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Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

wiki.ubuntu.com

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Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#111

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

chc wrote: post #25
ihsw wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are sacrificing your objectivity, there is no reason other distros cannot be 'just as shiny' as Ubuntu or Mac OS. Furthermore it is horrible because Canonical has a history of secrecy and authoritarianism and they absolutely go against the spirit of open source software development.

If the "spirit of open-source software development" can't stand for distro maintainers to have strong control over what goes in their own distros, this open-source spirit sounds pretty authoritarian itself. If (for example) I want to maintain my own window manager for my distro and I provide the source under a free license but don't accept outside contributions into my own distribution, what is wrong with that? Isn't…

Agreed. So many geek people hating Ubuntu this days, probably because they feel "betrayed" as they make Linux more user friendly.

Most of them had contributed zero to Linux, so I don't know where this entitlement sense and emotional response comes from.

If you don't like it, go use whatever you want.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#112

Post by csense »

What does this mean for Ubuntu-based distributions that offer a more traditional look and feel, like Linux Mint? I jumped ship for Linux Mint when Ubuntu shoved Unity down everyone's throats.

I like the balance Ubuntu strikes between good hardware support, recent packages, proprietary graphics support, and the "it just works" factor.

I just want all of that without the Unity mess. Unity might be good on a cell phone, but it was really crashy and impossible to do any work, because every time I've attempted to use Unity, I couldn't figure out how to do the simplest things with the GUI, and ended up switching within days.

It sounds like the new window manager will only support Unity.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#113

Post by zobzu »

IgorPartola wrote: post #24
hmo09 wrote: 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 is a bad example. pacman is a package manager only used by Arch Linux and nowhere else. Should Arch abandon it because it hasn't seen wide use yet? Better yet, there are plenty of package managers that are better than both aptitude and pacman ( http://nixos.org/ ). Should we abandon the technically inferior solutions for the technically superior ones? Unity is the same way: it is open source. If you don't lik…

"better" is generally subjective. there's a reason why nixos, upstart, etc, don't catch on.

For pacman vs nix, well, pacman is extremely simple. Extremely reliable. Nix has some design advantages, but that don't translate all that well in the practical world right now. Maybe in the future.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#114

Post by oneweekwonder »

jlgreco wrote: post #35
pilgrim689 wrote: post #10

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…

Who are we? I only see a Company and a Foundation geared to serve a platform namely Ubuntu and not Linux.

Yes Ubuntu is based on a FOSS ecosystem but it does not mean it shares the same goals as linux, whatever the goals of linux are.

It means its backed by a company which in my eyes want to bring the wonders of a second unix based operating to the laymen. Only in this one everything is open, and that for me makes sense.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#115

Post by Symmetry »

jerf wrote: post #77
pilgrim689 wrote: post #10

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 excit…

It looks like they have design goals such as using Android drivers that Wayland doesn't address.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#116

Post by hollerith »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #40

Given my bad experience during the past years of Ubuntu breaking things in Debian and inventing poor software by themselves, my estimation is that they're not smart enough to pull this off.

am curious how Ubuntu broke things in Debian. were Debian maintainers too ready to accept changes from Ubuntu?

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#119

Post by zanny »

jerf wrote: post #77
pilgrim689 wrote: post #10

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 excit…

I'd like to hope since Wayland has been in development hell for ~5 years now, that if the Mir people are doing their job, they are intimate with both X and Wayland, see where Wayland improved, and where it made mistakes, and fix those.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#120

Post by shmerl »

oneweekwonder wrote: post #103
shmerl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like a good idea. What's wrong with Wayland?

From the article, and I'm sorry if this seems condescending, I would truly love to have a conversation about this, but I believe your question is to vague: * The input event handling partly recreates the X semantics and is thus likely to expose similar problems to the ones we described in the introductory section. * The shell integration parts of the protocol are considered privileged from our perspective and we'd ra…

What worries me is fragmentation of drivers. It can be a very serious problem.

Possible scenario:

Nvidia wait for broader Wayland adoption to release their driver for Wayland. Comes along Canonical and drops Mir on our heads. Nvidia scratch their heads and say - forget Wayland. Not sure if they'll say forget Mir as well - they have better things to do than to deal with this mess, but all this doesn't sound good already.

Consider games development. People wait for better drivers (Wayland)? They aren't coming. Should they say forget this mess (Linux)? Or Canonical think they should refocus all driver development on Mir like Android did on mobile creating a horrible fragmentation again?

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