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GUI X Ubuntu

LXQt 2.0 Released: Lightweight Desktop is Almost Wayland Compatible (9to5linux.com) 66

This week saw the release of the LXQt 2.0 desktop environment, reports 9to5Linux. And besides bringing Qt 6 support (and a new default application menu), it also brings support for the Wayland display protocol to more components: The LXQt development is confident that the next major release, LXQt 2.1, will be fully Wayland compatible. The components that need to be ported to Wayland include ScreenGrab, LXQt Global Shortcuts, LXQt Panel's task-bar and keyboard indicator, some input settings, and settings of monitor, power button, and screen locker.

"Wayland will be the main target for LXQt 2.1.0, as Qt6 was for LXQt 2.0.0" said the devs. "Most Wayland compositors have tools that can be used instead of them, such that an LXQt-Wayland session is already possible for advanced users."

The lightweight Linux distro Lubuntu uses LXQtplace in place of GNOME — and Lubuntu 24.04 LTS will include an optional Wayland session alongside its default Xorg one, according to 9to5Linux:

I said it before and I'll say it again, 2024 is the year of the Wayland desktop... The Lubuntu team plans to support the Xorg session until 2026 to aid users with older GPUs... However, the tables will be turned next year with the Lubuntu 24.10 release, which will be shipping with Wayland by default.
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LXQt 2.0 Released: Lightweight Desktop is Almost Wayland Compatible

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  • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Sunday April 21, 2024 @11:56AM (#64412218) Journal

    If X sucked as badly as its detractors claimed one would have thought that replacing it with something more functional would take less than the current 15 years, especially as work on X has more or less stalled for a decade.

    But it's 2024 and Wayland still doesn't for example support window placement, unlike Windows, OSX and what was that? X11? Huh. I'm sure it's out of scope and anyway the user's fault for wanting it widely supported features that have niche but very important uses.

    We've gone from "mechanism not policy" to "neither mechanism nor policy".

    Plus anything beyond the basics is a crapshoot because there are three major semicompatible layers (wlroots, gnome, kde), so now automation has coupled into the window management scheme. It's like someone looked at the fragmentation of 90s era uni and said "hold my beer".

    So... maybe.

    • X sucks for a modern desktop paradigm because it was created by nerds for nerds. Treating a network connection like a functional IPC mechanism sounds cool, but it just ended up being bandaids on bandaids, trying to make it more than a vga framebuffer. If a user didn't demand a 4k, composited, hardware accelerated, it would be functionally fine.

      Wayland was a solution, but as evidence of your complaining, it wasn't quite the replacement that people hoped for.

      However, that is the wonderful thin

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I do not "demand" 4k. In fact I do not want it as I see zero legitimate uses that actually require it except some really niche things. Hence I am entirely fine with X11.

      • X isn't really the problem that people think it is. Wayland doesn't give better performance than X because modern applications are connected to X in much the same way that they are connected to Wayland. Everything is composited and the scary (old, ugly, baroque, whatever) parts of X are only used by legacy applications, but they are there when you need them. Maybe updating, maintaining, and securing those old pieces of X is unrealistic, I could kind of see that. But I have a really hard time believing that

        • by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:00PM (#64412660)

          But I have a really hard time believing that it was physically impossible to get more mileage out of doing that than creating Wayland, which still doesn't do everything X does.

          That was AIGLX. And AIGLX was a compromise between those who were hardcore X11 protocol and those wanting to extend it so much that it would cause breakage, Xgl.

          We tried gassing up the X11 protocol to get it to support more direction EGL interactions with newer video cards, nobody wanted it. So since AIGLX was about the best compromise that everyone could agree with, Wayland was started. It was one of those things that people at the time back in 2004/2006 who were saying, well if you want to completely break XYZ, then you should go off and do your own project. AND that's exactly what happened, the X devs tired of the politics of RedHat, IBM, Sun, and so forth that "just couldn't stomach the kind of breakage that Xgl represented" left and went and did their own thing. And now suddenly everyone is like "holy crap look at how hot Wayland is!"

          MIR could have won the race, or that Looking Glass that Sun was working could have won out. Or heck Wayland could still be this outlining thing that no one talks about. It could have gone in any direction.

