The MPV media player stops supporting GNOME

In the codebase of the multimedia player MPV added change, performing checks for running in a GNOME environment and terminating the program with an output an error about the inability to use the program in GNOME. Later, this change was replaced with a softer version that limits itself to displaying a warning. Previously, starting from release 0.32, a similar warning about existing problems was already displayed regarding known issues, appearing when launched in GNOME based on Wayland.

It is noted, that when starting the player in a GNOME session based on Wayland, many problems manifest, such as untimely frame rendering and random fluctuations with vsync synchronization. These issues are specific to GNOME, but many users perceive them not as GNOME problems, but as errors in Wayland or MPV. Until GNOME developers fix the existing shortcomings, users are recommended to switch to a session running on the X.Org server or use other Wayland composite servers.

Among the issues with GNOME, the lack of support for the xdg-decoration protocol for window decoration on the server side and the
zwp_idle_inhibit_manager_v1, without which screen dimming may occur during video playback. The first issue can be bypassed by launching mpv with the options —gpu-context=x11egl or —gpu-context=x11, while
the second can be solved by launching mpv with the GNOME-specific handler gnome-session-inhibit.

According to the developers of mpv, the mentioned problems arise because GNOME is positioned not just as a desktop, but as a separate platform that does not particularly care about compatibility with other environments and refuses to add support for the simplest standard mechanisms, such as the aforementioned xdg-decoration and zwp_idle_inhibit_manager protocols, which could simplify application unification for various desktop environments. Instead, GNOME tries to impose its alternative mechanisms, requiring binding to GTK, allowing window element rendering management only on the client side (CSD) or requiring the use of DBus to disable the screen saver.

Ultimately, the developers of mpv opted to provide a warning instead of an error upon premature termination, and they have decided to discontinue support for GNOME, ceasing to respond to issue reports that occur on systems using this desktop environment.

Source: opennet.ru