Will MATE use Wayland in the next releases?

valenciano8 · 22 April 2019 02:41

Greetings everyone !

I'm using Fedora 29 MATE (Mate 1.20.4) on my Acer SWIFT 1 114. I know this is a Ubuntu MATE dev forum but after all MATE is MATE.

I really love the Mate Desktop Environment but, as of today, it uses X11 as its window displayer.
My computer has an Intel Pentium N5000 with iGPU UHD 605. With X11, I experience some tearing on the web.

Thanks to this article I fixed almost all of the problem :

https://www.maketecheasier.com/get-rid-screen-tearing-linux/

Sometimes I still experience some little tearing at the top of the screen (white tearing showing sometimes).

When I tried Fedora Gnome with Wayland, I didn't experience any tearing at all.

So my question is :

Will MATE use Wayland instead of X11 in the next releases ?

Regards

vkareh · 22 April 2019 03:15

There is currently work being done to make MATE work with Wayland. That said, it'll be a lot of work to get it to a fully functioning system on it, and a lot of components will need to be rewritten. So, maybe not the next release specifically, but sometime in the future we hope to be able to ship a Wayland-based MATE.

In the meantime, depending what's causing your tearing, there might be some workarounds... What video card/driver do you have, what window manager (Compiz, Marco, Metacity?), and have you tried a different compositor (e.g. Compton)

edit: just wanted to clarify that even if we manage to get MATE working with Wayland, it will still work with X11

phocean · 22 April 2019 07:19

With Intel graphics, with no exception in X11, whatever desktop environment you are running, you need to configure the Intel driver with a specific Xorg configuration file:

➜ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf 
Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver      "intel"
  Option      "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

It will completely solve your issue.

By the way, I wonder why this is not a default configuration, I have never seen an Intel laptop that does not need this and it has never caused any issue or side-effect.

It should be set by the distribution, not by the user.

valenciano8 · 22 April 2019 10:31

What video card/driver do you have, what window manager (Compiz, Marco, Metacity?)

Well, I just use the stock MATE desktop with Marco as my main compositor I think.

have you tried a different compositor (e.g. Compton)

Compton is actually a beta in Fedora.

edit: just wanted to clarify that even if we manage to get MATE working with Wayland, it will still work with X11

Well, I don't really understand, that means that we will never get rid of all of those graphical issues due to the oldness of X11 ?

valenciano8 · 22 April 2019 10:33

It will completely solve your issue.

That is exactly what I did, but I still have little white lines that appear on top of the screen sometimes (but for tearing while surfing on the web, I dont have it anymore).

So I wonder how to completely solve the issue.

It should be set by the distribution, not by the user.

Exactly ! That's why I think having a complete MATE with Wayland would be much more simpler, more efficient in terms of graphics performance anc code organisation.

vkareh · 22 April 2019 11:06

No, it just means that the MATE code will support using it with either X11 or Wayland. Any issues caused by X11 will not be present when using with Wayland (and vice-versa, any issues in Wayland will not be present when using with X11)

vkareh · 22 April 2019 11:09

Not sure about the simpler and code organisation. So far there has been a lot of work done to make MATE compatible with Wayland, and it's a lot of additional code and new conditions to support. We're not even half-way there, there's still a lot to go.

phocean · 22 April 2019 11:20

I have not get it on 4 different laptops where I installed it with tear-free settings. I am not denying the fact, but it could be really specific to your card.
And are you sure this is tearing? It is maybe another class of graphical glitch.

Anyway, I have always had mixed experiences with Fedora, regarding strange bugs and stability.

I would encourage you to check if you have the same issue with Ubuntu Mate, preferably 18.04.
Don't forget you are in an Ubuntu Mate forum

Bulletdust · 22 April 2019 12:26

No tearing whatsoever running X and NVIDIA.

valenciano8 · 22 April 2019 13:25

I checked with Ubuntu MATE and Linux Mint MATE and it is the same problem.

Maybe It is not tearing after all. Because I fixed tearing with the link above. But somehow as I have set up my MATE Desktop like a Calculate Linux MATE, maybe MATE has some difficulties :

https://www.calculate-linux.org/download_images/original/x2-2.png.pagespeed.ic.UE56tVwPQ3.png

Or maybe it is due to my gear

The white lines appear on top of the worksapce switcher and windows list applet.

vkareh · 22 April 2019 15:13

Could you post a screenshot of those lines?

valenciano8 · 23 April 2019 09:35

Hi vkareh,

Could you post a screenshot of those lines?

