[Discuss] Future of X11 (was Trying to connect to internet in Debian)

[ron at bclug.ca (Ron)]

Kent Borg wrote on 2026-01-18 07:06:

> My understanding is Wayland is the alternative that is taking over the 
> world, and it seems to exist to make GPUs happier and explicitly is 
> opposed to running over a network.

My understanding follows:

It seems to exist because:

1) X is a nightmare of kludges that is nearly impossible to maintain 
never mind build upon. Anyone who's actually worked on it has mild 
trauma. X.org themselves don't do much with X source code anymore

2) Modern computing requires, for example, a laptop with a low res 
screen plugged into an external 4k monitor have independent resolutions 
for each monitor, not some hacked fractional scaling that sorta-kinda 
works on both. X sees all monitors as one giant screen, Wayland sees 
them as independent devices

3) X is a security nightmare, where all applications can see all inputs 
to all other applications, something that would be astonishingly 
insecure 20+ years ago



The Wayland development process has been a wee bit difficult 
(understatement!) but lots of people are using it full-time and seem 
fine with it.

(I'm still on X but a couple years ago booted into Wayland without 
realizing it and didn't notice for a couple weeks.)