What’s the difference for a real user between using X11 or Wayland nowdays? I haven’t found anything useful on the internet, so I’m asking you. Internet articles on the topic (and about WMs too) seem to be advertising slop since they explain anything but the real things. Also, if anyone used the XLibre fork, I would love to hear about your experience with it.

  • KianaTabion@lemmy.today
    2·
    3 hours ago

    Wayland is (part of) the modern solution to the problem that was previously tackled by X11. As such, it comes with improved security (read: keyloggers no longer have a field day) and features (read: HDR, VRR and no screen tearing) that one might expect in 2026. Furthermore, it breaks up the monolith of X11 and thus adheres better to the Unix Philosophy[1] (if that happens to be something you care about). Finally, Wayland has basically come (as part of the plan) to replace X11. So, it will continue to improve as a platform while X11 will remain stagnant.

    In the current landscape in which Wayland has (finally) fulfilled (most of) its promises, X11’s lifeline are the edge cases in which (for a myriad of different reasons) the Wayland ecosystem hasn’t reached full feature-parity yet. And Wayland’s trajectory would suggest that it’s only a matter of time until those have been ironed out as well.

    TL;DR: Use Wayland. Most of the ecosystem has already adopted it and what remains is actively in the process of doing so.

    1. That is; Do one thing and do it well. ↩︎