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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 10, 2026, 11:17 PM

    (but why!?)

    Talon (voice control software) uses Python to talk to X11 to send keystrokes and other stuff. This obviously doesn't work on Wayland. Talon's python code is buried somewhere inside its binary, so I do the completely insensible thing and hook all its X11 messages instead... It invokes libX11 directly sometimes, but others it dlopen()'s libX11 or libxcb instead, and I need it all.

    And much to the nightmare of Wayland compositor developers, I now have a proof of concept that translates X11's Forbidden Magic into equivalent gnome/kde/wlroots.

    Many wayland compositor developers consider X11 concepts to be unlawful carnal knowledge, like a program knowing what window is active, or where on the screen it is...

    I'm bringing it allllll back...

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Replies

  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 10, 2026, 11:18 PM

    None of this software needed to get left behind, and hopefully soon, some of it can return to function on Wayland environments <3

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  • poleguy looking for lost toolspoleguy@mastodon.social
    Oct 11, 2026, 2:07 AM

    @whack @edolnx I'm also happy to do Linux library crimes to let me do Wayland library crimes. I do not yet use Wayland because crimes are not yet enabled.

    I do not believe in machines letting me do things. I believe in making machines do what I want.

    Otherwise why would I be in Linux?

    Can program. Will ignore rules. Let me know if I can help test, debug, etc.

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 11, 2026, 5:52 PM

    @poleguy @edolnx ++ this is my approach also. I'm feeling forced to Wayland because major projects are deleting their X11 code (gnome, kde, gtk, etc) so "staying on X11" is no longer an option.

    It's a hostile environment that treats the user as a threat... but it is *my* computer, and if I need to torture the silicon in order to make it do what I want, so be it. ;)

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  • Mosenmosen@hachyderm.io
    Oct 11, 2026, 2:10 AM

    @whack I love reading about wayland stuff as I’m too stupid to understand this stuff which would be low level for me. I have sorta inferred that wayland broke all the splash screens on my stuff since they seem to do weird things.

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 12, 2026, 11:35 PM

    @whack what. Literally what the fuck are you even talking about.

    Almost every compositor has bypasses, very intentionally so, and also if you're willing to do this then maybe just make small patches to a compositor you like to expose the features you want?

    There's not some grand conspiracy here or whatever, foreign windows (aka other applications) have a spec in place that's being finalised and most things already support. Various compositors have their own.

    That's what's so great about open source, you can just hack on it. I have a series of patches locally on niri to expand it to allow compatibility with headless usage and using Sunshine as a streaming server. It's fucking awesome and it's fully GPU accelerated.

    Seriously, take the better GPU support it's really worth it.

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 12, 2026, 11:35 PM

    @whack like on a practical note accessibility is a well understood use case and virtual keyboard input has both a very widely implemented wlr-virtual-input specification, and various other approaches. Getting cursor position is generally a lot more annoying but it's also like a one hour patch max. Which it sounds like you've done?

    Totally agree if you want X11 you can have it, beauty of open source but like. Idk why you think that people are against you having control over your computer. What people are against is any arbitrary application having full control over their computer without their consent. I like to think that's part of the origin of free software too, you should decide what happens on your device and it's all about giving that control to you in more ways.

    Sorry if all this comes off harsh but i really do think it's about more user freedom not less, it's just a lot of people that want more also decide "hey why don't i just make an entire compositor" for some reason lol

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:00 AM

    @Lunaphied

    > Getting cursor position is generally a lot more annoying but it's also like a one hour patch max

    Having been party to discussions with both GNOME and KDE folks, I can summarize their maintainers categorically *reject* this as a feature.

    Despite that, it is possible to do this without changing anyone's code.

    > people are against you

    It's perhaps the snarky hyperbole that you didn't notice, and that's fine-- we don't know eachother.

    > any arbitrary application having full control

    Indeed, and it's a great goal! Wayland news often carries the "It's better than X because you can't sniff the keyboard" -- I recently published demos of keyboard sniffing on gnome, kde, cosmic, niri, and sway - no code changes. I'd love if Wayland's promise was real. I'm not against Wayland, in fact, the inertia points to X11's demise, so I'm just focusing on the future and what I can change.

    > i really do think it's about more user freedom not less

    The transition to Wayland disabled or hamstrung just about every accessibility tool available. It took 18-ish years before GNOME-Wayland landed code that allows Orca to recite keystrokes. I suspect many have not enjoyed the freedom enabled by Wayland. I'm setting out to improve the parts that I can.

    > Sorry if all this comes off harsh

    X11 clearly traumatized its maintainers, and the transition has been quite bumpy for everyone. I totally understand the harshness -- everyone's kinda tired all at the same time.