I tried to take a screenshot, but the lines don't appear on it...

Here is a screenshot of someone who experienced kind of a similar problem with Cinnamon :

(You can see a little white line on top of the screen).

I tried with Cinnamon and LXDE : No white lines at all.

So the problem comes from the MATE Desktop and/or Marco.

The white lines appear on top of the workspace switcher and window list applet if I put them on the upper panel. Otherwise I have kind of a little black line that appears sometimes (not always).

vkareh · 23 April 2019 11:02

Okay, that is definitely not tearing. Seems like a bug in either marco or the mate-panel. Is there a hidden upper panel there by any chance?

valenciano8 · 23 April 2019 13:10

Hi vkareh,

Okay, that is definitely not tearing. Seems like a bug in either marco or the mate-panel. Is there a hidden upper panel there by any chance?

Yep you are right, I thought it was but nope, it is not tearing indeed. So yes kind of a problem with the MATE panel, or just the upper part of the desktop.

I will check it during the evening.

vkareh · 23 April 2019 13:46

That's good to know, thanks. As soon as you can check, let me know, so that we can file a bug (if appropriate).

Things to check before filling a bug:

do you have a hidden top panel?
does it happen with other themes?
does it happen if you change to Compiz?

valenciano8 · 23 April 2019 16:37

Ok ! Thank you for taking time to solve this graphic issue.

Here is a complete bug file :

Issue : White/Black lines appear on top of screen while using MATE on Fedora, Ubuntu and Linux Mint as well.

Pictures :

Normal behaviour :

Abnormal "White Lines" :

I obtain a similar result with Firefox opened in fullscreen for example ( if I move the panel on the right or left), there is a white line that sometimes appear just on top of firefox.

My system :

Did you experience the same problem with Ubuntu MATE 18.04 or Linux Mint 19.1 MATE ?

Yes, exactly the same problem.

do you have a hidden top panel?

Nope, I checked everything

does it happen with other themes?

Yes, except that the color of the "line" changes to black with Blue Menta for example

does it happen if you change to Compiz?

I've tried :

With Marco
Without Marco (No compositor)
With Compiz
With Compton

No changes...

Do you have the same problem with others Desktop Environment ?

No, with LXDE for example I don't have any graphical issue, same for Cinnamon.

Please report that bug and thank you for your consideration

Gonzalo_VC · 24 April 2019 18:36

I know "things evolve"... but I feel terrible the evolution is only RH driven! All comes from them; and serves THEM; and "we" (other distros; whole family of distros like the Debian/Ubuntus must "bend" for them). Wayland... SystemD... PulseAudio... altogether they are becoming a (Frankenstein's like) second heart od any GNU/Linux distro, reducing our freedom to choice towards ZERO I wish we have an alternative!!

vkareh · 24 April 2019 23:49

@Gonzalo_VC - MATE works just fine without any of those. You can use elogind instead of systemd, alsa instead of pulse, x11 instead of wayland, etc...

Those systems have been designed, in part, to address the ever growing needs of Linux used in a wider variety of systems. They have been very welcomed by many businesses and have helped to drive adoption. Which means more funding for developing Linux, and so on.

As everything Free Software, however, there are plenty of distros that don't use any of the packages you mentioned.

rrbrussell · 30 April 2019 00:23

If Wayland just wanted to be a new and better X server implementation I would like it but from my point of view the planned feature set really looks like Wayland was the system designed first and X second. Especially given the prevalence of virtualization in corporate environments now.

Pulseaudio is basically the management engine that Alsa should have had to start with.

Systemd has turned out to be a lot better than I expected and frankly I won't go back. The documentation and knowledge base seems terribly small though.

LogicStuff · 26 September 2019 20:18

Hello,

I also have Acer Swift 1 SF114-32, but with Ubuntu 18.04 (Gnome shell 3.28.4; Xorg/Wayland does not matter). The frustration is even worse, because this artifact has been annoying me for 3 years, starting on HP Elitebook 850 G1 (Core i5-4200U, HD Graphics 4400) with Ubuntu 16.04/18.04.

Just to broaden your perspective.