well.

FreeBSD is already moving. Even Haiku has Wayland support. So we are talking about the smaller BSDs and the Solaris derivatives. Or ancient operating systems on original hardware I guess. In which case, they can run the older apps which is likely all they can run anyway.

Worst, worst case, you can run Wayland on x11. If there is something you absolutely need, I guess you can run Wayland apps on x11 that way.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

I'm using a 49" monitor and dividing it up in virtual X11 monitors/screens for flexibility. Running a tiling window manager with lots of virtual desktops, but with fullscreen support separate monitors are still needed. Wayland are still missing the support for dividing up the display, which is probably the last thing keeping me on X11.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I really wish Wayland was more fleshed out & stable before all of this happened. Color management isn’t even yet finalized & putting accurate colors on the screen is like the most important part.

I really wish Arcan were further along.

[–] azvasKvklenko 3 points 10 hours ago

It actually was merged just few days ago, I mean the color management protocol

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 hours ago

We live in a wild world where people feel so confident about the wayland snake oil that they only added color in 2024!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

til about arcan. how is it better than wayland?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 minutes ago

Arcan is a cool idea but you mostly hear about it from people complaining that Wayland is not ready. Of course, Wayland is already used by more than half of Linux users and Arcan does not really exist yet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Oh no...

Anyways, another reason why to use Qt rather than GTK for your app.

[–] azvasKvklenko 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

You have to decide whether you want to be Linux app or GNOME app

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

Gnome is doing their famous "trust us, we know better" skit again. Always a crowd pleaser.

[–] [email protected] 108 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I just hope Wayland has its accessibility shit together before then. There are people that still need to use X11 for their accessibility needs.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

last time I checked, blind users could not even install any mainstream distro anymore, because they all switched to wayland, and that broke screen readers in the installer.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (11 children)

Yeah. I'm sad to say that, about a year ago, I switched back to macOS because it handles accessibility waaaaay better. And I don't even use screen readers. It sounds like their situation is even worse :/

I just need the ability to easily zoom in and out using Super+scroll up/down (without causing performance issues or visual jank) and trackpad gestures that aren't extremely limited. Granted, both of these things may be more of a DE thing, but wherever the issue lies, I would like them fixed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

KDE let's you do that first one, though it's ctrl+super. It's one of my favourite lesser known features.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] priapus 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

GTK 4 released 9 years after GTK 3, so it'll be quite some time before GTK 5. If Wayland doesn't have better accessibility than X11 at that point it'd be time to give up on it as a project, and maybe desktop Linux as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

GTK+4 was released? When??

I've been compiling GTK+3 3.2x, the latest stable version about ten years ago and always wonder will they ever advance the major version. Years of installing XFCE4 and stuff and I always saw them pulling GTK+3 as a dependency. Never seen GTK+ marked 4 though.

To be fair I haven't visited their official website for a while though.

[–] priapus 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

GTK 4 was released in 2020, they also dropped the plus from the name in 2019. GTK 4 is a big update and would be a pretty massive amount of work to switch to. I don't know when, if ever, XFCE will switch to it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Yup, considering they deprecated so many functions and removed them I'd imagine switching would be really hard.

Even while writing my new projects in gtk4 (tiny projects) I run into problems of many solutions no longer working because the functions are removed without any replacements.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago

Fr, accessibility is def important and they’re not giving it enough attention

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Also I've found some games that work fine in Wine under X11 and not in Wayland

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The lack of proper tablet support in wayland prevents me from being excited for this. I wish there was more news on that front.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You mean like Wacom tablets? I’m curious to know what’s missing. I’ve been using one of those XP Pen tablets on GNOME and Wayland without much issue. I’m using it for writing more than drawing though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I mean, my issue is that most buttons on my huion are still non bindable, and some graphical interfaces cannot be interacted with in mouse mode and only register as touch. Lastly, occasionally programs completely ignore pen sensitivity, such as blender.

This experience was when I was last on gnome. I've been on budgie for a while as a result of needing a tablet for my hobbies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My main problem with it is that you cannot scroll using the pen

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I couldn't figure out how I'm supposed to use my pen for scrolling (I decided to stop using mouse and shelved it) so I bought a macropad with 3 knobs and ascended to godhood.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Will QT 7 Do the same?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The future is now old man. KDE next.

[–] Classy 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's a shame because my 11yo laptop runs beautifully on X11 but terribly on Wayland with KDE. I hope the issues with Wayland optimization work out on my laptop before I'm forced to switch

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

The next laptop you'll buy will be obsolete and broken before you're forced to switch.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

Let's just hope XFCE can finish the transition before then. If not, I am not looking forward to having to shop for a new DE.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I s2g im gonna become one of those psychos who runs the oldest Debian that still gets security updates behind a pfsense with whitelisting.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

You already said Debian. The rest is redundant.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Please forgive me, as a Debian user I’m prone to senior moments and will soon have my driving license legally revoked.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›