Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by hambes » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #241

Please prioritize to keep accessibility features working. This is really the main issue with wayland. Yes, it might be more stable these days and work fine for you. We can talk how how it makes writing you own WM needlessly complicated and all that but the one thing that makes wayland unacceptable is its lacking accessibility story. After so many years. Accessibility is not something you can worry about adding later.…

As someone who is not deep into linux desktop history: Can you please elaborate on the missing accessibility features in wayland or direct me to resources on that?

I've been using wayland for a while now and am very happy with it, but my accessibility needs are pretty basic.

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

#262

Post by uecker » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:43 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #182

PunchyHamster wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that people wanting to build that and being in position to (being paid for by their employer), are fed up with X11. It learned no lessons from X11. It made most things harder to write and pushed more things that really every WM needs and doesn't care much to implement differently to WMs making them harder. For example, stuff like "WM need to manage raw inputs, so they can have more power over t…

> I think the problem is that people wanting to build that and being in position to (being paid for by their employer), are fed up with X11. I think one of the intrinsic problems with relying on developers being paid by their employers is they can easily become personally disinvested from the thing they're maintaining; they get paid well, the day-to-day grind gets stale, they get interests and hobbies other than comp…

Yes, but I think in the case of Wayland also management had other priorities, i.e. GUI for mobile and/or entertainment systems.

But this is all ok, I think the main problem is that somehow too many in Linux community did not see that the technical arguments for Wayland were not actually too convincing and that giving up decades of compatibility across UNIX systems and beyond is a mistake.

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

#263

Post by Izkata » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:43 PM UTC

singpolyma3 wrote: post #54

wmf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people who absolutely have to have X11 this looks like a better plan than XLibre.

Long term if x11 starts having issues then probably https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback will be it

> which allows for running full X11 desktop environments using Wayland components

Wait so is this turning Wayland into a client/server model like X11, where eventually it could support existing window managers and other stuff separate from the compositor?

I remember a year or two ago wondering if that would ever happen and I think I only got one reply saying it wouldn't happen because it was unnecessary.

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

#264

Post by vidarh » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC

mathstuf wrote: post #105

vidarh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't "actually want Wayland" because I want the simplicity of X and the ability to run my own wm, but I have no need for legacy X11 requests, for some values of "legacy". Whether this will become viable for me remains to be seen, but I need very little from my X11 server.

Look into river. It has the window management and keybindings able to be offered by other tools (I have an idea to implement one using XMonad's layouts). It also vastly improved battery on my Dell Pro laptop. 58% battery used in 7h45m (light compilation day, but no suspend).

I don't have any interest in river. I have my own wm that does exactly what I want, so why would I switch?

Wayland doesn't solve any problems I have, and would create new ones, such as having to adapt to new tools or write my own compositor.

Battery life just isn't a relevant consideration for me.

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

#265

Post by vidarh » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:49 PM UTC

LeFantome wrote: post #128

vidarh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the server/compositor. Not for the client, or if you want to write a wm and is forced to write a compositor. And actually I'm not even even convinced about the server if talking about a minimal server like this that insists on DRI/GBM, and ditches all the old rendering cruft.

Well, you are not really forced to write a compositor these days as there are libraries that do all the heavy lifting for you. Check out Louvre for example. Or Smithay if you like Rust. And if you want a bit more depth, there is wlroots of course (or the hyprland version). It is not really any harder than writing an X11 WM.

Yeah, no I have my own wm in Ruby that is fewer lines of code than a typical Wayland Hello World, and that does what I want. I have no reason to want to throw that away for something that doesn't offer me any features I care about, and removes features I do. Such as the ability to just restart my wm if I make a change to it without affecting my current session at all.

Unless you can show me a solution that lets me replace my tiling and floating wm in ca 1500 lines of Ruby, what you're offering me is inferior to what I have with X

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

#266

Post by criticalfault » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #212

criticalfault wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wondering who those people are given that Wayland was done by xorg devs

Users? Obviously xorg devs want to work on something that isn't ancient and crufty. But users want something that actually works and it has taken almost 2 decades to get to that point. Actually I still have more issues on Wayland than X. Although it is at least starting to swing in the other direction - e.g. KDE's screen recording feature doesn't work on X. The button's still there but if you click it nothing happens…

Most users have no idea what is behind. They don't want X or anything X related, they want things to work. Most of the things worked before 2020, including legacy things through xwayland. Now all things work, except maybe remote apps through ssh ootb, but for this you can either use RDP or Waypipe.

The only thing maybe worth discussing is video acceleration. this aside, I have been using gnome on Wayland for years and no problems what-so-ever. I really don't know what the fuss is about.

I would prefer that people start moving this legacy nonsense behind and finally start accepting new and better things and focusing on things that have future. Same thing happened with systemd, it improves massively everything Linux, yet some people just want their services started with scripts.

What problems do you have when things don't work for you on Wayland?

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

#267

Post by akho » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

figmert wrote: post #189

akho wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Linux on the desktop since 1997, and there was no point where Windows was even slightly more attractive. I don't know what "prime time" means here. edit: apart from, you know. Applications and drivers for random hardware.

With prime time I mean being comfortable enough to install it for a non-technical user. Even during Ubuntu's Unity days it didn't feel like I could install it on a computer for my parents or siblings for them to use as a daily driver.

My parents did fine with Linux. My mom still does; it's certainly less maintenance effort from me than Windows would require.

It was fine for non-technical users since at least early GNOME 2, if you're ready to help them set up and maintain. Semi-technical users (Windows power users, gamers, &c — people who like to install and configure things, but fear the deep dark abyss of the terminal) were and remain more problematic.

Unity days were the nadir of linux desktop ux — it was when Gnome 2 was gone, and 3 not yet there. Still better than contemporaneous Windows 8, though.

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

#268

Post by vidarh » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

dismalaf wrote: post #127

vidarh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the server/compositor. Not for the client, or if you want to write a wm and is forced to write a compositor. And actually I'm not even even convinced about the server if talking about a minimal server like this that insists on DRI/GBM, and ditches all the old rendering cruft.

So build on top of wlroots or something. DWL for example is super small...

Why would I?

And DWL is not super small. It's hundreds of times larger than a minimal X wm, and couple of times as big as the wm I used.

And it's C. And it'd mean I would lose my session if I want to make changes and restart it.

What you're suggesting would be to put significant effort into replacing something that works with something that in terms of features I care about is strictly inferior.

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

#269

Post by vidarh » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 1:01 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #78

vidarh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, no, the X11 devs made pretty much all the wrong tradeoffs for me.

I wonder why Valve disagrees.

Presumably Valve cares about different things than me.

I wonder why you think what Valve does has any relevance to my experience or priorities.

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

#270

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #85

Qwertious wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The devs of x11" is a wide category, considering how many X11 devs weren't even born when X11 was first written. Plenty of X11 devs objected to Wayland and tried to patch X11, but when half the devs decide they want to write a replacement and put the original into maintenance-mode, there's not much you can do.

> there's not much you can do. You could fork it. X11 hasn't shipped a major release since 2005, the likelihood of a complete overhaul making it upstream was slim to none even in 2009. X11 developers were better-off focusing on stability, and the Wayland devs moved on. There was no conspiracy to kill either project.

[deleted]