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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

#121

Post by dspeyer »

kunai wrote: post #39
acabal wrote: post #33

Maybe this is a good idea, I don't know about X/Wayland enough to say. But it worries me that Ubuntu is increasingly striking out on its own. What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings. It's also less knowledge to have to keep in your head for system administration st…

> What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings Exactly. Standards exist in the GNU/Linux world for reason. Mir, Unity, etc. all don't seem to play too well with other distros and are very tightly integrated with Ubuntu; if this continues Ubuntu might turn into a slightl…

Slightly more open?

In what way is Ubuntu closed?

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#122

Post by zanny »

zobzu wrote: post #106
oneweekwonder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canonical might have problems with the current de'facto toolchains of the GNU/Linux ecosystem, or it is to large or unmaintainable for what they want to do with it. Like you said maybe its a good idea, maybe its not. Starting clean you can take all the knowledge gained from previous open projects and create something fresh that is more lightweight, faster and easier to maintain. But will this new components live up t…

There's basically 2 ways for them right now: 1) Make the GNU/Linux stuff work on Android. That's what Tizen does, AFAIK. It's a lot of work. Advantage: everything works with it, and it's well understood. 2) Glue stuff up to work with whatever Android does. That's what they're aiming for. Advantage: less work.

Yet in the end, you pull the entire Linux FOSS community towards whatever whimsy Google is going on at any given time. If they suddenly redid the graphics API and threw out their current binary blob batch, the FOSS space would have to get back up and try again after getting the rug pulled out from under them.

I don't see it as good if Google can lead FOSS desktop development around by a leash.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#123

Post by oneweekwonder »

zobzu wrote: post #106
oneweekwonder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canonical might have problems with the current de'facto toolchains of the GNU/Linux ecosystem, or it is to large or unmaintainable for what they want to do with it. Like you said maybe its a good idea, maybe its not. Starting clean you can take all the knowledge gained from previous open projects and create something fresh that is more lightweight, faster and easier to maintain. But will this new components live up t…

There's basically 2 ways for them right now: 1) Make the GNU/Linux stuff work on Android. That's what Tizen does, AFAIK. It's a lot of work. Advantage: everything works with it, and it's well understood. 2) Glue stuff up to work with whatever Android does. That's what they're aiming for. Advantage: less work.

Why didn't the Android team make the GNU/Linux stuff work on Android; Because it is a lot of work?

Why should another company then spend resources to do that work.

I don't understand what you mean with your second statement. But that might just be because I'm dead tired. But I can not stop myself from reading and typing!!1

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#124

Post by zanny »

LukeShu wrote: post #46
chao- wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate? Your comment reads as a sentence-long "NO, YOU!" right now. What about Canonical is a problem, and who are they causing the problem for? As a "Linux idiot" myself, I hear your disapproval of the parent post, but am curious to hear the details that support your opinion (I might be able to learn something from it).

This is how I parsed the conversation: pilgrim689: Why is everybody hating on Canonical for ditching X11? sneak: Because they're "Linux idiots" who love X11. ihsw: They don't love X11, they just hate Canonical. ihsw is saying that the change isn't getting negative reactions because of the change itself, but because it is being made by Canonical. edit: I accidentally using the wrong verb form.

I thought everyone was hating on Canonical for ditching X because rather than support the fledgling standard replacement for X, Wayland, they once again (just like with systemd vs upstart, compiz vs mutter/kdm) go off and do their own thing.

And if it turns out like either of those, they end up with an inferior barely maintained product that gets pushed to the sidelines once they show it off on a showroom floor.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#125

Post by zanny »

derleth wrote: post #60
raverbashing wrote: post #30

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

> The linux idiots have one glaring example: PulseAudio PulseAudio works wonderfully for me. It allows software mixing, something that's never been possible for me prior to PulseAudio, and it never crashes. It also gives me a single place to control volume on a per-app basis (pavucontrol). That's not something I had prior to PulseAudio, either. I can also keep a single desktop session going for months.

