On wayvnc git master and sway 1.8 (or git master), you can script things so that a "virtual" display gets created automatically when someone connects to VNC, and removed when they disconnect.

See https://github.com/any1/wayvnc/pull/200/files

The script in the PR does something a bit different, but it's only an example and can be modified to do what I described in the first paragraph.

    it's very easy to
    [complex list of tasks]

This is the typical HN fallacy.

Go try to explain your mother over the phone how to edit a sway configuration to 'add a virtual screen of specified resolution'.

Compare that to clicking on the cast icon and selecting a TV.

Well, this is also a fallacy of yours (strawman?), I was countering the argument of:

> Also, to my understanding, Wayland is still not ready for such a use case.

With an example showing how to do it.

To answer your point, this wouldn't faze any sway user, and it is perfectly scriptable, you can add a button or script to perform the three server-side steps. Of course, gnome includes a button to cast to a nearby miracast-enabled screen.

I'm not answering to my mother, I'd set it up for her with a nice shortcut. And she probably wouldn't be using sway.

You also need a complex list of tasks for miracast.

* Turn on the TV (simple enough, but since we're counting steps...)

* Make sure the miracast option is enabled, and the TV is discoverable. That one is impossible to explain over the phone -- unlike a command line -- as every TV burries this under a different menu.

* Find the right button on the "client" PC (might require enabling an option before?) and click it.

It's doable. Not over the phone but you can write a shell script and put an icon on the desktop.

source: spent years supporting Linux for my tech-illiterate parents.

I've been supporting my father's computer for about 15 years now. It's the only machine he uses. He doesn't have root. He doesn't use a command line. I used to have an autossh connection for his machine to talk to one of my servers, and now we use Wireguard instead, for the rare occasions (about once a year) that he needs something looked at.

Support is basically zero these days. He uses Chrome and Firefox and LibreOffice. He occasionally fires up the Simon Tatham Portable Puzzles collection. I have uBlock Origin installed on both browsers. I installed XFCE on day one, spent a couple of hours demonstrating things, and then left.

Every five or six years I buy a new tiny, NUC-like machine, configure it up, pull his home directory across, and then send him the replacement. There's more work on the phone getting him to plug the cables in properly than anything else.

Year of the Linux desktop? It's been more than a decade.