X11 was initially a client/server based display system to use with terminals; terminals being separate devices that would connect to a mainframe or other large server, something we would call a "thin client" today. It used primitive drawing systems to display things and tons of things have been bolted on throughout the years. Getting 3D to work was a hack because it needed to "go around" the whole client/server architecture, even though everything else still goes through that pipeline, any application can read all keystrokes even if the application isn't focused, anything can capture anything on any screen, lock screens were a hack and "worked" by attempting to keep themselves at the top of the window stack, etc.
Wayland took all of that and modernized it. The whole client/server architecture was scrapped (though you can still use it remotely ala waypipe), each application now only has control over its own window and can "draw" on that window using OpenGL, only the focused application can get access to the keyboard (though there's ways of getting around this that are built into the window manager), things like fractional scaling are easier to implement, etc. That said, Wayland is just a protocol; there's not a singular implementation like X11. Mutter is the implementation that Gnome uses, KDE has their own, there's another one that is trying to be a generic implementation, etc. When running Wayland, any X11 applications that can't use Wayland directly run via XWayland, and by doing so inherit some of the security features of Wayland applications like not being able to sniff all keyboard input. Yes, some things break; yes, applications need to be updated; yes, there's quirks. However, it's the direction we're heading and X11 is on the way out. There are holdouts, yes, however even the non-major players are getting on the Wayland bandwagon like XFCE. X11 will still be around for a while, but it's eventually going to go away and eventually major frameworks like GTK and Qt/KDE are going to drop support for it. I feel that the holdouts are typically the same group of people that don't like systemd; basically stuck with what was available during the Linux 2.6 days not wanting to move forward at all. But hey, this is Linux, you do you. On Sat, Aug 23, 2025, at 10:45 AM, Snyder, Alexander J via PLUG-discuss wrote: > If anyone knows, could they give me a quick run down of the "X vs. Wayland" > ... I rarely use a Linux desktop environment so it barely effects me, of ever > ... But you can't be involved in Linux (these days) without at least a > cursory knowledge of what's going on. > > I could have googled it, or asked A.I., but I'm more interested to hear the > perspective from the "boots on the ground" as the saying goes. > > What do you like, dislike -- do you use it? Are you like me, when encountered > you rate quit and just use X11 as often as possible? > > --- > Thanks, > Alexander > > Sent from my Google Pixel 9 Pro > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >
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