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Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

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Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But their driver doesn't have to support Ubuntu, Ubuntu is taking advantage of their driver's OpenGL capability. So the better the Nvidia OpenGL driver, the better Ubuntu will run on it. It shouldn't really matter RHEL or Ubuntu so long as the driver has good OpenGL performance.

It's more complicated than that- the driver has to support the new KMS driver architecture, where the kernel is in charge of setting up the display and doing draw operations, which the X server used to handle. (Which was why before, you could only have 1 instance of X11 and OpenGL, and switching between virtual terminals took so long)

So Wayland won't run on nVidia's (fast) drivers, because they still use the old model where X was in charge of the graphics card.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#143
post #129
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess that has something to do with different subpixel orientations.

Well, it doesn't happen on other drivers, so the fact that NVidia is replacing a lot of the X11 arcitecture makes sense that they would be the only ones to have this problem.

It happens for me on the intel drivers.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#144
post #99

For me X has always symbolized old, hard to configure, clunky, and ugly. It wasn't meant to be part of Unix but it mixed in. I am glad to see it go at least from our desktops.

Unix is old clunky and hard to configure. I could go far into details, I could even write a book on the subject and I have been using it since the early 90's because there is no alternative with traction.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's a calculated move on Apple's part. that seems unlikely in light of: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1872915

AFAIK (I don't have the source right now), Apple originally considered using X11 for the display server on OS X (in fact, early versions shipped with a version of xf86 that ran natively as it does on other *nixes), but after deciding on all the compositing and prettiness features that they wanted, they would have torn so much out of X11 that it wouldn't be remotely compatible anymore, so they wrote Quartz 2D.

Later, of course, things like Compiz came along, but they've always seemed like weak hacks compared to things like Quartz. Hopefully wayland will change everything.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#146
post #61

Sigh,my first job was to work on a proprietary X-server extension. Despite Jim Gettys' and Keith Packard's continued interest, and some interest from vendors as well, X seems to be losing hacker mind share. There were some fast proprietary X servers made by a few companies like Xig graphics that delivered truly incredible performance. But the really exciting things that could be done with X never saw daylight outside…

But the really exciting things that could be done with X never saw daylight outside a small community of display manufacturers for defense, air-traffic control, etc What sort of exciting things?

Here is one vendor for example: http://www.x-software.com

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#147
post #97

This is great news for the Free Desktop. Ubuntu is really setting itself apart as its own OS rather than just another Linux distro. It might take about two years for this whole thing to sort of stabilize (Wayland + Unity), but when it does, Ubuntu will be kick-ass like it's never been before. I love it when people step outside the box.

Wayland was started by someone at Red Hat.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this gains sufficient traction, and if this provides a better-looking way to render stuff on screen, I guess this will lead to applications that talk the superior protocol, not The X protocol. Such applications would not run on X displays. If I interpret things correctly, the link you give explicitly describes such a scenario: Further down the road we run a user session natively under Wayland with clients written…

So essentially it would be like Apple's X11. It will be there for backwards compatibility with older applications, but it will be considered "undesirable".

Yes, technocally, it would be like that. Sociologically, however, things would be quite different; Apple's users did not have zillions of X applications that they already used.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#149

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.

There will always be Xubuntu for older computers though.

Re: Ubuntu To Ditch X Server For Wayland

#150
I would just like to point out that Arch Linux with GNOME works just fine. I'm sure there are tons of other distros out there, too, that work just fine. If you don't like what's coming in Ubuntu, just switch. you probably won't notice much difference between ubuntu 10.10 and [insert distro] with GNOME.
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