Firefox 121 defaults to Wayland on Linux

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Firefox 121 now prefers native Wayland over X11 on Linux, a change many see as emblematic of growing momentum to make Wayland the default display system across major desktops and applications. Commenters report that Wayland delivers smoother graphics, better security boundaries and modern features when hardware and drivers cooperate, but also highlight serious gaps around accessibility tools, remote control, Nvidia support and long‑standing power‑user workflows that rely on X11’s openness. The overall tone is cautiously mixed: some argue X11 is a dead end and that breaking changes are the price of progress, while others fear Wayland’s design and fragmentation will permanently limit customization and accessibility compared to what they have today.

Firefox 121 and Wayland Default

  • Firefox has had Wayland support for years; the change is that native Wayland is now preferred over XWayland when both exist.
  • Some distros (e.g., Fedora/RHEL) have already shipped Firefox-on-Wayland by default via packaging changes.
  • Users can still run Firefox on X11 where Wayland is unavailable or undesired.

Wayland Adoption, Momentum, and Resistance

  • Many see growing “critical mass”: GNOME and KDE defaulting to Wayland, major apps/toolkits supporting it, Wine/Cinnamon moving toward it, wlroots-based compositors maturing.
  • Others report “zero momentum,” citing difficult setups (especially on non-systemd distros), missing features, and ecosystem fragmentation across many compositors.
  • There is disagreement on whether project delays are due to lack of resources vs. ideological resistance.

X11 vs Wayland: Design, Security, and Compatibility

  • Pro‑Wayland points: better security model (no global keylogging/screen-scraping), saner compositing, better HiDPI/scaling, modern protocol, and X11 being effectively unmaintained and declared a dead end by its own maintainers.
  • Pro‑X11 points: “batteries included,” rich IPC for scripting/automation, network transparency, easier customization, broad compatibility, and many workflows (xdotool, xpra, custom WMs) that break or become much harder on Wayland.
  • Some argue security gains don’t match most users’ real threat models and that breaking long‑working tools is a major regression.

Accessibility Concerns

  • Large, detailed subthread argues Wayland makes advanced accessibility and automation (e.g., Talon voice control) much harder:
    • No unified “Wayland server”; each compositor must expose its own capabilities.
    • at-spi covers toolkit‑level accessibility, but not global window control or input manipulation.
    • Documentation and examples for accessibility APIs are sparse and hard to approach.
  • Some users say this may eventually push them from Linux to Windows or macOS.
  • Others counter that accessibility is possible via at-spi and toolkits, but acknowledge gaps and missing protocols; several link open issue lists and roadmaps.

Hardware, Drivers, and Performance

  • Many report good or superior smoothness and latency on Wayland (especially AMD, Steam Deck OLED, KDE/GNOME).
  • Nvidia is repeatedly called out as a major pain point: broken or flaky Wayland sessions, GPU acceleration failures, suspend/resume glitches, and compositor flags that historically warned against Nvidia.
  • Experiences vary widely; some find Wayland gaming worse (more input lag), others much better.

Theming, Dark Mode, and DE Fragmentation

  • Users note theming and dark mode are straightforward in GNOME/KDE but confusing in WM‑only setups like i3, requiring extra tools or scripts.
  • Complaints about inconsistent themes, unreadable text, subtle focus indicators, and DEs/apps overriding user theming vs. calls for robust per‑app theming.

Alternatives and Future of X11

  • Some hope to stay on X11 or move to BSD to avoid Wayland and systemd, though BSDs are also adopting Wayland.
  • Others expect XWayland to remain for a long time but see full native X11 as a “walking zombie” that will continue to decay.