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Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

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Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#111

Post by MangoToupe »

Arch-TK wrote: post #68
MangoToupe wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't use a Mac, but have you ever used Windows? I mean, maybe you have, but if you are not fussy then at worst MacOS is quirky and Windows and Linux are identical and merely have different icons. If you pay a little bit of attention you will notice that on linux things seem more flexible and intuitive. If you are very finnicky, there is nothing that comes close to X11 window managers when it comes to window manage…

> and Windows and Linux are identical and merely have different icons

At least on this we can agree, but windows never had to reboot the window server in my experience

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#112

Post by esjeon »

__d wrote: post #80

So … does xterm work? emacs? xfig? ghostview? xload? xev? oclock? xmodmap? xpilot?

It’s possible that most of old X11 toys would not work properly, because many of them rely on X11 drawing APIs, but they are pretty simple to implement anyway.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#113

Post by sho_hn »

shevy-java wrote: post #92
sho_hn wrote: post #11

Pretty interesting approach to make an X server that is essentially "Wayland-like" (merging display server/compositor by default, isolated apps by default, no remoting of GLX, dropping legacy protocol features to the point of breaking compat with the core protocol, etc.). Not sure who this is for, but by itself it looks like a fairly reasonable set of choices.

> by itself it looks like a fairly reasonable set of choices. I have not tried this myself, so I can not speak from experience, but if they have removed features that people used, then they are in a similar situation as wayland. So I don't see what the difference then would be. Perhaps your analysis was also incomplete?

I consider Wayland's choices reasonable as well. I.e. I it's not surprising that a reasonable attempt to clean up X ends up looking similar to Wayland, just in a slightly different place on the xy graph that has backwards compat and cleanup as its axis.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#114

Post by esjeon »

vzaliva wrote: post #24

Multiple screens support is listed as non-goal. Would that prevent its usage with window managers which support virtiaul desktops? I am i3 user and it is a critical feature for me.

As others have already mentioned, the continuous multi-monitor(Xinerama) was an afterthought. A good news is that, by design, it’s actually pretty easy to add in the later steps.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#115

Post by sillystuff »

reppap wrote: post #73
ccakes wrote: post #13

This is a great project! I like and use Wayland but the portal protocols and extension mechanism does leave a lot to be desired. Wayland is still quite a way behind Windows and macOS in terms of what productivity users need An X11 rewrite with some security baked in is an awesome approach. Will be watching!

I don't really understand what is supposedly missing in Wayland for productivity users? At work I have been using gnome with the wayland backend for years at this point and I can't really figure out anything that's missing.

Accessibility is apparently a big problem with wayland. E.g., the most popular / ?only? app that supports hardware eye trackers on Linux does not work with wayland, and states that it likely never will as wayland does not provide what it needs to add support (it is also the most popular app for voice/noise control). Even basic things like screen readers are apparently still an issue with wayland. Without a strong accessibility story, systems running wayland would have been banned at my last employer (a college).

Personally, I have a 3200x2400 e-ink monitor that has a bezel that covers the outer few columns of pixels. I use a custom modeline to exclude those columns from use. And, a fractional scaling of .603x.5 on this now 3184x2400 monitor to get 1920x1200 effective resolution. Zero idea how to accomplish this with wayland-- I do not think it is possible, but if anyone knows a way, I am all ears.

I ran into, at least, ten issues without solutions/work-arounds (like the issue with my monitor) when I tried to switch this year, after getting a new laptop. Reverted to a functional, and productively familiar, setup with X.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#116

Post by socketcluster »

The name Phoenix is overused. There is an Elixir framework called Phoenix. I think I also heard of other projects with that same name before.

It's a bit like the name 'Apollo'; besides the moon landing project, I know like 2 dev projects called that and also there is a sales SaaS platform with that name.

Surely people should run a search first before choosing a name...

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#117

Post by esjeon »

immibis wrote: post #109

Nice! We do need more X servers, since Wayland refuses to incorporate essential protocol elements due to religion.

Yeah, we should introduce competition. It doesn’t feel like Wayland is improving these days. Missing features force me to hit X11 regularly, and I still get Wayland session crashes etc, while X11 could happily run over a year without crash and run all applications I need without issues.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#118

Post by wewewedxfgdf »

socketcluster wrote: post #116

The name Phoenix is overused. There is an Elixir framework called Phoenix. I think I also heard of other projects with that same name before. It's a bit like the name 'Apollo'; besides the moon landing project, I know like 2 dev projects called that and also there is a sales SaaS platform with that name. Surely people should run a search first before choosing a name...

From the ashes of some previous project is born some new project.

It's symbolic.

I remember people naming new software projects this back in the 1980s for the same reason.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#119

Post by figmert »

redeeman wrote: post #33
ccakes wrote: post #13

This is a great project! I like and use Wayland but the portal protocols and extension mechanism does leave a lot to be desired. Wayland is still quite a way behind Windows and macOS in terms of what productivity users need An X11 rewrite with some security baked in is an awesome approach. Will be watching!

BS, windows and macos cant even do proper window managing for a start, and then it just goes downwards from there on.. You can perhaps install various weird third party things, but it does not come with it by default. If you took people who absolutely never tried any computing, and gave them macos, windows, and for example Plasma, they would NOT consider windows or macos to be ready for the desktop. If you go 15 year…

As someone who came from Windows, and has used Linux as my primary OS for 15 years, and MacOS here and there (cos work provided laptop), I can tell you that Linux was not ready for prime time 15 years ago. Today, I feel it is, but definitely not 15 years ago.

Re: Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig

#120

Post by sho_hn »

MangoToupe wrote: post #46
redeeman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BS, windows and macos cant even do proper window managing for a start, and then it just goes downwards from there on.. You can perhaps install various weird third party things, but it does not come with it by default. If you took people who absolutely never tried any computing, and gave them macos, windows, and for example Plasma, they would NOT consider windows or macos to be ready for the desktop. If you go 15 year…

[flagged]

Windows is reasonably OK, but MacOS' window management has always been really terrible.

Just think through the many different iterations over the years of what the green button on the deco does, which still isn't working consistently, same as double-clicking the title bar. Not to mention that whatever the Maximize-alike is that you can set title bar double click too (the options being Zoom and Fill, buried in settings somewhere) is different from dragging the title bar against the top of the screen and chosing single tile. Which is different from Control-Clicking the green button. Maybe. It depends on the app.

What a mess.

Both of them miss (without add-ons) convenience niche features I cherish, such as the ability to pin arbitrary windows on-top, but at least the basics in Windows work alright and moreover predictably and reliabily. Window management in MacOS just feels neglected and broken.

There may be many other ways in which MacOS shines as a desktop OS, and certainly in terms of display server tech it has innovated by going compositing first, but the window manager is bizarrely bad.

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