Link: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/53b67455-f5a8-41f7-9be4-21476d0b565a

These projects get a lot of criticism.

Why, and is it deserved?

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:04 Sponsor: Proton Mail

02:16 SystemD (of course)

07:04 Wayland

12:27 Ubuntu

15:38 Snaps

20:24 Flatpak

24:11 Gnome

30:34 Conclusion

31:11 Sponsor: Tuxedo Computers

I have no issues with most of them, but Ubuntu and their snaps… no, thank you.

sure, wayland isnt perfect and will never fully replace x11, but it does just work for most people nowdays

is systemd that controversial? seems like a loud minority imo, most distros use it

gnome haters will always be there, im one lol, but its pretty fine if you like it

most of the hate twords ubuntu is directed at canonical not the software imo, but snaps i totally get, arent even fully open source with canonicals proprietary snap repos

(Note: I've not watched the video yet, but this is what I think of common hate towards every project mentioned)

systemd hate is just "fans" of the UNIX philosophy complaining that "it does too many things to get it right", while they follow a flawed philosophy and also fail to separate systemd the init and systemd the project.

Wayland hate is just silly, yeah it's not the same as X, but it's getting there while still avoiding becoming a total mess of software. Same with flatpak.

Ubuntu and snap hate is deserved because of how canonical is steering those projects.

GNOME hate though... I can totally understand the dislike for it. It can force too many opinions onto its users with not much choice, but thats kinda its thing, having a simple and consistent desktop experience. I kinda like their approach to a usable desktop.

Wayland because it works for a majority (but not all) and still doesn't have some basic functionality despite having been in development for near 20 years (eg custom window placement).

It may eventually be good, but it is taking a goddamn lifetime to do it. Completely mismanaged imo.

Speaking as someone who doesn't use any of these things, at least half the problem is the people who push these pieces of software. Hint: telling someone "oh, your preferred software is crap, use this instead" when what they have is already sufficient for their purposes makes you look like a liar and turns people against your message because they don't like being insulted. There are examples in the comments here already.

There is a type of person who instantly jumps on new software because it is new . . . and y'know, that's fine. We need those people, or software will never improve. However, most people don't think that way and need to be offered a compelling reason to change. "This new software has this great new feature" may be a compelling reason . . . for someone who needs or can use that feature. "The codebase of the software you're using is old and crufty and not attracting many developers" is not a compelling reason as long as there's at least one person around providing needed patches. Even "the software you're currently using is completely unmaintained" may not be a compelling reason if the software continues to work and doesn't have any known major security issues.

lol, okay, Win/Mac user>>>>>>>>

Sorry, but . . . Gentoo user. Meaning that one of the things I do is retain packages for software that suits me as long as I can still make it and its dependencies compile, because that's one of the things my distro allows me to do. I'm sorry if your expertise ends with taking what's explicitly offered to you.

The original ",btw" ilk 👏

Truth be told, we've got a bunch of folk who enjoys yapping "way too much", but... most of those "criticism" are valid and should be taken into account -- Gnome is indeed bloated, and Ubluntu is both bloated and tries way too hard to be "the next Windows" with telemetry and the focus on software that gives the same "Windows-like" experience.

Maybe what you call "basic functionality" isn't as "basic" to implement in code. Or maybe there aren't that many people that consider those functionalities "basic" (me for example).

All in all the hate towards wayland just does more harm than good and people limited on complaining and hating maybe should consider ways of actually improving it.

are there any wayland compositors that even implement a way to set tv_standard?

Maybe what you call “basic functionality” isn’t as “basic” to implement in code.

Everyone else has literally done it. Even X11.

All in all the hate towards wayland just does more harm than good and people limited on complaining and hating maybe should consider ways of actually improving it.

This is bullshit. I have no duty to be loyal to any project. Wayland in particular has been so mismanaged it's still fighting for dominance after decades and still can't reproduce the functionality we had in the '90s. All that effort could have been put into refactoring and updating X11 instead.

No. The people who thanklessly maintained X for years have made their choice. If you want to take up that slack, go ahead. The codebase sucks and X has many missing features, some of which Wayland supports or at least can feasibly implement at some point before the heat death of the universe. Every single person that says: "if we put all that effort into X instead we would be better off" has no idea what they are talking about and has clearly never spoken to a developer who actually worked on X.

can't reproduce the functionality we had in the '90s

Good. Fuck the ancient shit that has been collected over the years. There are still missing features that Wayland compositors need at some point and there are things that used to be easier with X, but if you can't actually name anything then I'll just assume you're being contrarian.

if you can’t actually name anything then I’ll just assume you’re being contrarian.