    The best outcome of my work will be that I can convince compositor devs, wayland protocol folk, and freedesktop contributors that there's still gaps that need solving... but until then, I'm gonna write a big pile of glue code that makes it all work.

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:04 AM

    @Lunaphied All that said, I appreciate the feedback. Wayland/etc is sensitive subject for many, so I'll try to use less hyperbole in the future :)

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 12, 2026, 11:51 PM

    @Lunaphied Hi!

    > Almost every compositor has bypasses

    Indeed! And my work is to provide a single api/program in front of each of those fragmented APIs to make it easier to build accessibility/adaptive tools. :)

    > maybe just make small patches

    They don't want them. I've had these discussions already *and* observed others trying and failing to do the same for over a decade.

    > not some grand conspiracy

    Agreed!

    > foreign windows ... have a spec in place

    the existing foreign toplevel protocols are insufficient, nor are they supported by gnome and kde.

    > That's what's so great about open source

    Are you talking past me? or ... ? Your phrasing makes it sound like I'm not doing work in this area, or that I haven't been doing this for almost 20 years. :)

    > take the better GPU support

    I've been on Wayland for about 3-4 years now. I'm aware of the changes <3

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  • d@nny disc@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:04 AM

    @whack @Lunaphied butting in here to cause unnecessary strife in response to this patient attempt at de-escalation. i don't understand why better hardware support (particularly the GPU) is something that gets mentioned so often and so uncritically. if i wanted better support for recent hardware i'd boot windows and install every update, and then when my hardware vendor wants me to buy more hardware they'll push a change that breaks things that used to work

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  • d@nny disc@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:08 AM

    @whack @Lunaphied why does wayland have better gpu support? is it because of corporate contributions in the manner of the linux kernel itself? does my gpu still require the execution of firmware blobs to function?

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  • d@nny disc@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:09 AM

    @whack @Lunaphied is the structure of wayland's architecture such that it can resist the influences that have made linux unusable? or is it just a fun new piece of software to play with and completely inappropriate to assign any sort of moral valence to?

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  • d@nny disc@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:12 AM

    @whack @Lunaphied because it's really pissing me off how the very concept of portability continues to get construed as if it's not an actually noble attempt to empower the disenfranchised. fascists don't like portability. they like constant change and incompatibility

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 1:53 AM

    @hipsterelectron @Lunaphied yeah the fragmentation encouraged by the transition to Wayland hasn’t been great. Instead of targeting “Linux x11” congrats we get to target, separately, gnome and KDE and sway and niri and cosmic and 🫠

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:10 AM

    @hipsterelectron @whack to be fair I think a lot of people who complain about the state of things aren't appreciating decades of X11 consolidation resulting in essentially a single codebase serving everyone which is honestly not a normal case for something so dynamic. I'm encouraged by the efforts toward a window management protocol. Of all places Mir seems to be one of the more open projects.

    I think if people experienced the long rollout of X11 extensions they'd also be frustrated. That being said RDP exposes all the primitives you need theoretically, so simply switch to RDP as the display server protocol

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:16 AM

    @Lunaphied @hipsterelectron yeah it’s been a wild road. I was around during the xfree86->xorg transition back in my FreeBSD days. I’ve even made my own window manager for a while.

    But I don’t have the kind of time I used to when I was in my 20s… so hacking and bodging my way to victory on existing platforms is the only real way forward for me, often despite the angry noises the maintainers make in my direction.

    I had the same experiences maintaining fpm— users love it, package system maintainers have mixed responses. I know some Debian and redhat folks hate that it exists. Such is life.

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:21 AM

    @whack @hipsterelectron i definitely don't have the same kind of energy anymore (chronic fatigue fucking sucks but it especially sucks when you have a million projects. Much as they're maligned, LLMs can make a big difference between never having anything and having a few projects moving).

    Honestly I never touched fpm. What I do know is that open source communities spend a lot of time fighting things that are essentially inevitable (and I don't mean LLMs I don't think they are) and I wish a lot of that "avoid systemd/Wayland" energy was pushed towards accepting limitations and collaborating to fix problems.

    That being said if nobody wants to listen, much like protests, nothing can be achieved :/

    I might've used xfree86 back in the day because of Windows of all things. That sure was a time period haha.

    Speaking of energy one thing I've always wanted to do is reverse engineer the protocol macOS uses (Windows is basically public/cursed because it's all just syscalls directly hooked to drivers I think?)

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:36 AM

    @Lunaphied @hipsterelectron all the anti-systemd and anti-Wayland behaviors mostly just balkanized various groups and made everything slower and angrier. Nobody wins.

