Why Wayland Still Isn't Usable for Linux Users in 2026: An 18-Year Migration Struggle
By
secure
Master baker tier. Every paragraph earns its place on the tray.
Summary
The article is a detailed personal account of the author's 18-year struggle to adopt Wayland as a replacement for X11 on Linux systems. As the creator of the i3 tiling window manager, the author has been trying to migrate to Wayland annually since its inception in 2008 but continues to face significant technical barriers. The article outlines the specific issues preventing adoption in 2026, including compatibility problems, missing features, and stability concerns that make Wayland unsuitable for the author's workflow despite its status as the successor to the deprecated X server.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledWayland is the successor to the X server (X11, Xorg) to implement the graphics stack on Linux.
For the last 18 years (!), Wayland was never usable on my computers.
I don't want to be stuck on deprecated software, so I try to start using Wayland each year.
This articles outlines what keeps me from migrating to Wayland in 2026.
For the first few years, Wayland rarely even started on my machines.
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