Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@probonopd
probonopd / Wayland.md
Last active December 15, 2025 23:21
Think twice about Wayland. It breaks everything!

Think twice before abandoning X11. Wayland breaks everything!

tl;dr: Wayland is not "the future", it is merely an incompatible alternative to the established standard with a different set of priorities and goals.

Wayland breaks everything! It is binary incompatible, provides no clear transition path with 1:1 replacements for everything in X11, and is even philosophically incompatible with X11. Hence, if you are interested in existing applications to "just work" without the need for adjustments, then you may be better off avoiding Wayland.

Wayland solves no issues I have but breaks almost everything I need. Even the most basic, most simple things (like xkill) - in this case with no obvious replacement. And usually it stays broken, because the Wayland folks mostly seem to care about Automotive, Gnome, maybe KDE - and alienating e