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Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

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Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#51

Post by agentultra »

rick_2047 wrote: post #38

Just one question, I hear that Wayland is hugely dependent on the latest Graphics cards. So that would mean that ubuntu will no longer be usable by people like me who have moderately old hardware (mine is p4 with on board intel graphics, which are already having problems even with X). I liked how ubuntu was stable on my computer (till around 8.10 I think and 9.04 was not bad). I will miss the compatibility

Same here. My three year old laptop has gotten slower with every consecutive release of Ubuntu. I'm afraid to upgrade to the latest let alone to this new GL-based display server.

Guess I'll just have to switch to a 'lighter' distro with less fireworks.

I'm sure it will pay off for Ubuntu in the end... I just hope it doesn't actually start a trend for other distros to follow suit.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#52

Post by [deleted] »

rufugee wrote: post #46
gvb wrote: post #36

Just for comparison, Apple "ditched" X too (they never used X). When they went to OS X they used Display Postscript rather than X. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_PostScript This has been a mixed bag: it has been good for Apple-only programs, but it significantly slowed and complicated the porting of existing and new X-based programs to Apple.

Yeah, and it made starting up any X-based application on OS X a real pain. X apps are second-class citizens. This is one (of many) reasons I could never quite reach a level of comfort on a Mac.

[deleted]

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#53

Post by krschultz »

pilom wrote: post #30
paol wrote: post #22

This is a huge shift if it happens. X has been synonymous with GUIs on unix for more than 20 years, and has accumulated all the attendant baggage (both good and bad). There are also some big consequences for the linux landscape. The first and obvious one is that if other distros don't imitate Ubuntu they will drift farther apart. People complain about Ubuntu going their own way now , image what it will be like if the…

Ubuntu is certainly not too big to ignore. I have never seen any source say Linux (let alone Ubuntu) has more than 5% marketshare. Does your company support 800x600? How about IE6?

That 5% number is meaningless.

Lets start with what percent of all people who own computers have a Nvidia graphics card. Considering that the mass bulk of computers have a crappy integrated chipset, and there is also ATI/AMD out there, I can safely say Among those 50% what percent are Linux users? Wouldn't it be expected the kind of people enthused enough to buy a discrete graphics card are also the kind of people with the interest to try Linux?

I imagine it is a number higher than 5%, maybe only 10 or 15%, but it is higher.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#54

Post by templaedhel »

>>After shocking everyone with the announcement that Ubuntu 11.04 will have Unity on the desktop instead of GNOME Shell, >> Unity is going to use Wayland display server instead of X. This will not be implemented in Ubuntu 11.04 however. >>X will remain until 11.04 however. I assume the last two relese dates/version are incorrect, because unity is being added for 11.04, and the article seemed to say the change to Wayland would happen after the change to unity.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#55

Post by krschultz »

paol wrote: post #22

This is a huge shift if it happens. X has been synonymous with GUIs on unix for more than 20 years, and has accumulated all the attendant baggage (both good and bad). There are also some big consequences for the linux landscape. The first and obvious one is that if other distros don't imitate Ubuntu they will drift farther apart. People complain about Ubuntu going their own way now , image what it will be like if the…

I don't mind the distros splitting apart. There are so many distros out there with so little difference between them it is kind of pointless. But if they start heading in somewhat different directions it will be more interesting. If we're not going to have crazy differentiation, then it should just converge to one true distro and concentrate the development effort on making that distro better.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#56

Post by alextgordon »

rufugee wrote: post #46
gvb wrote: post #36

Just for comparison, Apple "ditched" X too (they never used X). When they went to OS X they used Display Postscript rather than X. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_PostScript This has been a mixed bag: it has been good for Apple-only programs, but it significantly slowed and complicated the porting of existing and new X-based programs to Apple.

Yeah, and it made starting up any X-based application on OS X a real pain. X apps are second-class citizens. This is one (of many) reasons I could never quite reach a level of comfort on a Mac.

It's a calculated move on Apple's part. They don't want you to use X11, so they make it as painful as possible while still keeping it usable so that developers can't write new apps for it (they have to use Cocoa). It's strictly compatibility environment only.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#57

Post by mikebike »

notauser wrote: post #34
pilom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is certainly not too big to ignore. I have never seen any source say Linux (let alone Ubuntu) has more than 5% marketshare. Does your company support 800x600? How about IE6?

If I was selling software to defense companies I'd support IE6. If I was selling software to primary school teachers I'd support 800x600. If I was selling technology to engineers (especially CUDA types building render farms of thousands of nodes) you can bet your life I'd support Ubuntu. I wouldn't want to give them any reasons at all not to use my stuff everywhere, in case I accidentally opened a niche my competitor…

None of the mechanical engineering packages (finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics) I've encountered explicitly support Ubuntu. Typically, it's RHEL that is explicitly supported.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#58

Post by huxley »

gvb wrote: post #36

Just for comparison, Apple "ditched" X too (they never used X). When they went to OS X they used Display Postscript rather than X. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_PostScript This has been a mixed bag: it has been good for Apple-only programs, but it significantly slowed and complicated the porting of existing and new X-based programs to Apple.

Display Postscript was used in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP as well as the initial release of Apple's Mac OS X Server 1.0 (Rhapsody), but for OS X proper, Apple switched to Quartz 2D which is closer to PDF than Postscript.

EDIT: And X11 first appeared in 1984 and wasn't released in current form until September 1987, NeXT's partnership with Adobe created their version of Display Postscript in 1987 (the first version appeared in 1986), so X11 didn't have a long history as a protocol at that point.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#60

Post by AntiRush »

topbanana wrote: post #59

Is there a distribution I can download that is already using Wayland? I'd like to take a look. For my part, the desktop manager is the one thing holding me back from Linux. (OK, that and Visual Studio)

I don't believe so. Wayland is in the really early stage of development right now, which makes me read this announcement as "Ubuntu is going to start committing developers to Wayland.

You can build it with these instructions: https://groups.google.com/group/wayland-display-server/web/b... .

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