GNOME's Mutter Now Allows Building Without XWayland - Nearing Optional X11

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNOME's Mutter Now Allows Building Without XWayland - Nearing Optional X11

GNOME's Mutter now allows disabling XWayland support at build-time if so desired. This is part of the broader GNOME effort for making X11 support optional and ultimately allowing for a modern Wayland-only environment if so desired and without carrying legacy X11 cruft...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mutter-Optional-XWayland

[uid313]

I would like to be able to install/uninstall XWayland without having to recompile anything.

[Britoid]

I would like to be able to install/uninstall XWayland without having to recompile anything.

You can pass --no-x11 to GNOME-Shell. So far though, it hasn't been possible to compile GNOME-Shell without linking to Xorg, as it had dependences on libraries/toolkits that link on Xorg (e.g. GTK3)

It's probably possible to make a Xorg driver that uses something like GTK windows to be an actual app on Wayland, similar to macOS, however it probably would have compatibility and performance issues, as the usage of Xorg on Linux is much wider and broader than what it is on macOS.

[timofonic]

I don't get with GTK wasn't ported to Wayland. At least 2-3-4 ones.

[archkde]

It's probably possible to make a Xorg driver that uses something like GTK windows to be an actual app on Wayland, similar to macOS, however it probably would have compatibility and performance issues, as the usage of Xorg on Linux is much wider and broader than what it is on macOS.

IIRC, that is already possible with Xpra, and it works surprisingly well (not as good as Xwayland, though).

[Amano]

I don't get with GTK wasn't ported to Wayland. At least 2-3-4 ones.

Can you elaborate? GTK 3 and GTK 4 are Wayland compatible. Just GTK 2 will depend on X/XWayland.

[Delgarde]

I don't get with GTK wasn't ported to Wayland. At least 2-3-4 ones.

GTK 3 and later run fine natively under Wayland... that was one of the big factors driving API compatibility breakage between 2.x and 3.x, the need to avoid having client code directly dependent on X11 APIs. But GTK2 will never run natively on Wayland... it's an older version that nobody is continuing to develop, and most applications still using it are in the same state... if they're unable to do the work to upgrade the toolkit, they're also unlikely to be able to do the work to get off X11.

[yurikoles]

Meanwhile, Fedora FESCo:

Chubbles.jpg

[luno]

thanks Gnome devs, now now we need two ISO - normal (pure Wayland) and legacy supported with Xorg with big warning that it is not maintained anymore, might have security vulnerabilities and should use with caution

[mangeek]

thanks Gnome devs, now now we need two ISO - normal (pure Wayland) and legacy supported with Xorg with big warning that it is not maintained anymore, might have security vulnerabilities and should use with caution

I wouldn't worry. The problem doesn't exist, nor is two ISOs the solution.

Distros will keep packaging one ISO, and it'll likely include XWayland, which will get security patches as needed. It's not like having XWayland available for local apps to draw with is exposing remote vulnerabilities.