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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

#271

Post by Arch-TK »

MangoToupe wrote: post #111
Arch-TK wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've definitely experienced parts of the windows UI crash. explorer.exe isnt just a file browser, half of the UI runs on top of it.

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

#272

Post by bmacho »

bloppe wrote: post #181
gen2brain wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window positioning? You cannot position the window, you cannot send a hint, nothing? So my pop-up with GTK4 will randomly be placed somewhere, anywhere, without any control. OK, GTK4 went further and also removed popups without the parent, so you hack that with an invisible anchor window and then write platform-specific code for sane platforms that CAN, of course, move the window. And let's not talk about window icon…

It's not technically behind on window positioning. Rather, it was a deliberate choice not to support it. You can very reasonably object to that, but it is sorta a necessary measure to prevent clickjacking.

I'm amazed how both wayland and x11 miss the logical solution: let the user decide.

Any function that is a threat should be behind capabilities.

A program should be able to request moving its windows. The user should ultimately decide what should happen: allow or nah.

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

#273

Post by vidarh »

dismalaf wrote: post #203
ggdG wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current status: > 2025-08-16: dwl IS CURRENTLY UN-MAINTAINED. AT THE PRESENT TIME, I (@fauxmight) DO NOT HAVE THE TIME OR CAPACITY TO KEEP UP WITH wlroots CHANGES. https://codeberg.org/dwl/dwl

I said build on top of wlroots, not DWL. And I only brought it up as an example of a small Wayland compositor/window manager because the poster I was replying to wants to build their own anyway. DWL is more interesting as a learning exercise than something to use.

No, I do not. I pointed out that with Wayland I'd be forced to. And DWL is an illustration of how much work that is relative to an X11 wm.

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

#274

Post by redeeman »

p_ing wrote: post #107
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…

> You can perhaps install various weird third party things, but it does not come with it by default. A Window Manager and Window Server don't come by default with Linux... It's always an install-time option on the major distros. > even in the early 2000s, windows was so hilariously crappy that you had to make floppy disks to even get to install the thing. Windows in the early 2000s installed just fine without a flopp…

> Windows in the early 2000s installed just fine without a floppy directly from CD or PXE booting.

when was it sata became the norm? im thinking circa 2001-ish, and what windows was latest here? im thinking windows xp. lets try remember, did windows xp include sata drivers on the installation medium?? oh wait, it didnt. There wasnt even ahci at the time, and windows xp didnt include a single sata driver for any of the chipsets at the time

> A Window Manager and Window Server don't come by default with Linux... It's always an install-time option on the major distros.

desktop distributions generally come with a desktop environment default selected, or prompt you to choose between a few. one feature that has been there since more or less forever is alt + left/rightclick mouse to move/resize windows, which is significantly better than finding the title bar or corners like. for an operating system called "windows" its pretty hilarious it has the worst window management of them all, dont you think?

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

#275

Post by redeeman »

7bit wrote: post #67
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…

15 years back people were given Windows macOS and Linux and people voted which OS were ready for the Desktop and which were not. The only BS is your inflammatory contribution to this topic.

they were not, they purchased what was in the stores, which was only windows. all the way from first windows to windows xp it was the biggest pile of shit imaginable. the average user wouldnt even have half a chance of installing it, and certainly couldnt use it with any kind of reasonableness, it was a giant mess, it was just the mess people were used to. Most people would throw out their computer and buy a new when windows became slow, because, of course it gradually becomes slower, makes perfect sense, no?

KDE from 15 years back was HUGELY better than windows at the time, and frankly, also windows now

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

#276

Post by vidarh »

bloppe wrote: post #181
gen2brain wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window positioning? You cannot position the window, you cannot send a hint, nothing? So my pop-up with GTK4 will randomly be placed somewhere, anywhere, without any control. OK, GTK4 went further and also removed popups without the parent, so you hack that with an invisible anchor window and then write platform-specific code for sane platforms that CAN, of course, move the window. And let's not talk about window icon…

It's not technically behind on window positioning. Rather, it was a deliberate choice not to support it. You can very reasonably object to that, but it is sorta a necessary measure to prevent clickjacking.

And that, to me, is a sufficient reason not to consider Wayland as a serious option.

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

#277

Post by superkuh »

imtringued wrote: post #235
superkuh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are countless ways to do kb+mouse sharing. You realize that's worse, right? And to be clearer: core Wayland protocol does not have countless ways. It has zero. Instead of a single protocol with the strong X11 reference X server the wayland compositors pick and choose between libinput, or libei, or libportal with the InputCapture PR, xdg-desktop-portal with the InputCapture interface, some I've probably missed,…

The point of the protocol spec being minimal is that it enables a wide variety of implementations, something it definitely succeeded at. I still don't know how people twist this obvious success into a failure.

Uh... lived experience? Try getting keyboard and mouse sharing working across all the waylands with the same software. Not having most of the features in the standard implementation leads to fragmentation which apparently you haven't run into with your use cases yet.

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

#278

Post by vidarh »

grim_io wrote: post #141
ori_b wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one? The Gnome Wayland, the KDE Wayland, the xroots wayland, Weston, or one of the others? Each one is an independent implementation of a Wayland compositor, with a differing, incompatible set of extensions. X11 was a single, pretty janky implementation. Wayland is the worst of both worlds -- it's cleaned up a little, but it's still kinda janky. In exchange for a little bit of cleanup, mainly around bitmap font…

Sure, but I don't see a world where keeping X11 alive, in addition to all of this, makes anything better or easier, for anyone in the medium to long term.

It makes things a lot better for me, for one, and clearly there are more of us. You may not think it matters, and that's fine, but X11 won't go away because there are enough of us that won't let it.

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

#279

Post by mikkupikku »

saint_yossarian wrote: post #240
mikkupikku wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the simple way for a bash script to get the title of the currently focused window? In X this is easy and the bash script will work with every DE. In Wayland you have to write a different solution for each compositor/DE.. Prove me wrong, please. It shouldn't be hard, all I want to do is fuzzy match window titles to named audio streams in pipewire, but "Oohh noo that's a security flaw!" say the patronizing Wayla…

> all I want to do is fuzzy match window titles to named audio streams in pipewire, > basic desktop functionality I feel your pain, but find your idea of "basic" functionality amusing. That said, `pw-dump` / `pactl` will give you client names, which often match the window titles.

I know how to get the audio stream names, the problem is the window titles. With X it's easy, just call xdotool. I'm sure it's probably easy enough on Windows and MacOS too. Wayland is the weird one for making focused window titles privileged information.

Anyway, I do think I've created what should be considered basic desktop functionality here, a simple hotkey that mutes or otherwise changes the volume only of the focused window. Every desktop should have it.

This is just one of the tools I've made for myself with X which I do not want to do without and this makes Wayland a non-option for me. If I can't use X and can't replicate things like this with Wayland, then maybe I should switch to MacOS at that point because the dream of controlling my own computer seems like it's dying anyway.

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

#280

Post by nialv7 »

shakna wrote: post #146
wmf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Until Wayland actually has an accesibility story, X is really the only choice. Don't think most grassroots projects will have that.

pretty sure at-spi is independent from the display server
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