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The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

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Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#341

Post by nullc »

Avamander wrote: post #105
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree and think a clean break was the way to go. X had acquired a whole lot of legacy baggage and compatibility with that should be provided by a separate piece of code. Wayland should have been a completely new thing built with the lessons learned from X but vastly simplified for how modern display systems are actually used. Unfortunately it was built with no intent to handle many of the common use cases X alre…

I love how people say that an unified method of taking screenshots, screen streaming, screen recording and performance in general is legacy baggage.

A lot of this is due to a design culture that seems common around the Gnome project.

Victims of this mimetic disease have caught on to the idea that 80% of usage needs 20% of the features.

This might well be true in a literal sense, but it ignores that 99% of the users need one or two items from the remaining 80% of the features and its just a different one or two items for each user.

The result is something that isn't completely functional for all but a tiny portion of the user base. :( Workarounds exist to expand that somewhat, though they're often extremely poorly maintained.

For example, I had a gnome3 using system that suddenly started insta-crashing anytime a GTK dialog was opened on it. I eventually had to blow away all its gconf to recover it.

It turned out that at some point someone decided that 300% and 400% scaling had no purpose and caused issues because in some cases they messed up UI layout. They removed them and the removal was just shipped along with security & bugfix updates in fedora. The way it was removed caused instant crashing for people that previously had them enabled!

I'm fixed now, though with the display at 200% I have difficulty reading it (It's a 4k TV that I need to read from a long distance away) ... but since I can't use gtk interface stuff on it at all now I guess I won't be opening any bugs on minor layout issues that might be caused by increased scaling. PROBLEM SOLVED :(

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#343

Post by sergeykish »

taeric wrote: post #326
sergeykish wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our industry is flooded with critics who do not contribute.

Most of the pragmatic solutions were built by contributing to existing things, not starting over. Think risc v cisc. It isn't that there are not points to be gained from the alternatives. It is that leaving the past behind is not necessarily the best way to get progress. And even when enough time passes that the alternative gains ground, it often looks more like what it was replacing than less.

You clearly have not watched video by X.Org developer, have not you? I expect you are better informed, worked a lot with X.Org codebase and can show some links on your commits.

Or if you truly believe there is nothing wrong with X.Org you would become maintainer.

> My (often incorrect) views and opinions are my own and not those of anyone I currently or have ever worked for. Please help me make them more informed (and hopefully more correct) whenever you can!

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#344

Post by jancsika »

ddevault wrote: post #228
rconti wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the small point wrt "stuff not working" for a user:

There is a future blog that will point out all the "support myths" about Wayland. E.g., how, contrary to popular misconception, obs and other standard Gnu/Linux applications do work out of the box with Wayland at the time of this future blog's writing.

I imagine the impossibility of writing that blog today is the reason Ubuntu 20.04 ships with x11 as a default.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#345

Post by tbr1 »

pjmlp wrote: post #33
baybal2 wrote: post #2

Better to say both X11, and Wayland are now two pieces of abandonware.

ChromeOS runs on Wayland, and it is used by WSL as well.

> ChromeOS runs on Wayland

Kind of. The Chrome browser itself doesn't run on Wayland, it runs on a custom compositor (I believe Aura?). Sommelier[1] is a Wayland compositor used for Linux apps on CrOS (Crostini), but Chrome doesn't use it. There is an ongoing effort (Lacros) to make the Chrome browser itself run under Wayland on CrOS, but it's not public outside of development builds (and not yet on par with the "native" version).

[1]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#346

Post by blibble »

swiley wrote: post #67

Sure X.org is abandonware but there are serious problems Wayland still hasn't solved that X has. 1) Wayland is really slow. I don't know if it's the compositing or what but it's unusable on lighter hardware that X ran fine on. 2) Widget toolkits handling window decoration is awful. Before the large number of toolkits just meant some controls were a little different but now basic behavior changes based on how programm…

> Wayland is really slow.

as a counterpoint: my sway (Wayland) system is the first one I've ever had where I can watch youtube, or vlc/mpv at 60fps without flickering, dropping frames or tearing

I've used nvidia and radeon cards, plus intel onboard in this machine with X and none of them allowed all of the above

the display server also remains responsive even if one client starts going nuts

generally sway is considerably more responsive on the same system than the Xorg it replaced

I am very happy with it

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#347

Post by circlingthesun »

swiley wrote: post #67

Sure X.org is abandonware but there are serious problems Wayland still hasn't solved that X has. 1) Wayland is really slow. I don't know if it's the compositing or what but it's unusable on lighter hardware that X ran fine on. 2) Widget toolkits handling window decoration is awful. Before the large number of toolkits just meant some controls were a little different but now basic behavior changes based on how programm…

It apparently also lacks good color management. https://www.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/ihi1wm/xwayland_ov...

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#348

Post by heeen2 »

nullc wrote: post #328
corty wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The design overview slides are their own critique: Wayland does almost nothing besides render buffer handling. Input? Applications job. Window decorations? Compositors job. Application talking to the Compositor? Somebody elses job. Clipboard? Maybe compositor or toolkit. Screenshots and remoting? Somebody elses job, but only after Wayland has bored the appropriate holes in its security model. This all leads to a ton…

> But the buffer handling is great, ... so long as you don't care about latency and don't mind a $3000 top of the line 64 core desktop feeling slightly slower than a machine from 20 years ago. :(

Wayland has shipped on plenty of embedded devices with anemic arm socs as early as 2014

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#349

Post by microcolonel »

SweetestRug wrote: post #237
swiley wrote: post #67

Sure X.org is abandonware but there are serious problems Wayland still hasn't solved that X has. 1) Wayland is really slow. I don't know if it's the compositing or what but it's unusable on lighter hardware that X ran fine on. 2) Widget toolkits handling window decoration is awful. Before the large number of toolkits just meant some controls were a little different but now basic behavior changes based on how programm…

> Wayland is really slow I have to wonder if this is distribution dependent? On Manjaro my experience with Wayland has been fantastic. I cannot perceive any speed differences vs X.org; Wayland just flies. It would be interesting to poll users and see just what factors are contributing to speed issues. GPU? CPU? Distribution? Wlroots vs Gnome? etc. Learning more about what users experience could be helpful in making W…

Yeah, I think there are a lot of distro bugs, and a lot of old or mismatched packages, outside of the Arch/Manjaro ecosystem. This hurts the impression of Mesa, the Kernel, and basically anything else like this where there's no good reason conventional distros shouldn't ship new feature releases at least a bit more frequently than they do.

Re: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware?

#350

Post by [deleted] »

ddevault wrote: post #289
marcosdumay wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so does the standard body plan on incorporating those extensions into the main standard at some point?

That's not really how Wayland extensions work. If I can reword your question as "are these protocols legitimate and standardized" the answer is "yes".

[deleted]
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