An X11 apologist tries Wayland • Hacker News Board

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#51

Post by aliqot » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #41

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

I don't know whether you used Remote X, but I used it in a project, and it's extremely inefficient, esp. in thin client applications, and if you try to carry anything like a video, a 100mbps connection could easily be saturated by one pair of X server and client. In other words, it doesn't work in any way unless you have a gigabit LAN. NoMachine developed a couple of libraries called NX back in the day, which transfe…

Remote X has been a godsend for me. I'm not always able to lug around a worthy machine, so being able to use lesser hardware as a 'thinclient' to my wireguard'd assets is very handy. Obviously I'm not going to expect high definition video or realtime gaming, but that's not what it's billed as either, so within the scope of what it's for I'm wholly satisfied.

People on both sides sound somewhat fanatic, and I've never understood that. I just want to use what serves me best with the fewest interruptions.

I ran wayland for 3 years in various forms, and could not reconcile the bumps and stumbles in the process. Maybe next year I'll give it a shot again. There has to be something that it's doing for everyone for me to be hearing this much about it still.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#52

Post by seba_dos1 » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

You don't need to have it baked into the core protocol for it to work. Waypipe works pretty well for running Wayland clients remotely.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#53

Post by tails4e » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

I use remote display of apps daily as part or work. I've a Linux VM, and all compute or memory intensive programs run on LSF with x11 forwarding or via direct login. Sure desktop users don't need the remote part, but enterprise / high end compute definitely does

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#54

Post by seba_dos1 » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

atq2119 wrote: post #28

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

Realistically speaking, what matters is that openssh comes with X11 forwarding built-in. Somebody should go and provide equally seamless "Wayland forwarding". That might end up looking more like VNC under the hood, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Wayland forwarding has been there for years now: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe

Is it seamless enough for what you had in mind?

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#55

Post by misnome » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #41

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

I don't know whether you used Remote X, but I used it in a project, and it's extremely inefficient, esp. in thin client applications, and if you try to carry anything like a video, a 100mbps connection could easily be saturated by one pair of X server and client. In other words, it doesn't work in any way unless you have a gigabit LAN. NoMachine developed a couple of libraries called NX back in the day, which transfe…

> Moreover, the rarity of projects using Remote X, or abstracting it with libraries like NoMachine kinda validates the idea is the feature is considered a novelty and not used much. > While I like the feature, I have feeling that it won't be missed or sought after much.

It’s not used or won’t be missed _by you_. It’s extensively used today by science and HPC facilities and clusters, where it’s at best complementary to things like NX (with the problems of basically having a second desktop instead of integrating into the existing system), but often the only option for remote GUI to heavier duty systems available, not to mention the remote OpenGL capabilities which although out-of-date and clunky, allows more efficient local rendering than just streaming bitmap deltas.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#56

Post by melling » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

“The Network is the Computer”

For a time I had lots of xterms, emacs sessions, etc running across the network. It’s a great feature.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#57

Post by lewantmontreal » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

emidoots wrote: post #7

I recently tried switching to Linux with a few different distro's (Ubuntu, Elementary OS, etc.) and use Wayland. The thing that sticks out like a sore thumb to me, and which I've been unable to solve, is that apparently it's not possible to configure trackpad scroll speed. At all. From what I was able to gather, Wayland/libinput say they shouldn't be responsible for handling it and instead window managers should[0][1…

Similar to mouse wheel scroll speed being a single line and not easy to change. Firefox does have a config setting for it but chrome doesnt.

Even Chrome OS scrolls a single line at a time. It feels so wrong…

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#58

Post by modeless » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

giantdude wrote: post #8

From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland "The X11 protocol was designed around running graphical apps across the network. While some people use this feature, it's far from common. Wayland drops this requirement as a way to greatly simplify its architecture." X client and server are usually the same machine, but they don't have to be. While on the road, you can use your notebook to open a Gimp session on your home machine…

RDP works better in practice than X11 over medium bandwidth and/or high latency connections. Nothing is being lost.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#59

Post by bayindirh » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

misnome wrote: post #55

bayindirh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether you used Remote X, but I used it in a project, and it's extremely inefficient, esp. in thin client applications, and if you try to carry anything like a video, a 100mbps connection could easily be saturated by one pair of X server and client. In other words, it doesn't work in any way unless you have a gigabit LAN. NoMachine developed a couple of libraries called NX back in the day, which transfe…

> Moreover, the rarity of projects using Remote X, or abstracting it with libraries like NoMachine kinda validates the idea is the feature is considered a novelty and not used much. > While I like the feature, I have feeling that it won't be missed or sought after much. It’s not used or won’t be missed _by you_. It’s extensively used today by science and HPC facilities and clusters, where it’s at best complementary t…

As an HPC cluster administrator, I (and my colleagues) don't see its use on our clusters, either.

Instead, researchers either post process their data in the user interface and download it to visualize, or get the raw results and post process and visualize in their systems.

Once in a blue moon, a user generates some output window which requires very few interactions to look at their preliminary data, that's all.

Re: An X11 apologist tries Wayland

#60

Post by XorNot » Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

jcelerier wrote: post #42

echelon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a lot to give up for cool compositing effects... I've used networked X windows and it's always felt like a kludgy, crash-prone hack. The better solution is to render the entire desktop remotely and stream it over wholesale, such as with VNC and other protocols. If companies like YC's Mighty have their way, the future will be thin-client based. And it won't be built on X Windows, because that's the wrong lay…

streaming the entire desktop is an absolutely horrendous experience when compared to just ssh -X and running the app I want

Under Wayland you'd just be sending the window you want instead. RDP can do this too, the point is that rendering remote is just plain more efficient.