          X isn't really the problem that people think it is

          X isn't a problem at all. It just offers a different feature set that fewer people are looking for. X is completely viable but for a variety of reasons, very few new people are coming to the stack and none are supporting it. No one stops them from supporting it and breathing new life into the project, but if no one comes, then there's no hope in keeping the project running. So the problem with X is a people problem, there aren't any.

          • So the problem with X is a people problem, there aren't any.

            There were people. They left to go do Wayland. 15 years later it still doesn't work well or even do badly all the things they said it would do. So yeah, it's a people problem. And those people are in charge of Wayland.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday April 21, 2024 @12:26PM (#64412268)

      The reason X11 development has "stalled" is that it basically is finished and works pretty well. Do not fix what is not broken. Yes, I am aware that there are now a lot of morons in the Linux space that do not get that and instead mistake "new" for better. The systemd-assholes come to mind. Or the idiots that patch everything and the kitchen sink into sshd. Or the weyland people.

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        Well, they got stuck with a few things that were awkward.
        -Can't really "lock" the screen if a context menu is open. Due to limitations in how keyboard/pointer grab work and that being the only mechanism for screen locking to work
        -Scaling is a bit limited, technically you don't have fractional scaling or per-monitor scaling in Xorg.
        -X11 implementations struggle with strategies to avoid tearing.
        -X11 model allows easy surreptitious screen scraping and keylogging.
        -The X11 model for compositing basically made wi

        • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:30PM (#64412582) Homepage Journal

          X11 implementations struggle with strategies to avoid tearing

          That was hard back when GPU memory was severely limited. Now you can use triple buffering.

          -X11 model allows easy surreptitious screen scraping and keylogging.

          Yeah, too bad the Wayland devs didn't actually set X up to use the security stuff that's built into it instead of creating a system where you need an external component to pass keypresses between applications when you want to.

          -The X11 model for compositing basically made window managers responsible for rendering *anyway*, so the X11 server imposes some formality and still makes the compositor do the real work.

          Right, that's why Wayland performance and X11 performance are basically equal. They both use a compositor model today.

      • I run two X servers, one for each video card with one attached to my computer monitor and the other to the TV in the living room. Mostly easy peasy with a simple /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that defines which video card/keyboard combo is which. No need for systemd. No need for elogind. No need for polkit. Been running this setup for almost 20 years.

        I'd add pulseaudio to that list of "mistake new for better." Setting up two separate instances of pulse on top of alsa was the only real pain point because pulse
      • The reason X11 development has "stalled" is that it basically is finished and works pretty well. Do not fix what is not broken.

        False. You're gaslighting the actual X developers. Developers themselves have given the reason and it is not "works well" nor that it is "finished". Rather that the foundation of it didn't make is suitable for new feature development of modern desktops. You can only put so many bandaids on something before it falls apart.

        X was great for what it was and its design goal back in the day. That doesn't mean it's "finished" in terms of a modern desktop. Wayland *is* the fix for what was broken.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It seems as if Linux has gone backwards in the last 15 odd years. In the spirit of making things easier, layers & layers of abstraction have been added, which has made everything more complex. Gone are the days when one could edit a few text files and get shit done.

      Now you have to use a tool to do the exact same thing. Which also then keeps changing it's syntax and way of working. If something goes wrong, then it is another pain as the tool may or may not support the edgecase you are stuck on.

      FreeBS
      • by Anonymous Coward

        if linux doesn't want to make things easier and keep it lean and technical, that's fair but then linux users can't also complain about how everybody is still using windows and apple machines

        it feels like things have gone backwards because linux desktops are trying to appeal to non-techies but are so full up their ass with tech people building it they are unable to stop navel gazing long enough to actually make a workable, casual desktop.

        thus we get articles like this which to a casual user will give them a

    • But it's 2024 and Wayland still doesn't for example support window placement

      That's not a Wayland thing. That's a DE thing in Wayland. This used to be the role of X, but it is not for Wayland. Different DEs may wish to implement different methods for handling this, Wayland steps out of the way allowing DEs to implement their own process of placement.

