So, I say I use #Wayland all the time, and that X11 is dead, or dying.
And while the second part of that statement is a fact, it doesn’t mean Wayland is ready for everyone right now, so I decided to take a look at the current state of Wayland support, between desktops, apps, drivers, and what the protocol still doesn’t support:
@thelinuxEXP Old computers/laptops 5 years and older can't handle wayland very well since graphic drivers on that hardware don't support it. I have a laptop from 2013 i7 4 core plenty of power and 24 gigs of ram. But it comes with old nvidia discrete graphic card which doesn't support newer driver that works with wayland. Other then that, my laptop works great with Fedora linux 38 (non wayland) and I can even play heavy video game like Fallout 3 with Lutris.
It's crazy the e-waste that a Linux OS can save.
@voidabyss @thelinuxEXP That's a good point -- a significant amount of legacy hardware (especially those that rely on older NVIDIA GPUs) will be stuck on X11. Maybe there will be an effort to update nouveau for Wayland support on those old GPUs, but I wouldn't hold my breath 😔
The most fascinating aspect of Linux for me, it's giving a second life to old computers. I recently refurbished an old MacBook pro from 2009 i7/8Gb RAM(has a Nvidia discrete GPU) I installed a new SSD with Linux Mint Debian Edition 6, now it runs perfectly and boots under a minutes.
My nephew can use it for his education needs.
The amount of old laptops that Linux can save from e waste is mind blowing. Those old laptops can serve the next generation for education purposes.
