Wayland
Strategy
Run the GNOME session on Wayland instead of X.Org, and adjust whatever is needed, such as:
- We run quite a few of GUI apps under gksudo/pkexec/sudo, such as the
Unsafe Browser. This can be worked
around
for apps that run via XWayland (i.e. not Wayland-native apps) with
hacks like
xhost +si:localuser:root, which might be acceptable as a temporary transition measure, as long as there’s a clear plan to fix that at some point (since it defeats some of the benefits of switching to Wayland in the first place, such as security improvement, a11y / IBus / on-screen keyboard support in all graphical apps)
Last time we discussed our strategy, we decided this:
- Focus on real blockers
- Workarounds are OK, like XWayland
- OTOH we currently have several bugs that would remain if we use XWayland, like lack of accessibility support, on-screen-keyboard support. So if we have to do significant work we should bundle in making it Wayland native & fixing these issues as well.
-
Tor Launcher MUST run as a native Wayland app (contractual obligation to Sponsor8)(done)
Subtasks
Blockers for beta/RC
-
Move topIcons and OpenPGP Applet to XWayland (#18723 - closed) -
Update config/chroot_local-includes/usr/lib/systemd/user/org.gnome.Shell@x11.service.d/: probably it has a different name on Wayland -
Make tails-persistence-setup compatible with Wa... (#15142 - closed) (whether we have #17803 (closed) or not) -
Run Tor Browser as a native Wayland application - How: set
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 - Needed to make the on screen keyboard work
- Cons: small but annoying UI bugs as of Firefox 91, fixed in 102
- How: set
-
GNOME Screen Keyboard does not work in Thunderb... (#19100 - closed) -
Make the Unsafe Browser work on Wayland, somehow (#19008 - closed) -
Cannot start Tor Browser from Tor Connection on... (#19037 - closed) -
Evaluate hardware support of Wayland (#19000 - closed) -
Ensure users can enable GNOME Shell extensions ... (#15828 - closed) -
Investigate Dogtail's long-term viability (#14585 - closed) -
Adjust doc writing guidelines wrt. screenshots ... (#14717 - closed) -
Make Tor configuration GUI compatible with Wayland (#18007 - closed) -
Make our test suite compatible with a Wayland T... (#18120 - closed) -
Adjust doc for Wayland: starting graphical appl... (#14760 - closed)` -
Make our test suite compatible with Wayland (#19042 - closed) -
Decide if we support fallback to X.Org - Conclusion: we won't support fallback to X.Org
-
Code review, now that the branch has stabilized
Blockers for release
We have moved the tasks that won't be done as part or !838 (merged) to dedicated issues: https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/groups/tails/-/boards?label_name[]=Core%20Work%3AFoundations%20Team&milestone_title=Tails_5.8
Optional
- Remove the topIcons GNOME Shell extension (#8309 - closed)
- Make the Unsafe Browser run by the amnesia user... (#18020 - closed): probably OK with XWayland, although we'll get all the bugs/security issues we have in Xorg (no a11y etc, but in particular #15635 (closed))
- Make Tails Upgrader compatible with Wayland (#14718): XWayland is OK for now, until we switch to a non-NIH upgrader; splitting out a backend would allow integrating the UI into a potential Tails Settings application.
- Replace Pidgin (#8573): otherwise Pidgin under XWayland is OK for now.
- Tor Connection: drop Xorg-specific bits (#18610 - closed)
- Bring back the hourglass cursor during login (#19231)
Resources
- Debian bugs tagged wayland