I am running Jabref in what was Pop_OS!, which is now “COSMIC” which is “wayland” based I believe. When I try to run Jabref in COSMIC it seems like there are function issues, like using “control + c or v” doesn’t seem to work in Jabref, checked it a few times, so I have to run the machine in the GNOME DE and that still provides X11 capacity, and that seems to run Jabref more cleanly.
COSMIC offers more GUI stuff to play with, but then the fan seems to be louder with it, GNOME is more simple, but then Jabref 6.0 works better. Is this a “known thing” that Jabref isn’t “wayland friendly” or it’s supposed to be, but is taking personal exception for me???
JabRef uses JavaFX for the GUI, which has not been made fully compatible with Wayland yet. This doesn’t mean that JabRef will not run Wayland. It just means that Xwayland is necessary to be installed by you, unless it already comes with your Operating System, which is also mentioned in our FAQ: Linux | JabRef
I have not used Pop-OS before, so I don’t know if they officially support XWayland or not. Apparently they have it in their repos: GitHub - pop-os/xwayland: Backport of https://salsa.debian.org/xorg-team/xwayland/ · GitHub, but if that is part of their current release, I do not know. I would check, if it’s installed on your system and if not, I would ask around in the Pop-OS Forum why it isn’t and if it’s ok to install it or if that will lead to incompatibilities.
Ah, OK, thanks for the explanation, for the most part there were other glitches when I was running wayland that I for the most part don’t run it, but it does look like the “wave of the future” . . . . I had not heard of Xwayland until you mentioned it, that must be the “compromise” effort . . . ???
I’ll have to check it later today when I get back to my Sys76 Pop/COSMIC machine to see if it has installed XWayland or not . . . the more, the merrier, etc. I’ll check back when I have got something adjusted on it . . . .
So a search of synaptic package manager shows I have “xwayland xxxxx” installed, but it was just showing that one package, with only two other packages listed with “xwayland” in the name . . . . So “xwayland” seems to be there, but trying to run that word in the console didn’t launch anything in the “visible” sense . . . .
I use wayland on openSUSE with KDE plasma, and have not experienced the problems you describe. Screen capture works and JDK-8326710 shows that as resolved two years ago. KDE and openSUSE adopted to wayland much earlier than Gnome and other distros. The versions Gnome and Cosmic use could be old and older, respectively–I’m not sure how much–and it is definitely feasible that older versions would have noticeable bugs and limitations.
OK, thanks for the comments, I do have a TW/Plasma install on my work computer, which I think I set it up awhile back using X . . . but I don’t use that install as the primary system. Since it is a System76 machine the primary system is now COSMIC, but yes, I think that is an install on noble??? It’s a ways back in the development cycle, whereas on my DIYer ATX machine I have a stonking install of Lubuntu.
I found a number of glitches when using the wayland DE in Pop_OS/COSMIC, still notice some issues with copy/paste via right clicking even in GNOME with X . . . not insurmountable, but still there. Perhaps at some point I could install Jabref in my TW system and see if I could connect it to my database directory over in COSMIC and see if function was any better there . . . . But, I’m not sure if my TW install is purely wayland . . . I think I just did a 2500 package upgrade on it recently . . . . The system gets “refreshed” but it might still be on X . . . .
As I understand it, a “pure” wayland system is one that does not have X11, presumably like your COSMIC system and not TW. Wayland sessions use Xwayland, not X11, to display non-wayland apps like JabRef so X11 on your TW system only matters for X sessions.
Plasma’s SDDM greeter screen lets you choose the session type from the drop-down menu in the lower left corner. What you choose there persists, so you could still be on X. The upgrade that will discontinue support for that and push you to wayland is supposed to come with Plasma 6.8 in a few months. I suspect that JabRef on wayland hinges more on the desktop than the operating system, only because I know there are differences between desktops on the same OS. Incidentally, I notice that COSMIC is supported on Tumbleweed https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:COSMIC.
OK, thanks for the follow up on it . . . still haven’t had any time to try to install jabref on my TW/Plasma install on my work computer. But, yes, clearly there are differences in desktops, as I have discovered that using GNOME DE lets me use X11 and that seems to provide better function than using the COSMIC DE. I guess COSMIC is trying to get into the inevitable wave of changes brought on by wayland . . . but so far that move causes glitches in jabref that warrant staying in GNOME X.
I did like Pop_OS! . . . not sure if I like COSMIC enough to add it into TW. One issue I discovered with openSUSE is that once a DE is added it isn’t easy to just “rm” it . . . . I guess I can wait a few months to see if Plasma 6.8 will play well with jabref, and then go from there.
