Here’s my 2cts as someone who (used to) hate Wayland:
The main reason is frustration. Using Xorg was simple. You install xorg-server (and its million dependencies), a window manager and you’re good to go.
Fire up the server, and then run all the software you need. The window manager is just one of them (and is entirely optional).
Wayland is another story though. You don’t “install Wayland”. It’s only a spec. Just like you don’t install HTTP to browse the web. You either install Firefox, epiphany or dillo, which all support a different amount of that spec. For example dillo is ultra light but doesn’t support javascript.
It’s the same with Wayland compositors, except that the spec changes every week (or used to, back in Wayland’s early days). And it was so frustrating to come from Xorg where everything works to another system where you couldn’t even copy/paste between windows !
Wayland being only a protocol is it’s greatest strength and main weakness. It’s good because it’s extensible and everyone’s free to implement whatever extension they need. Unfortunately it went in all directions with everyone coming up with new extension everyday, causing fragmentation when there was barely 3 competitors (kde, gnome and wlroots). As a developer, it’s ultra confusing, just like on the web when you used to add support for chrome, mozilla and IE. And requires a lot of effort because the landscape is constantly changing. So if devs are lost, imagine users…
Hopefully nowadays there’s some kind of consortium that’s voting Wayland extensions, which is a great thing. Things move at a pace that is okayish to keep up with, and most basic expected features are there (copy/paste, screen save/lock, desktop shells, etc…).
Here’s my 2cts as someone who (used to) hate Wayland:
The main reason is frustration. Using Xorg was simple. You install
xorg-server(and its million dependencies), a window manager and you’re good to go. Fire up the server, and then run all the software you need. The window manager is just one of them (and is entirely optional).Wayland is another story though. You don’t “install Wayland”. It’s only a spec. Just like you don’t install HTTP to browse the web. You either install Firefox, epiphany or dillo, which all support a different amount of that spec. For example dillo is ultra light but doesn’t support javascript. It’s the same with Wayland compositors, except that the spec changes every week (or used to, back in Wayland’s early days). And it was so frustrating to come from Xorg where everything works to another system where you couldn’t even copy/paste between windows !
Wayland being only a protocol is it’s greatest strength and main weakness. It’s good because it’s extensible and everyone’s free to implement whatever extension they need. Unfortunately it went in all directions with everyone coming up with new extension everyday, causing fragmentation when there was barely 3 competitors (kde, gnome and wlroots). As a developer, it’s ultra confusing, just like on the web when you used to add support for chrome, mozilla and IE. And requires a lot of effort because the landscape is constantly changing. So if devs are lost, imagine users…
Hopefully nowadays there’s some kind of consortium that’s voting Wayland extensions, which is a great thing. Things move at a pace that is okayish to keep up with, and most basic expected features are there (copy/paste, screen save/lock, desktop shells, etc…).