I agree with this, I have similar experiences with pulse. I also use the pulse equalizer, which is super easy to set up.

I like it. I think it does things right, and they can optimize it more over time. It is better than having a fast audio subsystem that just can't do what I want. Pulse is a kitchen sink that at least covers its bases.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#126

Post by chc »

zobzu wrote: post #110
chc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In my experience distros attempting to keep things as close as possible to packages upstream (except for bug fixes) are always the most useable, stable, etc. So I sort of prefer the "authoritarianism" from upstream. Additionally, an upstream package has authority only on ONE component. The distro has authority on ALL components. That makes ALL the difference.

I actually agree. I like Debian better than Ubuntu because I feel like its packages are generally more reliable for my use. But that doesn't mean I would declare Ubuntu to be "horrible" — just not to my taste. I respect Ubuntu's ambition and hope they are successful in what they are trying to accomplish.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#127

Post by rdtsc »

acabal wrote: post #33

Maybe this is a good idea, I don't know about X/Wayland enough to say. But it worries me that Ubuntu is increasingly striking out on its own. What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings. It's also less knowledge to have to keep in your head for system administration st…

In terms of user interface have those standards delivered?

I remember fonts being really screwed up for a long time. Longer that it should have been. Just getting anti-aliased fonts was major deal.

Then graphics drivers are a mess. I blame manufacturers of devices here. But still treating it as a black box I just see that is inferior. I know Linus flipped of NVidia but at the same time is a chicken and egg problem. Why should they bother to improve their drivers? To make GNOME 2 desktops look shinier? You criticized Compiz, ok, what is the alternative?

Google did pretty much the same with Android. We have surfaceflinger, dalvik, custom IPC mechanisms. Now they are trying to slowly merge some of them in.

> Maybe this is the kick in the pants Linux needs to increase adoption.

That is what I think. Here is a company that tried to push and everyone resisted and said "you must adhere to standards defined by a 20 year old plus graphical server". I think that is silly. Let them innovate. I for one, am excited for them.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#128

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

crististm wrote: post #52
BruceIV wrote: 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 was designed for technologies that are obsolete now, forcing enormous complexity for trivial tasks.

(Disclaimer: I had to work with low level X years ago, so I disdain and hate it with passion).

Today almost everything uses OpenGL acceleration that provides a standard way of drawing things on screen , while being fast and unloading and abstracting work from the CPU.

OpenGL is in itself a meritocracy on drawing standards, companies innovate by extensions and what works in the real world is selected into the API, instead of the complex "by committee" of people that know nothing about drawing design of X.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#129

Post by zanny »

raverbashing wrote: post #90
iso-8859-1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"you can set up PulseAudio for LAN audio streaming with padevchooser (GUI)." Yes, and? I understand this is a useful feature for some people, but I'm just interested in listening to music and PA does not me allow to do that without frequent crashes and bugs I don't care about the features of a car if it stops working at random. And yes, this has happened on every distro I tried since PA started being bundled. Every s…

Bugs can be fixed. Pulse is newer than Alsa and more complex, you should expect bugs. If you don't have a problem with the implementation details of PA (software mixing, optional software equalizing, networked audio, stateful audio adaption to devices) then just report the bugs and make it better. Don't whine and try to fragment the Linux space any worse than it already is, especially with Mir's announcement.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#130

Post by desireco42 »

While I agree with most of you who says they are worried by this development, I understand and welcome this direction Ubuntu is taking, almost making their own, not flavor but unique OS. Which is what people said HP should have done.

It is frustrating being open source advocate, if software you use is somewhat inferior to what is available on other platforms, just try to use firefox on ubuntu and compare that to osx or windows. If Ubuntu manage to pull this off, and I think they deserve all our support in that, we will get inspiration for all the open source projects as well as good codebase they can fork and work with. I am not expert in licencing, but anything they accomplish can't be bad for the open source movement.

My 2c.

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