What Is Wayland on Linux, and How Is It Different from X? (2023)

https://www.howtogeek.com/900698/what-is-wayland-on-linux-and-how-is-it-different-from-x/

by accrual • 2 years ago

12 12 2 years ago

accrual• 2 years ago

Installed Ubuntu 23.10 on a new laptop but ran into some fractional scaling/high DPI issues with apps like Steam and Discord. Comments online suggested using Wayland, so I'm going to try out Fedora which uses Wayland by default. Came across this article and thought others might like a refresher on X11 vs Wayland.

flohofwoe• 2 years ago

Ubuntu has enabled Wayland by default since version 21.04, so unless you explicitly opted into an X11 desktop session you are already on Wayland.

reisse• 2 years ago

Wayland is not enabled by default if your system has Nvidia graphics card.

tapoxi3• 2 years ago

Steam and Discord are both X11 apps, so switching to a Wayland session may not help much as they will still use X via XWayland. There may be a way to force Discord to use Wayland as its an Electron app.

In general I've found KDE does a great job dealing with fractional scaling with XWayland apps, GNOME not so much. I'm using Fedora's KDE spin.

jhallenworld• 2 years ago

Here is a good history of X:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-N-fgKWYGU

tapoxi3• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj02_UeUnGQ is also good

musicale2• 2 years ago

It's like X11, but faster and buggier.

musicale2• 2 years ago

Downvoted because it isn't actually faster.

nilslindemann• 2 years ago

https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d...

What Is Wayland on Linux, and How Is It Different from X? (2023)

Related Stories