XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

archevilst · 2025-10-27 21:24:02

I tried it some tiem ago, so maybe it has changed (I can't check this at the moment).
Both have almost same dependencies tree, and what is consequence of this, alsmot same installation size.
I was expecting Wayland to be much smaller after installation.
Is/was it a compatibility thing?

archaea · 2025-10-27 21:47:40

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … rg-server/
https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/wayland/

Dependencies don't look almost same to me?

What desktop environment(s) are you comparing Xorg & Wayland for, and how are you determining their dependency trees?

seth · 2025-10-27 22:18:59

I was expecting Wayland to be much smaller after installation.

Why?

Is/was it a compatibility thing?

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … -xwayland/ and with it https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … er-common/ will only be really required to run X11 clients in a wayland environment, but lots of the data packages (notably xkb for keyboard layouts etc) are simply re-used by most wayland compositors.
There's really no reason to assume "Wayland to be much smaller" itfp. - certainly not compared to the overall ratio between "big fat DE" and any display server.

archevilst · 2025-10-29 16:06:02

archea wrote:

Dependencies don't look almost same to me?

Looks like It has changed from what I experienced. Installing wayland pulled most xorg packages for me (it was months ago).
Still don't know why then, maybe quick PKGBUILD job.

Last edited by archevilst (2025-10-29 16:07:25)

archevilst · 2025-10-29 16:19:02

seth wrote:

I was expecting Wayland to be much smaller after installation.
Why?

I've compared rough estimates of installation sizes.

seth wrote:

Is/was it a compatibility thing?
https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … -xwayland/ and with it https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … er-common/ will only be really required to run X11 clients in a wayland environment, but lots of the data packages (notably xkb for keyboard layouts etc) are simply re-used by most wayland compositors.
There's really no reason to assume "Wayland to be much smaller" itfp. - certainly not compared to the overall ratio between "big fat DE" and any display server.

I haven't got to installing wm, I compared xors-server and wayland base (it's possible it was some wayland group and maybe it was the reason). I'm writing this from public computer, I would check otherwise.
xorg pulls around 200Mb not counting wm, in the meantime wayland (https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/):
installed size 900Kb + dependncies, around 4Mb not counting usuall glibc related stuff allegedly according to url?

Also not counting wm yet.

V1del · 2025-10-29 16:25:04

All of the logic that's implemented in xorg (and hence doesn't have to be replicated by the wms) is NOT implemented in the wayland package and has to be implemented by the wms. So you need to at least compare it with some actual compositor. (... despite "disk size" being a somewhat weird metric to base things on) e.g. if you want to compare "reference implementations" you'll probably minimally want to include weston in the "wayland" camp which will shoot the dependency metric quite a bit up.

Last edited by V1del (2025-10-29 16:27:17)

archevilst · 2025-10-30 12:22:46

V1del wrote:

All of the logic that's implemented in xorg (and hence doesn't have to be replicated by the wms) is NOT implemented in the wayland package and has to be implemented by the wms. So you need to at least compare it with some actual compositor. (... despite "disk size" being a somewhat weird metric to base things on) e.g. if you want to compare "reference implementations" you'll probably minimally want to include weston in the "wayland" camp which will shoot the dependency metric quite a bit up.

My question was about dependencies, size is a side effect of this. I didn't get to installing wm I stopped at wayland/xorg comparison and what surprised me was that they pulled almost same set of dependencies, roughly same in size.
Not sure how to check this now, because pacman doesn't have option for reinstall packages with all dependencies, so what I'm dedcribing right now is what happened few months ago.
I didn't get answer so far, so I think continuing this won't get anywhere.

seth · 2025-10-30 17:10:46

What dependencies do you expect https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/wayland/ not to have?

Right now we're at a "I thought the world is a disc but now I went around it and it seems to be a globe. Why is that?" kind of question.
A lot of packages on a basic install are completely unrelated to either display server.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-27 21:24:02

XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#2 2025-10-27 21:47:40

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#3 2025-10-27 22:18:59

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#4 2025-10-29 16:06:02

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#5 2025-10-29 16:19:02

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#6 2025-10-29 16:25:04

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#7 2025-10-30 12:22:46

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

#8 2025-10-30 17:10:46

Re: XOrg vs Wayland, dependencies of packages

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