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The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

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Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#51

Post by zeta0134 »

izacus wrote: post #26
beowulfey wrote: post #16

Is there any plan by Wayland to incorporate ssh forwarding? Last I heard it wasn't in the cards, and I think that feature is useful enough; it's probably the only feature I really would miss.

I see this a lot and now I need to ask: do you actually use it and find it usable? Every time I've tried it, it was plagued with problems (fonts, HiDPI issues, different environments) and horrible performance. I mostly had to resort back to NX, which is okish, but not better at all than Windows' RDP or better VNC solutions. So what's the big draw here?

We use it semi-regularly at work. (I do Linux Administration for a hosting company.) Or, more precisely, our Oracle team uses it, as there seem to be several Oracle-related utilities that require a GUI. I don't work with it directly, but I have helped to set it up on that team's behalf from time to time. For that purpose, it seems to be quite stable.

I don't think X-forwarding is a good substitute for VNC(-alikes) if you need to do long sessions, but for occasional one-off GUI work where either there's no CLI equivalent, or the CLI version isn't the best choice, it does get the job done.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#52

Post by PlutoIsAPlanet »

atemerev wrote: post #34
jcranmer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For as long as X is considered to be a reasonable alternative to Wayland, NVidia is unlikely to suffer as a result of its drivers being unable to support Wayland. If Wayland becomes the only practicable option for graphics in Linux, then NVidia is going to be forced to support it to keep their Linux market share.

But that is the point of the post -- X maintainers will abandon X and it will not be considered "a reasonable alternative" anymore. Nvidia supports Wayland just fine with their Eglstreams API, but some WM/drivers developers make a principled stand of not using it.

Maintaining a compositor isn't an easy challenge. GNOME has the resources, plus nvidia help, in supporting EGLStreams so it can.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#53

Post by snazz »

kabwj wrote: post #37

Can Wayland currently handle several monitors with different DPI? And by “handle” I mean, being able to resize (blurry, I know) windows that are not DPI-aware transparently when I move them between monitors. What Windows has been able to do for years now.

It’s not Wayland’s job, as I understand. GTK3 does it, I think Qt does it, and I’m not sure about anything else. Firefox has issues with menu positioning but works fine. Because X11 applications still talk using the X protocol to XWayland, which doesn’t handle DPI scaling, there’s no guarantee of it working.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#54

Post by konqi »

I hope they manage to standardize the majority of protocols. Last time I've checked GNOME wasn't happy but the other projects were, surprisingly, cooperating heavily.

There are very interesting projects using Wayland. https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=wayland&s=updated&type=Re...

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#55

Post by cmm »

voldacar wrote: post #7

Are there any major x11 features that wayland lacks other than remote operation over a network? I think at one point it locked the refresh rate to 60hz, has that been changed?

arbitrary mouse (or "mouse") button remapping in libinput (my understanding is that libinput itself supports it, but due to some security-related reasons it has to be configured on behalf of the logged-in user and the UI is just not there, or something). the upshot is that I cannot use my trackball the way I'm used to, and that seriously sucks.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#56

Post by darkpuma »

atemerev wrote: post #40
CaptainBern wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression it's more like NVidia does not want Linux users, or at least has turned some WM developers against them[0]. [0] https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

Nvidia is mostly used on Linux, as most of their GPUs are installed in datacenters for deep learning acceleration purposes. More than that, Nvidia is the only major video hardware manufacturer that keeps up to date drivers for other free UNIXes, e.g. FreeBSD.

> "Nvidia is mostly used on Linux, as most of their GPUs are installed in datacenters for deep learning acceleration purposes."

Supposing that's true, it has little to do with the reality that Nvidia blatantly doesn't give a damn about the linux desktop uses of their cards.

These constant comments about the issue blaming everybody but the actual party responsible (nvidia) really are becoming tiring. If you can't be bothered to research whether hardware is well supported by linux before you buy it, then what the heck are you even doing in this industry? Merely searching "is nvidia total shit on linux" online should have been enough to inform your hardware purchase. You and nvidia made this bed, stop blaming other people when it's not comfortable. Not a single time in my life have I purchased an nvidia card. You have the choice too.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#57

Post by maxharris »

petschge wrote: post #43
maxharris wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use remote operation (as imagined by X11) at all. But I do use non-X11 screen-sharing systems all the time. Ask yourself, "why do all of the major GUI systems - in daily use by billions of people, evolved over the past 40 years - opt to offer remote operation only as an optional add-on?" Maintainers, beware of the tail wagging the dog!

And I use remote operations all day every day. As does the entire department with hundreds of people. Don't dismiss other peoples works flows without understanding them.

(I ran Linux + X11 as my sole desktop from 1996-2000. And then on and off again for years in VMs.)

I'm not dismissing the need. I'm just saying that the other systems work pretty well, and this is not something that needs to be baked into the core of the display system.

I used and loved Screenhero on the Mac for years before Slack swallowed them up. (Now there's tuple.app, made by some of the same people.)

Prior to that, I used Windows RDP for years. That worked pretty well, too!

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#58

Post by ianai »

izacus wrote: post #26
beowulfey wrote: post #16

Is there any plan by Wayland to incorporate ssh forwarding? Last I heard it wasn't in the cards, and I think that feature is useful enough; it's probably the only feature I really would miss.

I see this a lot and now I need to ask: do you actually use it and find it usable? Every time I've tried it, it was plagued with problems (fonts, HiDPI issues, different environments) and horrible performance. I mostly had to resort back to NX, which is okish, but not better at all than Windows' RDP or better VNC solutions. So what's the big draw here?

Believe it or not, there are production environments that use X-forwarding over ssh. Modern computing relies more and more on remote streaming of interfaces. Even games are going that way.

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#59

Post by CaptainBern »

atemerev wrote: post #40
CaptainBern wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression it's more like NVidia does not want Linux users, or at least has turned some WM developers against them[0]. [0] https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

Nvidia is mostly used on Linux, as most of their GPUs are installed in datacenters for deep learning acceleration purposes. More than that, Nvidia is the only major video hardware manufacturer that keeps up to date drivers for other free UNIXes, e.g. FreeBSD.

Datacenters are not desktops though, which I assume is what X11 is used most for. But, like I said, my comment was just my impression regarding the matter, based on the blog post I linked. Thanks for your reply! :)

Re: The death watch for the X Window System has probably started

#60

Post by ip26 »

nextos wrote: post #50
neilv wrote: post #32

Quoting a quote from the article: > The reality is that X.org is basically maintained by us and thus once we stop paying attention to it there is unlikely to be any major new releases coming out and there might even be some bitrot setting in over time. We will keep an eye on it as we will want to ensure X.org stays supportable until the end of the RHEL8 lifecycle at a minimum, but let this be a friendly notice for ev…

My concern at the moment with Wayland (and Systemd, Pulseaudio, DBus and a few others) is that Linux is loosing modularity. All these dependencies seem to be getting more or less mandatory. Running a distribution without them is getting harder. Given that they are all getting pushed by the same group of people at Red Hat, it is concerning as they are effectively gaining control of the Linux userland. And given that t…

If they are gaining control of the Linux userland because they are the only ones willing & able to put in the development effort, then IMO we can hardly complain.

"Decisions are made by those who show up"

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