Wayland
Wayland is a modern communication protocol designed to manage
display servers on Unix-like operating systems (such as Linux).
It defines how a compositor—the program responsible for
drawing what you see on screen—communicates with client
applications (like your browser, terminal, or text editor).
It was developed as a lightweight, clean replacement for the
legacy X11 (X Window System), which had accumulated decades of
complex workaround code.
Wayland fundamentally redesigns how graphics rendering works on
desktop Linux, offering several major benefits over older display
server protocols:
1. Superior Performance & Lower Latency, “Every Frame
is Perfect”
In Wayland, rendering is coordinated so that applications draw
directly into buffers, and the compositor renders them without
tearing. This virtually eliminates screen tearing and
micro-stuttering.
Streamlined Pipeline: X11 relied on a separate
display server, window manager, and compositing manager
communicating back and forth. Wayland combines these roles into
a single compositor (such as Hyprland, Sway, or Mutter/GNOME),
cutting out redundant IPC (Inter-Process Communication)
overhead.
2. Modern Security Model & Sandboxing
App Isolation: Under X11, any running
application could easily log keypresses from other windows or
capture screen contents without permission.
Explicit Permissions: Wayland restricts clients
from reading other windows’ input or buffer memory by
default. Actions like screen sharing, global keybindings, or
clipboard sharing require explicit protocols/portals (e.g.,
xdg-desktop-portal), providing much better isolation for
sandboxed environments like Flatpak or Snap.
3. Native Multi-Monitor & Mixed DPI Support
Independent Refresh Rates: On X11, running a
144Hz monitor alongside a 60Hz monitor often locked both to the
lower refresh rate or caused severe stuttering. Wayland natively
handles different refresh rates across multiple screens
seamlessly.
Per-Monitor Scaling: Wayland excels at handling
mixed-density displays (e.g., scaling a 4K laptop display to
150% while keeping an external 1080p monitor at 100% without
blurry visuals).
4. Cleaner, Maintainable Codebase
Simplified Design: By stripping away legacy
rendering extensions, network-transparent graphics primitives,
and outdated X11 mechanisms, Wayland’s codebase is vastly
smaller, safer, and easier for developers to maintain and
expand.
but still...
Wayland is still in active development, so some things can still
work somewhat horribly. Don’t expect all features like
network transparency (as X11 does that), but Wayland is a
successful attempt at being a modern communication protocol,
especially for everyday desktop use cases.
no one is better (X11 vs Wayland) because they have big
architecture differences and I can’t understand why people
argue who is better
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
so what we should use then?
i could suggest those WC’s or DE’s
(WC = Wayland Compositor)
(DE = Desktop Environment)