I read all the stuff (x11 and wayland) and I'm interested because Wayland is apparently the future...
...and I stay away from all the heated debates and have no comment about that stuff...
...I only have one simple question i never see addressed in all my reading:
Will Wayland be friendly to older equipment like mine?
I don't intend on changing my ways--I prefer an older desktop.
brent Fun fact, I have been running Solus plasma on an old core2 duo laptop and Wayland seems fine with that. A little slower on boot and initial display startup, but once everything is up and running it is fine. Only long term issue is that when Solus 5.0 comes along (or maybe a bit sooner) there will no longer be support for my old processor.
I have heard for future support running ld.so --help should show v2 supported for future support.
BuzzPCSOS Only long term issue is that when Solus 5.0 comes along (or maybe a bit sooner) there will no longer be support for my old processor.
that's my biggest fear. is there some kind of list of hardware that will be excluded/not function when Wayland comes to town? Got and old Intel 4 core and GEForce, platter drive, sata cables, ethernet, etc etc
thanks for your input.
I've accepted the future (absent X11) but I damn don't know how to prep for it.
There was a discussion about future compatibility for old machines a while back here which might answer some questions.
It all sounded much like Solus would be loosing compatibility with old legacy hardware to enable modern technology to enjoy all the performance tweaks available for it.
It was suggested that users of older machines could choose one of many OSs where their hardware was still supported.
I suppose LTS Solus might still be an option for a while.
BuzzPCSOS It all sounded much like Solus would be loosing compatibility with old legacy hardware to enable modern technology to enjoy all the performance tweaks available for it.
Eh. I enjoy my computing life now and all the benefits and performance. How is anything made today an improvement over what I have now? I don't watch movies or do gaming on the desktop--there was a time and a place once for GTA and Tekken...
Much more important is I need to see the list of what the experts call "legacy" and "not legacy."
I need to see the master list that goes:
"every sound card in the world made before 2017 is legacy, everything after is Wayland compatible."
"every CPU in the world made before 2015 is legacy, and everything after is Wayland-compatible,"
"every MOBO in the world made before 2009 is legacy and MOBO made from 2010 to now is Wayland compatible."
the people spearheading Wayland need to furnish the computing world this list. it would be the compassionate thing to do. I hate wasting money.
If such a magic list exists, please disregard.
No one can answer the question for you. There is simply too much BS out there, people making false claims / blaming Wayland for a breakage it had no hand in, etc. You need to try it yourself and see what issues exist for you.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt causes people to draw false conclusions that give people the impression that Wayland will not work for them despite never having tried it or having tried it once, years ago or on a distribution like debian that has ancient software... etc etc.
Some clarifications:
Any future Solus changes to the x86-64 baselines are not related to Wayland support or even because we are rebasing on Serpent OS. It would simply be a good point to change things. Solus can set its own baseline, no matter what Serpent does. Using the LTS kernel would have no impact what so ever if your hardware was not supported by the new baseline.
Wayland does not care about your sound card, motherboard, CPU, sata cables etc. Your applications need to support Wayland (But xwayland exists for compatibility with applications that do not). Your GPU driver needs to support wayland. Pipewire (we use by default now) is required for some functionality in Wayland and is exactly how people over look things in testing leading to false conclusions.
Odds are your hardware will work on Wayland. If you have a nvidia GPU that gets a bit messy, works for some, not others on the proprietary drivers. If you run gnome you may have bugs that do not exist on Plasma and vice versa as it isn't actually Wayland that is the problem. Currently XFCE and Budgie do not have wayland support.
Harvey Fear, uncertainty and doubt causes people to draw false conclusions that give people the impression that Wayland will not work for them despite never having tried it or having tried it once, years ago or on a distribution like debian that has ancient software... etc etc.
probably all true in contentious threads I read across the internets. I have no fear or uncertainty, it's just what I know could fill a thimble.
Harvey Wayland does not care about your sound card, motherboard, CPU, sata cables etc. Your applications need to support Wayland (But xwayland exists for compatibility with applications that do not). Your GPU driver needs to support wayland. Pipewire (we use by default now) is required for some functionality in Wayland
KEY. I learned more in 3 sentences here than I have in all those internet threads (hyperfocused on x11 v. W).
"Your applications need to support Wayland."
Does that mean the X11 Budgie I have now is different than the Wayland Budgie experience---different apps? Or to keep it real, Plasma X and Plasma W right now?
Harvey Odds are your hardware will work on Wayland. If you have a nvidia GPU that gets a bit messy, works for some, not others on the proprietary drivers. If you run gnome you may have bugs that do not exist on Plasma and vice versa as it isn't actually Wayland that is the problem. Currently XFCE and Budgie do not have wayland support.
Harvey, when Solus announces some beta implementation of Wayland Budgie available on boot up then I will get on that hard and help test test test like a Space Monkey to see what the limitations are with my own stuff. These are exciting times for Solus and linux evolution in general.
my unsupported nvidia, for instance has deprecated support, and runs perfectly fine on Nouveau. And it might not in Wayland? then no so much an nvidia/W problem then it would be a Nouvea/Wayland problem?
