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Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

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Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#21

Post by MarkusWandel »

I get it about Wayland. Most of X is legacy cruft and even isolating that into XWayland or whatever it's called for backwards compatibility is better than having it front and center.

But yes, there are use cases it doesn't cover. Example. My elderly mom uses Linux laptops that I've rigged to (1) always have an SSH connection open to my server machine, with reverse tunnels, and (2) run x0vncserver.

Modern security people would cringe, but this is the real world. I can open her desktop any time, from 700km away, and fix serious disasters like: She accidentally double-clicked an email and it opened up in a tab that obscures her message list (Thunderbird). This has worked very well to keep her online and happily emailing.

Where is the equivalent for Wayland? I get the impression that "it shouldn't exist because security" and therefore won't. Luckily, the show's not over yet. I run Fedora. The main spin won't do it any more, but the MATE spin is perfect. It comes up in MATE and it uses X! Still happy. Other laptop installations I have running probably use Wayland and as long as nothing breaks, I don't care.

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#22

Post by vincnetas »

MrArthegor wrote: post #12
erk__ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main author is the person in Linus yells at here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/11/linus_torvalds_vaccin...

Honestly the belief of the developers don’t matter at the end of the day. The quality of code is the only thing who matters. And I don’t imply the quality of code is good or not, I have no idea.

From authors commits to x11 and discussions about that, looks like code was not great.

source comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44200000

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#23

Post by MarkusWandel »

I should add, we also have a use case for X at work. Run gigantic EDA tool by submitting it to a compute server via LSF. It all works, just like magic; the right cookie is passed, X is remoted, it opens up, no fuss. What's the Wayland way?

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#24

Post by timewizard »

devmor wrote: post #14
timewizard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The README being stuffed with political dogwhistles is downright weird For reasons I've never understood politics started invading open source about 10 years ago. What's weird is that these political ideas all seem to be highly aligned and this is the first major project that breaks that alignment. Personally I'd prefer to see the politics, on both sides, disappear forever. It only pollutes the engineering and it f…

I think politics will always be a big part of open source, as the nature of open source development is inherently at odds with corporatism and control. It's particularly the reactionary stuff that concerns me when it comes to projects like this. When someone's motivation is tied to short-lived movements of social energy like that, I don't trust them to have a long term vision or investment in a project.

> short-lived movements of social energy

It's hard to imagine an energy that's apparently existed for 12 years and still going being described as "short-lived." Perhaps it's really just unfamiliar and that's why it seems so concerning?

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#25

Post by yusefnapora »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #16
85392_school wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The README: https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/blob/master/README.md The code of conduct: https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/blob/master/CODE_OF_COND...

Does anyone else get an error from GitHub when going to those links, or is it just me?

GitHub is having an incident at the moment: https://www.githubstatus.com shows

Update - We are investigating reports of issues with many services impacting segments of customers. We will continue to keep users updated on progress towards mitigation. Jun 17, 2025 - 19:53 UTC

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#27

Post by dstnn »

erk__ wrote: post #8
devmor wrote: post #7

I agree with the sentiment of this post in general (annoyance with Wayland being shoved down my throat, despite missing core features of Xorg) but I am rather concerned about Xlibre's future as a project. The README being stuffed with reactionary political dogwhistles is downright weird and doesn't inspire confidence in longevity.

The main author is the person in Linus yells at here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/11/linus_torvalds_vaccin...

This is exactly the problem with xorg right now and why the woke crowed wants to kill it. You people new to the community have no idea how actually diverse it is. Yes odds are you haven't been involved since the 90s. Let people think what they want or you should go use Microsoft Google or Apple products and be told how to think and feel. Like the poster said below its about the code not what people believe. Funny how RiserFS wasnt an issue but this day in age it would be.

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#28

Post by anglesideangle »

As someone who actively uses a wayland compositor and has done so since switching to linux ~4 years ago, I often feel like I live in a different world from the authors of articles discussing its usability. Just to discuss a few points made about wayland's supposed inferiority:

> Wayland cannot do (or do well) tons of things:

> VNC server

> remote desktop

I don't regularly use either of these so I cannot attest to whether they work on wayland.

> SSH X forwarding

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

> custom keyboard bindings

I currently have caps lock bound to esc

> numerous accessibility options

This is likely true

> legacy software

xwayland

> absolute desktop positioning

Once again, I'm running absolute desktop positioning right now

> screen sharing and recording

I just installed and ran obs, told it to use screen capture as a source, it recorded fine

> CAD/EDA tools

CAD software only runs on windows anyway. For KiCad, it's seemingly blocked on a window positioning protocol, which wayland will hopefully adopt soon

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#29

Post by sudobash1 »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #21

I get it about Wayland. Most of X is legacy cruft and even isolating that into XWayland or whatever it's called for backwards compatibility is better than having it front and center. But yes, there are use cases it doesn't cover. Example. My elderly mom uses Linux laptops that I've rigged to (1) always have an SSH connection open to my server machine, with reverse tunnels, and (2) run x0vncserver. Modern security peo…

This is true with more "modern" setups. I tried rustdesk with Wayland. It somewhat works, but you have to be present at the "remote" PC to click a button allowing the sharing.

I periodically retry Wayland, and it does seem to be improving, albeit slowly. There are a few significant things that just aren't there, but mostly it feels like death by a thousand paper-cuts. I can't dock toolbars; I can't use xdotools; screenshares are flaky; I can't click and drag to upload to browsers.

I could live with Wayland, but the experience is still superior (for my use-cases) with X11.

Re: Long live Xorg, I mean Xlibre

#30

Post by panzi »

timewizard wrote: post #11
devmor wrote: post #7

I agree with the sentiment of this post in general (annoyance with Wayland being shoved down my throat, despite missing core features of Xorg) but I am rather concerned about Xlibre's future as a project. The README being stuffed with reactionary political dogwhistles is downright weird and doesn't inspire confidence in longevity.

> The README being stuffed with political dogwhistles is downright weird For reasons I've never understood politics started invading open source about 10 years ago. What's weird is that these political ideas all seem to be highly aligned and this is the first major project that breaks that alignment. Personally I'd prefer to see the politics, on both sides, disappear forever. It only pollutes the engineering and it f…

Open source is inherently political. I think it's anti-capitalist and I remember how pro-capitalist people called it communist back in the 90s/00s. Saying open source isn't political is almost like saying Star Trek isn't political.
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