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Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

wiki.ubuntu.com

71–80 of 346 posts

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#71

I don't understand all the negative reactions. Canonical is recognizing various problems in making GNU/Linux mainstream. They are then innovating at a deeper level (fixing root causes rather than duct-taping) to ultimately attempt to really attract the layman to a mobile or desktop GNU/Linux distro. Devs don't need to target Mir if they don't want to, Linux users can switch to another Debian if they don't like it, an…

Ubuntu has been a Canonical project that is based on Linux for so many years. It is hardly community driven OS that people believe. I think it is a good thing. They are moving forward in some direction. They will make mistakes. Hopefully they will learn out of it. There is nothing wrong in it. In general Linux userspace is very fragmented. Organizations and developers seldom agree on anything. Ubuntu can't provide a true desktop user experience in such a space. And there are always distributions like Arch Linux which offer true freedom and completely stick to Linux specs.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#72
post #35

I don't understand all the negative reactions. Canonical is recognizing various problems in making GNU/Linux mainstream. They are then innovating at a deeper level (fixing root causes rather than duct-taping) to ultimately attempt to really attract the layman to a mobile or desktop GNU/Linux distro. Devs don't need to target Mir if they don't want to, Linux users can switch to another Debian if they don't like it, an…

> the Layman discovers that Linux can possibly be just as shiny as Mac OS. Why do we want the layman to be using Linux? To give Valve more Linux customers or something? We should let them be. Laymen will invariably be better served by Microsoft or Apple, trying to win them over in some sort of misguided drive to "win" market-share seems foolish. Linux should focus on it's niche, and Microsoft and Apple theirs. This m…

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Ubuntu's raison d'etre, which is to bring Free (libre) software to the world.

Except the rest of the (consumer) world doesn't value libre as a first-class feature. They want the shiny.

The way we get to bring our values to the world is to be commercially relevant. Because otherwise, hardware vendors don't care about you, ISVs ignore you, app developers target other platforms, and so forth.

Market share isn't the end goal. It's a means to the end.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#73
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't Linux idiots (whatever that means) or their cautionary tendencies, it's Canonical.

Yes The linux idiots have one glaring example: PulseAudio Throw away user experience, system stability, judicious use of CPU for what? It certainly improves certain details of the user experience, when it works correctly , also usually consuming more CPU than flash player

Not this again... You could have complained about this years ago, but it makes no sense today. PulseAudio got fixed.

> user experience

you can set up PulseAudio for LAN audio streaming with padevchooser (GUI). Could you do this with ESD? Arts? Tell me about this audio streaming solution with super UX for Linux that you know...

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#74
post #29

On the one hand, this looks like one good way to get rid of the massive bag of hurt that is X; on the other, seriously Canonical? Re-inventing another huge chunk of the stack just because? NIH syndrome much?

Pardon my ignorance, but what is wrong with X, anyway?

It draws process boundaries in the wrong place then forces enormous complexity trying to deal with the resulting synchronization problems. To be fair, when X was designed, I doubt it ever occurred to anyone that one day you'd have opaque resize, much less a fully double-buffered dance between application, X server, and window manager.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#75
post #14

I don't understand all the negative reactions. Canonical is recognizing various problems in making GNU/Linux mainstream. They are then innovating at a deeper level (fixing root causes rather than duct-taping) to ultimately attempt to really attract the layman to a mobile or desktop GNU/Linux distro. Devs don't need to target Mir if they don't want to, Linux users can switch to another Debian if they don't like it, an…

Regardless of the technical considerations, Linux and its surrounding ecosystem has a long history of many different companies co-operating on core software. Canonical's philosophy seems to fly directly against that - so far we have: Launchpad / Upstart / Unity / Mir Launchpad is free-software by name only, and Canonical actively discourage you to setup your own instance. Upstart hasn't been widely adopted outside of…

"Launchpad is free-software by name only". No, it is actually free as in freedom software. I think you meant to say that it's free by license only.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#76
post #20

I don't understand all the negative reactions. Canonical is recognizing various problems in making GNU/Linux mainstream. They are then innovating at a deeper level (fixing root causes rather than duct-taping) to ultimately attempt to really attract the layman to a mobile or desktop GNU/Linux distro. Devs don't need to target Mir if they don't want to, Linux users can switch to another Debian if they don't like it, an…

I think there are probably three obvious reasons. 1) For the past two years or so the community has been led to believe Canonical would be adopting Wayland. After the slow build of anticipation over that, it was dropped out of the blue. 2) Simple distrust of Canonical's homemade projects after the Unity fiasco. 3) Fragmentation of effort to unseat X. The chance of repeating the history of every other display server t…

"Unity fiasco": any data on the net decrease of ubuntu users caused by unity?

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#77

I don't understand all the negative reactions. Canonical is recognizing various problems in making GNU/Linux mainstream. They are then innovating at a deeper level (fixing root causes rather than duct-taping) to ultimately attempt to really attract the layman to a mobile or desktop GNU/Linux distro. Devs don't need to target Mir if they don't want to, Linux users can switch to another Debian if they don't like it, an…

The Wayland people really sound like they know what they are talking about, based on decades of experience. See, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44

Are these people designing a better answer to Wayland because it's really better, or because it always looks easy when you don't intimately understand the problem space? I honestly don't know, but it's a question I'd like answered before I get excited.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#78
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes The linux idiots have one glaring example: PulseAudio Throw away user experience, system stability, judicious use of CPU for what? It certainly improves certain details of the user experience, when it works correctly , also usually consuming more CPU than flash player

Am I the only person in the world who has never had anything but a pleasant experience with PulseAudio? The first time I noticed that I was using it, I had already been using it for a year...

I haven't had any recent trouble with it. Back in the early days, it didn't always work well with SDL, but that was fixed years ago. I've been able to crash the daemon with stress tests, but it seems to restart automatically.

I can't understand all the dislike of PulseAudio either. It certainly has a nicer API than /dev/dsp.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#79
post #56

From the MirSpec at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec : "Why Not Wayland / Weston? An obvious clarification first: Wayland is a protocol definition that defines how a client application should talk to a compositor component. It touches areas like surface creation/destruction, graphics buffer allocation/management, input event handling and a rough prototype for the integration of shell components. However, our evaluatio…

[deleted]

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#80
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the technical considerations, Linux and its surrounding ecosystem has a long history of many different companies co-operating on core software. Canonical's philosophy seems to fly directly against that - so far we have: Launchpad / Upstart / Unity / Mir Launchpad is free-software by name only, and Canonical actively discourage you to setup your own instance. Upstart hasn't been widely adopted outside of…

Upstart was used because it was better than traditional init, and was used by Fedora as well. Then again, Linux could have had a much better init system many years ago, but the GPL zealots wouldn't hear of having launchd, and its less restrictive license, be used.

I don't think that's the reason. Apple even relicensed launchd to make it easier to use. It still didn't get adopted.
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