    I played my part in the systemd wars by writing a tool (pleaserun) that made service definitions for whatever you want - sysv, runit, upstart, systemd, etc. I don’t have an strong opinion against these things, I just wanna use the computer 😂

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  • d@nny disc@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:02 PM

    @Lunaphied @whack i would totally accept this take. this is definitely the kind of insight i don't have because i find window systems exhausting. thanks a lot luna

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 6:09 PM

    @hipsterelectron @Lunaphied ++ That basically describes my experience -- I'm frustrated by the slow motions, and the maintainer's fear of creating another X11 is ... causing the creation of another X11 but we're calling it a different name (Wayland + XDG Portals). The technology improves, but the sociopolitical structures seem the same. :'(

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 8:06 PM

    @whack @hipsterelectron honestly I have full faith that everyone (besides GNOME) will come up with something good in the end. I have full confidence also that this will be made more difficult by GNOME. Less confident if that will be in bad or good faith

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 8:04 PM

    @hipsterelectron @whack (our name isn't Luna but I accept the abbreviation since I don't directly attach a name (here))

    Also yeah window systems are exhausting but unfortunately my brain decided that GPU drivers and are interesting and we cycle through it every so often whenever we want something stupid to work on our computer. One day I'll somehow wake up from a nap and be truly awake and infinitely powerful to get software done

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:16 AM

    @hipsterelectron @whack after many years doing hardware engineering work I've decided that firmware blobs do not fucking matter. Now do I hate that I can't have the source and mess with them? Yeah. Definitely.

    Do I think they matter in general? Not really. So many blobs are basically just abstracting over the fact that there are thousands plus registers and it's very hard to not just have one place to manage all that and present a common interface.

    I still want it. To study mostly because I'm not blowing up my GPU with a mistake not in this economy. But I'd rather have a working GPU or whatever (the actual example I'm thinking of is some TI RF chip that I don't remember the name of but they give you the registers it's just the documentation is well over a thousand pages long)

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:11 AM

    @whack @hipsterelectron because Linux actually works pretty damn well with hardware these days especially anyone other than NVIDIA except even their stuff now works because they finally got off their asses and made something usable. (nvk).

    I don't tend to mention it because everyone else seems to think it's niche and I'm insane but X11 simply has no way to do HDR and wide color. It's literally just not something that really existed when the protocols were made or extended and by the point it was relevant Wayland was clearly the place to put the effort. And then it stalled. Forever. And I was very frustrated. But now that basically every real compositor has it (seriously it's kind of weird to me, for ages only KDE supported anything and then suddenly everyone had it, though I still think KDE are the only people that have seriously put in the effort to get it to be good, which means theirs was actually the first time I saw SDR and HDR on the same display work properly since at the time Windows also got it wrong).

    Anyway yeah that and there's like enormous performance benefits and Wayland doesn't tear every time I scroll fast (my work laptop is on X11 for Reasons only known to Canonical many years ago and it's miserable)

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  • Jordan Sisselwhack@hachyderm.io
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:21 AM

    @Lunaphied @hipsterelectron To be completely clear on my position, I am not in favor of staying on X11.

    I have personally experienced the limitations of X11 in my own work maintaining xdotool, and for some things, Wayland *does* improve.

    It is not hyperbole to summarize the past 10-ish years as being extremly bumpy -- we couldn't screen shot, remote desktop, drag-and-drop, etc for *years*. I was there! Things improve, yes. Accessibility remains abandoned.

    It took until 2023(ish?) before Synergy/Deskflow could work.

    KeyPassXC pushed for a form filling API in order to avoid "Insert passwords by sending individual keycode sequences and praying it works"... A few months ago, KeePassXC gave up(?) and just did keycode sequences with virtual input. It fuckin sucks.

    All I can learn is that I should not rely on the sociopolitical framework of either wayland protocols or xdg portal group. It's too slow, too traumatized by X11, and too focused on corporate in many cases.

    So I role alone :)

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  • LunaphiedLunaphied@provably.online
    Oct 13, 2026, 12:05 AM

    @whack idk! It sounds like you're not keeping up, I sure hadn't and it's gotten a lot better!

    And what I meant was fork a probe to maintain your own patches. Most of this stuff isn't fast moving code by any means. KWin can do this through plugins easily (admittedly I learned you can just workaround the cursor position issue by simply making a virtual cursor that moves to itself amongst a few other tricks and then decided not to bother).

    My thoughts is more that if we're a decade in and people aren't considering then there's possibly a good opportunity there for a project that does provide those hooks. Should they be more available? Yeah. But I see progress on the windows at least (fairly certain details are something you get by handing things off via D-Bus for auth, we'll see).

    It does seem like accessibility has only been given a token nod here and there which is super frustrating to me. But I also do wonder if the path forward is accessibility oriented compositors. There'd be a lot more freedom there for customisation and less concerns about arbitrary users.

    Personally I somewhat think the problem is that there's no money in actually helping disabled people, only in pretending to and it fucking sucks >.>

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