this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Yes it's been stable for some time with a couple of caveats - you need a decent graphics driver and not be using apps with edge cases.
Here is a simple example of an edge case and it's not hard to find people blaming Wayland even though with some thought this was a security issue - apps like Zoom, Discord, MS Teams want to do screen sharing which is easy in X11 because it has non existent security - just steal the screen bitmap. That's a problem.
Wayland (the protocol) provides no means for one app to grab the screen, or other apps. This is by design for security. Instead the app must be a good citizen and send a "i want to screen cast" message to the xdg-desktop-portal (a service provider implemented by GNOME, KDE etc.), the desktop asks for user consent and then the app gets a video stream. So it's a lot more secure but it requires the app and the WM do things properly.
Desktops and apps have matured and these issues are thankfully going away. I think the biggest hurdle left is proper graphics drivers, especially the problem of getting NVidia drivers working.
Thankfully I haven't run into any problems with Nvidia drivers. My main rig is running a RTX 3080 with proprietary drivers and my side-project NixOS laptop uses a GTX 970m with nouveau drivers no problem.
It gets me curious about the possibility of specific GPU manufacturers having more of a problem than some. There has to be some discrepancy, because I do see that some users have issues right out the gate, with some being seasoned Linux vets. Whereas I'm mediocre at best and its all been plug and play for me.
I do like the idea of added security, as much as the permission popups annoy the hell out of me. The more Linux becomes popular, the more we'll need extra security down the road. I hope we can simply whitelist packages at some point, though. Then things become less of a Wayland security issue and more of a user choice thing. If a user chooses a bad package to whitelist, then that's on them at that point.
I don't know the details, so it more than likely isn't as easy as that, however.