I have a better idea of this 'baseline' and now I know it's not demarcated in stone.
Here's my take: there is no magic list yet and it's still touch and go and older hardware is not necessarily a significant factor.
Anyway, thanks for the great response. I still got a couple questions above. Thanks for the time.
brent Does that mean the X11 Budgie I have now is different than the Wayland Budgie experience---different apps? Or to keep it real, Plasma X and Plasma W right now?
Wayland has improved security, supposedly frame perfect by design (no tearing), for some including me it felt snappier too but that is hard to quantify and could be more that my hardware sucked more on X11 than it does on Wayland rather than any actual improvements to Waylands design.
brent my unsupported nvidia, for instance has deprecated support, and runs perfectly fine on Nouveau. And it might not in Wayland? then no so much an nvidia/W problem then it would be a Nouvea/Wayland problem?
It is my assumption that if your using the nouveau driver you will avoid a lot of the nvidia problems under Wayland. But that is not to say there are not any. I no longer have nvidia hardware so I can not test it.
brent Here's my take: there is no magic list yet and it's still touch and go and older hardware is not necessarily a significant factor.
I can see newer hardware being more relevant today resulting in more attention fixing issues it may have but its just a possibility that crossed my mind, not a fact.
If we ignore wayland and focus on proposed baseline changes. The only way to know for sure if you have oldish hardware is to run the ld.so --help command.
Subdirectories of glibc-hwcaps directories, in priority order:
x86-64-v4
x86-64-v3 (supported, searched)
x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)Mine is -v3 meaning anything compiled to -v3 or lower baselines will work fine on my system. If its -v4 it won't work at all. But if its lower than -v3 then there may be some features my CPU supports that can not be taken advantage of which may reduce performance on modern hardware which is why you may have have heard about other distros also looking at bumping this baseline.
The reason no one can give you a list is because Intel and to a lesser extent AMD have disabled some features on their CPU's on the lower end models. My laptop from 2010 is -v2, some stuff from 2007 may be -v2 but some stuff in 2011 may not. Its a mess.
Harvey I can see newer hardware being more relevant today resulting in more attention fixing issues it may have but its just a possibility that crossed my mind, not a fact.
I'm going to monitor Wayl/Hardware threads more with that mind. Hopefully I'll know what I can get away with as it goes.
Subdirectories of glibc-hwcaps directories, in priority order:
x86-64-v4
x86-64-v3 (supported, searched)
x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)--my output identical.
Harvey Mine is -v3 meaning anything compiled to -v3 or lower baselines will work fine on my system. If its -v4 it won't work at all. But if its lower than -v3 then there may be some features my CPU supports that can not be taken advantage of which may reduce performance on modern hardware which is why you may have have heard about other distros also looking at bumping this baseline.
^^^ Invaluable, now I understand the term baseline a bit better. your last sentence explains the -v2.
Harvey The reason no one can give you a list is because Intel and to a lesser extent AMD have disabled some features on their CPU's on the lower end models. My laptop from 2010 is -v2, some stuff from 2007 may be -v2 but some stuff in 2011 may not. Its a mess.
that's ok. as long as I'm paying better attention to the coming changes the more prepared I can be--the only reason I started this thread was to know if I had to throw my computer or any parts of it in the trash this year. I have no doubt Wayland will phase some things out and most things will be unaffected.
you would be a good educator professionally because you are a good educator. you can sift thru all the crap and focus on exactly the underlying sentiment expressed even if not articulated well by the thread-starter. I'm a lot closer to understanding then when I asked. Appreciate your help navigating this change.
edit/word
WetGeek I think I can hijack myself! anywhos did this Plank thing happen to you in your XFCE testing? Just curious https://github.com/getsolus/packages/issues/1464
I filed it but I don't know if was exclusive to my card/setup/monitor etc. Graci,
WetGeek I'll wake up my hibernating Xfce laptop and check.
Lunch is thawing right now, so I'll poke this laptop and check now. This is a workspace where a Settings dialog takes up a fraction of the screen.
On the workspace where Vivaldi is running - and I'm typing this - I can't get a screen shot of Plank, as it hides as soon as I try to take a screenshot. But while it's still present, I can confirm that the area of the plank below Vivaldi is indeed red. To be clear, both the dot and the area of the plank around it are red.
Gotta go now. From the sounds from the kitchen, my burger has thawed now, and is frying with abandon.
Axios they are too small, not always obvious, and too far away from the icons. congrats on that! I'm glad it was possible to do. did you have to hack about in .conf file?
p.s.--the budgie dock actually gets this right. dot is big, bright, and right on the app.
anyhow thanks had no idea plank could be customized like that, that makes me happy.
brent Sorry that directory was for themes you added going be empty unless you added some
The default themes are in root forget where guess you could copy the root ones over there and rename
them to not get confused or download a theme and try messing with it.
whatever way you want to go.
Note just copy the one your using from root plank and rename it custom or something.
Sorry about that slip of the ole mind.
The files are dock.theme