I did - in my very first post. I won't repeat it here because I don't care. There are lots. But hey - you got your individual monitor scaling so... I guess fuck everything else yeah?

You mean the way X handled window positioning? Yeah, good riddance. That was always a bad way to handle things and has been a major pain in the ass for window managers that tried to do anything out of the ordinary. Removing that was a deliberate choice. I'm quite happy to trade that anti-feature for HDR, useful VRR support and no tearing, ever.

You mean the way X handled window positioning

I mean the way literally every other display handles it other than Wayland which "knows better than I do" apparently. "You don't want that - I know you don't" is so pandering.

Windows allows it. MacOS allows it. Wayland is pure and perfect.

Yes, window management systems that are as old as X have that escape hatch of allowing positioning by global coordinates. It's pretty much impossible to take that ability away from applications when it inevitably becomes an issue.

"You don't want that - I know you don't"

You can try to frame this as pandering, condescending, mean or the devs having a personal vendetta against your workflow all you want, there are tradeoffs with such fundamental design decisions which have been deliberated over a lot. You either make global window position the sole responsibility of the compositor or you expose control to applications and get an unmanageable mess, which you can't fix.

Afaik, there are plans to implement additional client hints which applications can use to indicate desired window positioning or even manage relative position of multiple windows, but they don't involve direct access to the global coordinates. This is mainly a concern for complex multi-window legacy applications which are currently stuck on xwayland. See this for example: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/264

Do you have an issue that actually requires this or do you just have an issue with how a certain compositor handles window placement?

You either make global window position the sole responsibility of the compositor or you expose control to applications and get an unmanageable mess, which you can’t fix.

rofl

That's hilariously stupid. Like every window management system other than Wayland is just an unmanageable mess because they allow this?

Do you have an issue that actually requires this or do you just have an issue with how a certain compositor handles window placement?

You're arguing a particular problem and solutions to it rather than acknowledging the category of problem and the greater issue it shows. That it's taken 20 years for the team to maybe kinda consider implementing basic functionality that is provided by every windowing system not named Wayland is f'ing ridiculous. And it's not the only feature that has taken ages without being addressed. It's a project team problem. Their ivory tower design didn't address the real world usage and they lack the flexibility to deviate from their design.

This is like arguing with someone on the phoronix forums and I'm genuinely disappointed. This isn't basic functionality, it's a complicated design choice and just going: "do it the same way everyone else does lmao it's not that hard" while ignoring all the problems this has caused over the years is incredibly disingenuous. I get it, you just want Windows, or MacOS or whatever traditional, windows inspired never-changing desktop UI you're used to. You don't care about things like different screen shapes, scrollable compositors or enabling new window management strategies. Ironically, most people can already have that with current Wayland compositors. It works fine for the vast majority of users. What's so "ivory tower" and "not real world usage" about that? I'm using it. I have been since before it was made default in Fedora, because it solved my screen tearing issues immediately. I'm using it at work and at home. It's fine. Yes there are missing features. No, it's not "basic functionality" or complete deal breakers for everyone but a tiny subset of users. That obviously doesn't stop some people from blowing it out of proportion apparently.

Fine, pivot to complaining about the pace of development instead. I'm sure everyone who has been successfully using Wayland for years is going to see your vague hints of what's wrong with it and the Wayland devs will go back to working on X.

I should know better than to engage with someone willing to throw around meaningless buzzwords like ivory tower design.

Fine, pivot to complaining about the pace of development instead.

My dude that was my point - you misunderstood it for complaining about the one exact example I gave. An example you seem to think is just unsolvable by the Wayland team despite having been addressed by "everyone else". That example isn't even so important. It's a minor but expected feature that seemingly breaks the brilliant architecture of Wayland.

I’m sure everyone who has been successfully using Wayland for years is going to see your vague hints of what’s wrong with it and the Wayland devs will go back to working on X.

Well - I can't. Pop_OS KDE doesn't work on Nvidia in Wayland mode. Because nobody though to involve Nvidia in the discussions and just assumed they would change everything for 0.01% of their users. Well done Wayland team. 🤷