      I'm sure it's out of scope and anyway the user's fault for wanting it widely supported features that have niche but very important uses

      It is out of scope. It's up to DEs to implement it. Users should take it up with DEs. This was the thing that hobbled X, it became a kitchen sink of where to stuff things, so when people wanted performance, too many things got in t

      • That's not a Wayland thing.

        Aaah there we go! The old "it's out of scope" argument.

        Followed by:

        They do NOT owe you support of your favorite piece

        complaining at the user for wanting stuff to work.

        You actually did both, I'm kinda impressed. Anyhow you are posting on a "year of the Wayland desktop" thread. And I'm thinking of a particular piece of software (ImageJ) which is currently maintained, very popular in many scientific circles and works perfectly on Windows, OSX and oh... what was the other system agai

        • complaining at the user for wanting stuff to work

          Then you want Windows. Here in the open source we work for our things or buy support contracts. If you wanted to just be a user, you want Windows or Mac. You should go there instead. Just like if you wanted someone to stop your house from burning down, don't go to the post office. If you want to be a spectator, go buy Windows.

          Your solution is for the poor imageJ devs to figure out not how to get it working on Linux

          Yes. Linux is a collaborative effort, why are you suggesting they get a pass on the collaborative part? Are you suggesting that some folks should get a free ride?

          I mean sure, but don't expect it to be the year of the Wayland desktop

          I won't. That'

          • I'll yet again remind you you're on a "year of the Wayland desktop" thread, which it seems you don't want.

            Then you want Windows.

            lol OK. The last version of Windows I booted on a machine of my own was Windows 95.

            Linux is a collaborative effort, why are you suggesting they get a pass on the collaborative part?

            They've been providing an amazing, industry leading F/OSS tool for 27 years, with a number of spinoffs, various compatibility things implemented in other libraries. That's pretty good collaboration. They

            • Then why are you pissing and moaning on a thread about the year of the Wayland desktop?

              I've already covered it, you are the one that then replied with the diatribe about ImageJ.

              That's not a Wayland thing. That's a DE thing in Wayland.

              So I covered my point.

              I'll yet again remind you you're on a "year of the Wayland desktop" thread

              I'm on the thread that indicated that window placement should be a server side thing and I indicated in Wayland it is not, it's a client side.

              which it seems you don't want.

              Again, I'm just telling you that in Wayland window placement is client side. In X it's server side. People are allowed to have a difference in opinion on the implementation of a feature. Hence the whole reason I asked you.

              I have no idea what your argument here is?

              You seem to want less choice. An

              • I've already covered it

                No you did not. You wade into a thread where I'm saying why it won't be the year of the wayland desktop saying (a) you don't care and (b) berating me for saying why it won't be.

                I get it it. Everything is everyone else's fault. Wayland is perfect. It will or won't be the year of the wayland desktop, you both don't care and care so much you need to keep shouting. Actually working is out of scope, as is acknowledging why Wayland isn't as popular as you like. Being out of scope, the only

                • You wade into a thread where I'm saying why it won't be the year of the wayland desktop saying (a) you don't care and (b) berating me for saying why it won't be

                  For point (b). I'm berating you because your attributing all this false sense of doom in something that isn't any kind of doom. You literally can start coding for the Xorg project today. Nothing stops you. If you do or don't see your point (a) which is pretty accurate.

                  Everything is everyone else's fault

                  It's not fault. There's nothing to fault. It's a matter of choice. X11 has the window placement server side, Wayland has it client side. That's just a matter of choice in design. It's nobody's fault for who picks Coke and who picks Pe

                  • What on earth are you taking about? What sense of doom?

                    And Wayland doesn't have it at all. There is still no protocol, and goodness theres been a bunch of bikeshedding over it...

                    All I did was point out (with an example) that a feature present on all other systems that's relied on had gone MIA on Wayland desktops, and all the Wayland supporters do is yell about it. And your response was... to yell about it.

                    • All I did was point out (with an example) that a feature present on all other systems that's relied on had gone MIA on Wayland desktops

                      Did you?

                      And your response was... to yell about it.

