Looking ahead with Mint Linux
- Thread starter Daniel~
- Start date
I'm...really torn on this.
On the one hand, Wayland fixes a number of X11 issues. On the other, there is still a lot of software out there which uses X11. Wayland solves this with an X11 shim (basically a translation layer that translates X11 calls to their Wayland equivalents). That shim both helps and hurts. It helps because it means that legacy X11 apps that may be useful but are no longer under development can still work. It hurts because it means that lazy devs can continue to develop for the lowest common denominator (X11).
On the other side of the coin, there's XLibre, which is basically X11 but fixed, and arguably in a better way than Wayland. The main problem with XLibre is that it is basically (to my understanding) one developer. If he gets hit by a bus, XLibre is dead.
As Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and Debian, and they are both moving to Wayland, the Linux Mint devs may be having their hands forced here.
I don't actually see this making a difference to me, as the vast majority of my use-cases aren't impacted by the areas that X11 works and Wayland doesn't, I don't think. Time will tell.
On the one hand, Wayland fixes a number of X11 issues. On the other, there is still a lot of software out there which uses X11. Wayland solves this with an X11 shim (basically a translation layer that translates X11 calls to their Wayland equivalents). That shim both helps and hurts. It helps because it means that legacy X11 apps that may be useful but are no longer under development can still work. It hurts because it means that lazy devs can continue to develop for the lowest common denominator (X11).
On the other side of the coin, there's XLibre, which is basically X11 but fixed, and arguably in a better way than Wayland. The main problem with XLibre is that it is basically (to my understanding) one developer. If he gets hit by a bus, XLibre is dead.
As Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and Debian, and they are both moving to Wayland, the Linux Mint devs may be having their hands forced here.
I don't actually see this making a difference to me, as the vast majority of my use-cases aren't impacted by the areas that X11 works and Wayland doesn't, I don't think. Time will tell.