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Screen size cannot rely on wl_output scale and geometry

Submitted by Jonas Ådahl @jadahl

Assigned to Wayland bug list

Link to original bug (#101436)

Description

Currently, Xwayland will configure its screen and monitors given the wl_output's it sees being advertised.

It uses the dimensions of the current mode, together with its x/y coordinate, where each wl_output is treated as a separate monitor. The wl_output.scale event is completely ignored.

In practice, the actual screen size and monitor sizes that Xwayland should have, may thus be something else.

Some examples:

  • A compositor may advertise a wl_output with scale 2, and have a logical pixel coordinate space it places windows on where the content wl_output region is also scaled by 2. Here Xwayland should treat a 1024x768 wl_output with scale 2 as 512x384 large internal monitor.

  • A compositor may advertise a wl_output with scale 2 in the same way as above, but in fact its logical representation of the output scaled with a fractional scale, which is not advertised at all. In this case, Xwayland has no way to know the expected screen and monitor size.

  • A compositor may advertise a wl_output with scale 2, but its logical coordinate space is always identical to the physical pixel coordinate space, meaning Xwayland should as it does now completely ignore the wl_output scale.

To solve this, we need to introduce a protocol (Xwayland specific or not) that communicates the logical geometry of each wl_output.

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