                      Because it's just a POV between yelling and pointing out. You're like I gave an example, and I indicated that it's out of scope. Then you're like "of course it's out of scope" and went on about HOW DARE THEY MARK THAT OUT OF SCOPE!! But that's their choice to do. They get to mark it out of scope. That's how choice works. You can choose to stay with X, you can choose to fix the issues you brought up. But instead of doing any of that, you're just yelling about some MIA feature that you expect t

                    • You are way too invested in this to be rational.

                      I'm saying in a thread about the year of the Wayland desktop that it won't be while they keep considering important features out of scope and then yelling at users about how they stuck and ought to do 1000x more work to make the feature that worked in the previous release of the distro work again.

                      I'd say if you're happy with it not being the year of the Wayland desktop, then that's fine you do you, except you are clearly unhappy with it. Deeply unhappy with it

                    • I'd say if you're happy with it not being the year of the Wayland desktop, then that's fine you do you, except you are clearly unhappy with it.

                      Dude, it's super simple here. There's a feature missing you'd like. Why can't you go add that? Why can you not go pay to have someone add it? That's the entire point. And then you're like "Well X had it" yeah and X doesn't have any devs any more, so it doesn't matter what X does or doesn't have, eventually hardware will be release that X won't run on anymore, unless you change that.

                      That's it. That's all there is to it. You bemoan the loss of a feature and I'm asking, "what have you done about it, out

                    • There's a feature missing you'd like. Why can't you go add that?

                      Coz it's not my job to do your hobby for you. If YOU want it to be the year of the Wayland desktop, then you code the feature. Otherwise quite whining that people don't want to use Wayland because it's missing features.

                    • If YOU want it to be the year of the Wayland desktop, then you code the feature

                      I don't need it. Apparently you do. Because clearly for you, this is the make or break feature.

                      Otherwise quite whining that people don't want to use Wayland because it's missing features.

                      I don't care if you do or don't. I've told you in at least three different replies. You do NOT have to move to Wayland. Shit, stick with Xorg forever. I welcome having Xorg and Wayland together. I've said that like at least a dozen times already. I honestly do not care if you move to Wayland or not. And if someone wanted to support Xorg, that would be awesome. Having MORE CHOICE is better than LESS CHOIC

                    • I don't need it.

                      So you say, but you swanned into a thread on the year of the wayland desktop to bitch at me when I said I didn't think it was ready.

                      If you want people to stop commenting about missing features, then get off your lazy arse and code them up. Or don't join threads about whether Wayland is ready yet.

                    • So you say, but you swanned into a thread on the year of the wayland desktop

                      Damn you totally didn't read shit I wrote.

                      If you want people to stop commenting about missing features, then get off your lazy arse and code them up

                      It's your feature. I'm perfectly fine with the state of KDE + Wayland. It sounds like you should be the one that codes it. You've got to get better arguments, you're coming off pretty weak here.

                      Or don't join threads about whether Wayland is ready yet

                      Or perhaps it's not ready for you. Don't use Wayland then. And stop using shitty ass click bait headlines to justify you coming in and bitching. No one says "year of the wayland desktop" outside of the author of this click bait. You ate some shitty ass headline, hook,

                    • Damn you totally didn't read shit I wrote.

                      True, I did not because you didn't actually respond to the point I made.

                      I'm perfectly fine with the state of KDE + Wayland.

                      Then why are you so angry when I pointed out that missing features and attitudes like yours are why it probably won't be the year of the wayland desktop this year. You so you don't care but your bolded text says otherwise.

                      This "Year of the Wayland desktop" is just bullshit someone wrote

                      So why are you here?

                    • So why are you here?

                      You. As I've pointed out multiple times.

                      You read sensationalism and knee-jerk. You should do better.

                      If you want something more elaborate you can read any of my previous comments.

                      True, I did not because you didn't actually respond to the point I made

                      I absolutely did. Likely You didn't read it. I read everything you wrote. But it's whatever, I couldn't image someone who wants to cry to actually want a debate. At least you fessed up to that much.

                      And you can stop reading at this point if you want.

                      But yeah, the entire point is that you've demonstrated a pretty weak resolve

                    • You.

                      Indeed but I can't really work out and you haven't explained why you are so angry with me responding to "is it the year of the Wayland desktop" with "probably not when Wayland based desktops missing common desktop features and are rather more fragmented with tooling".

