Linux
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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.
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Wayland is the future. It has already surpassed X11 in many ways. My favourite comment on Phoronix was “When is X11 getting HDR? I mean, it was released 40 years ago now.”
That said, the fact that this pull request came from Valve should carry some weight. Perhaps Wayland really is not ready for SDL.
I do not see why we need to break things unnecessarily as we transition. This is on the app side. Sticking with X11 for SDL ( for now ) does not harm the Wayland transition in any way. These applications will still work fine via Xwayland.
Sure, a major release like 3.0 seems like a good place to make the switch. In the end though, it is either ready or it is not. If the best path for SDL is to keep the default at X11 then so be it ( for now ).
Yup, I dont think this is valve shitting on Wayland because they also believe in Wayland being the future, but until their protocol suggestions are merged upstream it does hurt the Linux gaming ecosystem (and therefore valve) if games outside of Gamescope have technical issues.
That being said, I'm not sure what games I play use SDL, let alone Wayland SDL, so can't be sure what issues im affected by
I already force Wayland global for SDL games because the xwayland one has a horrible stutter while the native Wayland works flawlessly. Making it the default sounds reasonable to me. If specific programs don't work with it, they can override it
Interesting. I've been developing a game with SDL2 and think I know the stutter you're referencing. I passed it off as an oversight in my rendering code, but maybe it's as you say. Forcing Wayland does appear to work on my test machine, but integer scaling is broken. Might require some more tinkering or proper support in SDL3, but that's the only thing that didn't work OOTB, so not bad.
To have this laundry list of negatives get a reply basically saying "yeah, it's bad, but we need to impress the stakeholders by forcing a Wayland default even if it doesn't work correctly" is baffling.
I use SDL so this hits a bit closer to home. Hopefully they can arrive at a conclusion that isn't harmful to us devs. It's already kind of a tossup whether it's even worth it to provide a native Linux build when Proton works so well anyway. I can't imagine this will help.
one of the main reasons the linux kernel is where it is today: "never break userspace"
unfortunately not every project keeps to this principle.
There are good reasons to break userspace sometimes. If we would never do so, we would stuck on X11 forever.
Wayland is definitely on the side of not breaking userspace, though. The API design, xWayland compatibility layer, and recent focus on protocols to fix missing functionality from xorg are all designed to make Wayland a seamless transition.
Otherwise we'd have been using Wayland as the only option for years now.
Linus would like to have a word with you
No, because the kernel has a different goal than most other software. Linux agrees that breaking the userspace from userspace is sometimes necessary.
can claw my xkcd 1172 from my cold dead hands /sarcasm
"never break userspace"
As Linus once, very articulately, reminded that one guy.
That one guy, In fact, being many one guys.
This feels like the same kind of issue mesa just had around the zlib update breaking downstream user programs (viewperf). If there are significant downstream issues for users you shouldn't upgrade, even if that is the end goal.
Projects that are big and important get old and bloated because they need to try and span legacy issues alongside their attempts at newer paradigms. It's just kind of the natural lifecycle of these projects.
Gnome has been running user space applications just fine for me on Wayland, Arch Linux.
There were some issues about 2 years ago. I have no complaints for last 12 months.
Wayland is today’s life for some.
- Steam gaming , proton and native
- visual studio code
- qemu running windows
- app interrupting work to relax eyes
- old mysql dashboard ui
Basically, I have not seen app specific issues for my user flow.
That's true only for AMD or Intel users.
That's fine, we don't need to rush things