Native Wayland Support on Linux

[Aster]

Hello all.

Just recently, Wayland has started being shipped with the mesa drivers on Archlinux. I'm seriously considering the move, since X is older than I am, and hasn't changed (much) since my birth.

For those of you who need some enlightenment on the subject, here's a recent video of Daniel Stone, a developer of Wayland, explaining everything (get some popcorn, it's a long one):
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Now, I'm not entirely sure whether SFML works on Wayland or not. It should, since Wayland can interface with X programs. But since Wayland is more or less "the future" compared to X, I think SFML should be written to support it as well.

I'm also aware of Ubuntu's (Canonical's) new fabulous idea, Mir. I don't support the project at all, but I don't have much against it. My request is entirely for Wayland, and I'd like to prevent flamewars on the two.

Thanks,
Aster

[Laurent]

There's no point supporting Wayland as long as X is supported (and it will for a long time). It won't enable new features, it won't bring anything noticeable for the end user, just a lot of work for me. So what's the point, other than "it's the new cool thing to support"?

[Krofna]

There's no point supporting Wayland as long as X is supported (and it will for a long time). It won't enable new features, it won't bring anything noticeable for the end user, just a lot of work for me. So what's the point, other than "it's the new cool thing to support"?

There is overhead when running X applications on wayland because it pretty much means starting an X server for the app (Altho this is hidden from the user, because xwayland does it behind the scenes). X is bad (I will not go into details), and thats why Linux users want wayland.

[Laurent]

I know that X is bad, it's so old, badly designed and such an undocumented mess to work with, but once you get something working, it works reliably.

As for the overhead of X over Wayland, to be honest I have no idea if it's significant or not. If experience proves that it is a real issue, then of course I'll consider switching to Wayland more seriously.

But right now I don't see any strong reason to do it, compared to the million of more important tasks that are waiting in the tracker

[Aster]

I'm glad to see that you're aware of everything. I'm aware that the feature is not essential, but it's good to keep it in mind, and I predict changes from X to Wayland in the next 6-12 months.

[Krofna]

I predict changes from X to Wayland in the next 6-12 months.

Careful with predictions. Bleeding edge distros like fedora might change to wayland soon, however I bet "stable" distros like Debian (and its derivatives ofcourse) won't do it in a very long time because X has passed the test of time and they prefer to not break stuff. Although this doesn't stop users from installing wayland, default is always the most popular choice.

[Aster]

I predict changes from X to Wayland in the next 6-12 months.

Careful with predictions. Bleeding edge distros like fedora might change to wayland soon, however I bet "stable" distros like Debian (and its derivatives ofcourse) won't do it in a very long time because X has passed the test of time and they prefer to not break stuff. Although this doesn't stop users from installing wayland, default is always the most popular choice.

Indeed. I'm an Arch user, I use it everywhere, so, I know what bleeding edge distros are planning. My prediction was just a general prediction for when I think Wayland will be usable enough for everyone, and when everyone will start trusting Wayland.

Although, Arch doesn't really have a "default", we just install what we want. I think this is why I think Wayland support is getting more and more important.

[Turbine]

Great video, needs some more car chases and gun fights. 

I was under the illusion Wayland would remain compatible with X11.

This is going to give me nightmares, staring into the black abyss of X on my laptop.

[cpolymeris]

I was under the illusion Wayland would remain compatible with X11.

It will. By the time X11-compatibility is no longer supported, I am sure someone can add Wayland support to SFML 5.0. Since most applications will be using that compatibility layer for now, it has to be running anyway, and so, your SFML using it should have no big impact.