                      The thing is both of those are demonstrably true.

                      But it seems to really really piss you off that it's true to the point where you think I should whip out a text editor and make it not true, so presumably you have less to be angry about.

                      You

                    • so that you don't have to be fuelled with rage when someone points out it's missing

                      It's not the missing. It's the you indicating "because of this, it isn't the year of the wayland desktop". No year is going to be the year of the wayland desktop. You keep missing this aspect in what I write.

          • So people who just want stuff to work shouldn't use open source?? Jesus, just listen to yourself ffs. People like you are part of the reason a lot of people and corps swerve OSS like the plague and meantime you then probably make sneering remarks about Windows lusers etc etc.

            • So people who just want stuff to work shouldn't use open source??

              It's a collaborative effort. That is open source. We are all here to work together. If you just want "stuff to work" and don't want to put any effort or money into that. Then yeah, go fuck yourself.

              People like you are part of the reason a lot of people and corps swerve OSS like the plague

              As demonstrated by Linux being the number one server on the Internet. No people understand their role in this. Additionally, Linux is at the heart of the most popular mobile OS as well. That is because the people who work on it understand their role. They wanted to abdicate that role with their own Fuchsi

              • I love the Windows people who pay for it and enjoy the simplicity of it for what it provides.

                Simplicity? I haven't used Windows in at least 20 years, but I do pay attention on what's happening with Windows, and every time a new version comes out there's a huge number of people complaining about how much the UI has changed and how they hate what MS has done. The only times I can remember that happening in Linux are all of the complaints about systemd (I don't like it either, but I learned how to use it
              • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

                "It's a collaborative effort. That is open source. We are all here to work together."

                Newsflash: Not everyone is a developer, some people are just users. Are they not allowed to use OSS then?

                "Then yeah, go fuck yourself."

                Oh grow up FFS.

                "Buddy I make my bread maintaining COBOL and RPGLE on AS/400 systems and C++/Java/COBOL on IBM z systems."

                Demonstrating nicely the old adage that some people grow old and wise, some just grow old. Guess which one applies to you.

                • Yep there are also developers than those who are working on windowing systems.

                  Seems like collaboration only counts if you're fixing egregious bugs in Wayland design for them. If you are contributing other things instead, fuck you, your not collaborative enough.

                  I've got bug reports and fixes to my name scattered around the F)OSS world and even the odd library and utility with actual users. That's not enough for me to have on opinion on whether Wayland removing important features literally every other system

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        That's not a Wayland thing. That's a DE thing in Wayland. This used to be the role of X, but it is not for Wayland. Different DEs may wish to implement different methods for handling this, Wayland steps out of the way allowing DEs to implement their own process of placement.

        Except that's not why it doesn't exist, and has even been proposed as a wayland protocol. Wayland doesn't claim "not a Wayland thing", but instead argues that, somehow, this is now simply impossible. Because it only handles rectangular 2D monitors aligned well with x and y axes. They bemoan that by it's nature, it can't be "optional" because if it is possible, then applications will bank on it, and thus "break" when an environment opts out of it. Because it's not perfect, they don't want it at all. All th

      • No, ignoring the XY position of windows is a specific design decision by Wayland. They did it on purpose because they think it is a security problem. The idea that the desktop could just look at the requested positions and only ignore bad ones apparently is foreign to them. Instead they made it impossible for an application to store window positions.
        They also purposely designed it so it is impossible to work with overlapping windows, by requiring that clicking in a window always raises it,a design that was

    • Wayland exists because many X.org and Linux desktop devs do not want to continue working on, or depending on X11. Reasons have been expressed elsewhere many times over.

      If x11 works and is all you need, that is great for you. Unfortunately, people who can and will maintain x11 is not increasing, but in fact decreasing. So Wayland will become the future unless more people step up and maintain xorg server.

      The slow development of Wayland is due to the fact that there is almost no money to be had developing th

    • If X sucked as badly as its detractors claimed one would have thought that replacing it with something more functional would take less than the current 15 years, especially as work on X has more or less stalled for a decade.

