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The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

phoronix.com

221–230 of 714 posts

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#221
post #109

This is a rather worrying stance to be pushing on something which is relied upon day in and day out. The phoronix author has lost credibility with me by the opinion expressed in this article. With this kind of FUD, it is no wonder Linux has a hard time being accepted on the desktop. What enterprises -- and everyday developers like me -- need, is a stable desktop to run IDEs and the like. As an example, Debian with Xo…

Apologies, but I don't understand your comment. The original article said X.org is unmaintained. Your comment basically replied "it works for me and I like it, Wayland doesn't cut it". Sure - great opinion - but doesn't change the state of the world, which is that X.org is unmaintained and all the real development firepower has moved on to Wayland. We can all have opinions and I kind of agree with yours, but the arti…

"Need to accept" vs "get stuff done" = "use Windows or OSX"

Fact is the people who developed X thought through multi user graphical computing.

That process has not really happened since.

It needs to, or we just won't see desktop Linux compete.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#222

I'm all for Wayland - I agree with its direction and focus. However, Wayland will take a long time to reach the maturity that X.org has had for decades, including remote support. As a result, having both X.org and Wayland available on your disto is probably going to be the norm (and should be the norm) for a while. X.org is less "abandonware" and more "transitionware" in my opinion.

> Wayland will take a long time to reach the maturity that X.org has had for decades

Xorg (the server) is from 2004 (16 years ago), the X Consortium was founded in 1988, and Wikipedia puts X11 itself at 1984 (36 years ago). Wayland's initial release was 2008 (12 years ago). Wayland is either 3/4ths the age of Xorg, or 1/3rd the age of X11 - bluntly, if they don't have their act together now, why should I expect them to ever get it together?

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#223
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The C/S architecture of X11 hits the spot when terminals and thin client are the norm, that means 20-30 years ago, but today, we all have dedicated graphics display devices (GPU, monitors) even in our pocket smartphone, and the way X11 works is holding Linux desktop scene back. I used X11 forwarding just yesterday to open & control my linux desktop's music player from my mac - which other 2020 technology allows me…

good luck doing that with wayland

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe/

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#224

So why not just fork it? If the maintainers do not want to maintain it anymore... why not just fork it? I've heard people saying that it is big and complex but some time ago i downloaded the code of the X server itself and it didn't seem that big (i've worked in much bigger codebases myself).

No one wants? XOrg developers started Wayland, they don't want to work on XOrg anymore. Red Hat does not need anymore.

One X.org developer started Wayland and some (but not all) others joined.

In any case, i wasn't referring to X.org developers - i explicitly mentioned that they do not want to maintain it anymore.

I was referring to those who want to see it continue existing in one way or another.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#225
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only really care about performance and Wayland hasn’t been very convincing [0] with no discernible improvement over X11. [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-Xo...

GNOME is not a good representative of Wayland. Wayland is just a protocol - it's up to the compositors to have good performance to distinguish it from Xorg, and GNOME does not do well in this regard. Other compositors, particularly wlroots, enjoy excellent performance. Wayland also opens the door to many performance improvements which are not possible on Xorg, and which take advantage of newer GPU features, especiall…

Regardless as to whether Gnome "does well" in the regard of performance, you must admit that for some of us choosing a competitor like wlroots over one like Gnome introduces a whole new adventure in replacing all the features of Gnome with standalone applications to use with wlroots. Plus a tiling window manager is a totally different workflow.

Not everyone has the time for curating a desktop environment with individual utilities, and not everyone likes tiling WMs. i3 gave me an RSI.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME is not a good representative of Wayland. Wayland is just a protocol - it's up to the compositors to have good performance to distinguish it from Xorg, and GNOME does not do well in this regard. Other compositors, particularly wlroots, enjoy excellent performance. Wayland also opens the door to many performance improvements which are not possible on Xorg, and which take advantage of newer GPU features, especiall…

Regardless as to whether Gnome "does well" in the regard of performance, you must admit that for some of us choosing a competitor like wlroots over one like Gnome introduces a whole new adventure in replacing all the features of Gnome with standalone applications to use with wlroots. Plus a tiling window manager is a totally different workflow. Not everyone has the time for curating a desktop environment with individ…

It's not a particularly arduous "adventure". We maintain a list[0] of programs which use these protocols. And wlroots != tiling window manager: there are multiple wlroots-based compositors which do not use the tiling paradigm, the most developed of which is probably Wayfire[1].

[0]: https://github.com/swaywm/wlr-protocols/wiki

[1]: https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#228
post #202

Oh, look, more non-experts spreading misinformation about Wayland on HN. Must be Sunday. https://drewdevault.com/2019/02/10/Wayland-misconceptions-de...

I love it when experts explain to users why their opinion is wrong.

Ah yes, all of these facts are conveniently converted into opinions once shown to be wrong.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#229
post #135
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like paradise. Where do I have to sign? I’m tired of crapware breaking on every “upgrade”.

OS: OpenBSD Phone: Nokia8110 Watch: Vostok or Raketa

I was just thinking that, if X.org truly were abandonware (I have no basis to accept or reject the opinion reported in this article), OpenBSD becomes a bit of a haven.

My understanding is that Wayland does address some security issues in X11, but that Xenocara (OpenBSD’s branch of Xorg) also attempts to address the security of X11 in a way that integrates with the rest of OpenBSD’s security mitigations.

OpenBSD is a great example of actively developed software that has exceptionally good taste when it comes to change. It’s not that OpenBSD never changes; it’s that OpenBSD only makes changes that feel organic 20 seconds after you experience them.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME is not a good representative of Wayland. Wayland is just a protocol - it's up to the compositors to have good performance to distinguish it from Xorg, and GNOME does not do well in this regard. Other compositors, particularly wlroots, enjoy excellent performance. Wayland also opens the door to many performance improvements which are not possible on Xorg, and which take advantage of newer GPU features, especiall…

Which embedded systems actually run GLES on Linux stably enough to do anything with Wayland? My experience is the choices are: Use a binary blob that only works with a 3 year old vendor kernel, and works most of the time (but you can't fix it when it doesn't work, and if you are compositing most of the time isn't good enough) Use a mainline Linux kernel that is so buggy that fixing the bugs in it is a full time job U…

Wayland has nothing to do with GLES, and some compositors support pixman-based rendering similar to Xorg on embedded devices.
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