I was interpreting your “I use wayland on openSUSE with Plasma” as meaning that you run jabref on TW?? But, in looking at the jabref file I have it is a .deb file. I booted into my TW install and ran a search of “jabref” in YaSt and it found nothing, and I tried to “zypper in jabref” and it said, “We can’t do that.” ??? Are you using jabref in SUSE or in something that uses .deb files???
JabRef isn’t in the TW repo, unfortunately. You can download the .rpm and install it with zypper install. The mainstream JabRef release updates itself from there if you keep that option selected in Preferences. That’s what I used for a long time. Later, motivated by improvements in groups, I started periodically downloading development releases and installing them the same way (with zypper). That is the way to go, in my opinion, if you want current fixes without constant churn that might introduce a bug that interrupts your workday.
I used that approach for a while, because I wasn’t very familiar with git. Eventually, I cloned and then forked the JabRef repository and started building from source, which is what I do now.
Oh… I suddenly remembered that JabRef is also available as a Flatpak. That would be the main release, of course.
It is supposed to work with sudo zypper remove --type pattern <your-desktop-pattern> followed by sudo zypper rm --clean-deps but I’ve never dared to try it.
You don’t need to wait for this. Plasma is already “pure wayland” by default, but also supports X11. The change in Plasma 6.8 will be the end of X11 support. You might want to try JabRef now while you have the opportunity to compare how it runs in X and wayland sessions on the same machine, same OS, and same desktop environment.
Translation via Xwayland adds overhead–that much is a “known thing”–but I can say for sure that copy and paste work in JabRef on my laptop, which is now wayland-only. I suspect that JabRef will work in X or wayland in Plasma (because it did on my system).
You might be right that Plasma automatically switched you to wayland without asking. You probably know this, but use echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE to check.
After I had posted here I checked with “AI” to see what it would provide, and, as usual it provided me with “adding the repo” for jabref and a few other methods. When I said, “I don’t want to add to my repos in TW,” it said, “That’s a good idea, you could try . . . xxx” . . . and after a few other ideas it gave me the, “the simplest is to download the tarball” . . . which I have done for a few installs using wget to do it. But I was at work and didn’t want to use their bandwidth for it, etc.
So, thanks for that how to check whether I am in X or wayland command . . . still not sure if I want to add jabref over in Plasma, on the same computer just yet . . . it would be an overlap and so far I can’t tell if TW/Plasma runs that machine better than the OEM Pop_OS!/COSMIC/GNOME system does. Seems like the fan blows louder in TW than it does in Pop! . . . I just like having OSs available in case one of them blows up. I’ll have to think it over, so far the testing has shown that wayland in COSMIC seems to have copy/paste problems in repeated attempts to check it.
On the “zypper remove --type pattern ” command, I did try a few ways to remove a pattern, as it very easy to do in many other OSs, but something about it failed, and posting on the forum, none of the gurus there could correct that problem of non-removal of a pattern . . . . “You can’t go back” . . . I don’t know if it’s because I format ext4 and with btrfs you can “go back” . . . . I keep a slim system with TW/Leap16 when it comes to DEs . . . .
I saw the xwayland will have the first new release since 2024 soon and because of your forum post, I had a glance at what phoronix quoted from the release notes (not expecting anything dramatic), and look at that, speaking of the devil:
Xwayland rootful implements a clipboard/primary selection bridge (enabled with “-clipboard”), allowing copy/paste between rootful Xwayland and the rest of the Wayland desktop.
Maybe that’s relevant.
Weirdly enough, on Nobara, which uses Wayland only and doesn’t support X11, I have not noticed any copy/paste issues. Here is the version of XWayland on my system:
Thanks for taking the time to look into it . . . that might support the idea that others besides myself are having those issues.
But it could be understood that in these transitional times attempts made to bridge across “between the two worlds” might also have issues . . . .
So far I have opted to “stay with X” as the “known issues” choice, over the “TBD unknown issues” with wayland . . . . But, just for kicks I might check out your Nobara system and see how it runs, if they have a “live” iso for it . . . to see how a pure wayland system would run on my ryzen homebuilt . . . that might get me to 9 installs on it . . . . :- )
It seems like a good idea to recap for future reference.
JabRef 6.0 runs on X11 and wayland-only Linux distributions.
JabRef uses JavaFX, which does not have native wayland support.
JavaFX apps run in wayland sessions with the help xwayland, which is part of the wayland implementation and does not have to be installed or configured by JabRef users.
Wayland and xwayland are implemented by the operating system and desktop environment, so they share responsibility for how apps behave in a wayland session.