      It was replaced ages ago. It didn't take 15 years. Just because your favourite DE didn't jump online to support it doesn't mean it isn't functionally complete. Many people have been using Wayland for a long time now, it has been the default for Gnome for nearly a decade now.

      • Well that's telling... It truly is the gnome windowing system!

        It's kind of like saying the text only virtual terminal replaced X address so because many people use it.

        Until very recently screen capture didn't work. Window placement still doesn't, and the tooling is still a fragmented mess across the Wayland ecosystem.

        You can replace X with Wayland if you don't need to do very much. But it's telling that fanbois describe it as fully featured provided it has the features they personally need. I'd much rather

  • by Kazymyr ( 190114 )

    Qt6 is not just supported, it's actually required. This is causing me problems because I use lximage on a different DE, and my distribution doesn't include Qt6 which means the dependencies for lximage are now broken. It's in the process of being fixed, but annoying for a few days nonetheless.

    • by vadim_t ( 324782 )

      There's no point in supporting Qt5. It's dead, and on maintenance only for commercial users for just another year.

  • So almost X11? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday April 21, 2024 @12:23PM (#64412266)

    Or rather almost compatible to a crappy surrogate X11 that does not get the job done either? Thanks, I will stay with what works.

    • What you doing in here? Are there no clouds outside for you to shout at? There's a reason all DEs are moving over to Wayland, Hint: They know more about this than you, and it's not just to piss you off, despite how much that would bring a smile to my face. ;-)

  • AlienBob, are you reading this?
  • by jtotheh ( 229796 ) on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:08PM (#64412518)

    What about XScreenSaver? My "killer app" for X11.

    • It really is the killer app. Nothing like an app that implements a lockscreen to lock out a session with a password which can be bypassed by hitting ctrl + shift + backspace potentially dropping an evil-doer to a logged in console because X11/Xorg doesn't allow an app to trap keyboard inputs. #fixedbywayland.

      • Nothing like an app that implements a lockscreen to lock out a session with a password which can be bypassed by hitting ctrl + shift + backspace potentially dropping an evil-doer to a logged in console because X11/Xorg doesn't allow an app to trap keyboard inputs. #fixedbywayland.

        Found the noob who can't find the DontZap option, which by the way is now the default.

        Also found the noob who leaves himself logged into console sessions. They're the same noob!

        #skillissue #fixedbyskill

  • They always rant about Wayland, systemd, Pulse/Pipewire, devops, dkms, quic, zfs, etc.

    I used to wonder why they don't just not upgrade their os, but then I realized they are lazy and want somebody else to maintain their old system for them.

    I mean, even compiling gentoo with the right use set is too hard for these bellyachers.

    Yet the humility never occurs to them that the non-lazy people who actually build distros are embracing the newer technology.

    Instead the Old Farts case aspersions and ad-hominems at the

    • Let's change "cp" to now delete files, like "rm". Better yet - we'll make "cp" do either a copy or a remove - it'll be totally random! Lololololol! Why? Lol - lamer - why not?! Because cp's been working fine for decades, and that's lame! We can't stand stale old stuff that simply works, so we're gonna mash up your crusty old shit and remake it - badly - for the lulz.

      Back on Earth... Do you hear how stupid that sounds? That's essentially what's happening in the Linux sphere. Kids who weren't even
    • I mean, even compiling gentoo with the right use set is too hard for these bellyachers.

      When I tried gentoo the first time, it worked. Last time I tried it, I used only innocuous USE flags and the build broke fairly early on, in stage2 of gcc IIRC. There's also no good reason to run it any more now that all PCs for ages have been amd64, it's not like the old days where we still had K6s.

    • They always rant about Wayland, systemd, Pulse/Pipewire, devops, dkms, quic, zfs, etc.

      Some of these things are not like the others.

      Systemd is an abomination and should die horribly in a fire. I've written extensively on this. It not only breaks every software design principle I can think of, but presents an attack surface by which almost all of the public Internet could be brought down simultaneously.

      Pipewire does not seem particularly problematic. I've not switched yet, but purely because of iner

  • It just rolls off the tongue.

  • Is like "almost a virgin".

  • It can't be the "Year of Wayland" without remote desktop support.

    Still waiting.

  • So, someone has given up on the whole "year of Linux on the desktop"???

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