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Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

wiki.ubuntu.com

201–210 of 346 posts

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#201

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#202
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Because it's GPL licensed. That's it.

Google has spent a lot of time and work ripping out perfectly good pieces of code that are GPL licensed and replacing it with (sometimes inferior) BSD or Apache licensed pieces. At some point, the only piece of GPL code will be the Linux kernel.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#203
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Device manufacturers' lawyers are very paranoid. That's (part of) the reason Android has its own BSD-licensed libc, "bionic", instead of glibc.

When Google ported Chrome to GoogleTV, which runs Android, they ported glibc, too. Apparently, it was easier for them to port glibc to Android than port Chrome to more limited bionic.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#204
post #44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Apple already have more developers contributing to useful upstream code than Canonical (Webkit, cups, LLVM).

Apple is the biggest tech company in the world. Canonical is a company, that focuses on Linux User experience.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#205

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…

" 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. " What do you find wrong with Firefox on Ubuntu exactly? I'm not challenging just interested. I use Win7/IE9 and Ubuntu1204/Firefox 19 most days.

Pages are loading more slowly, you can notice lagging of some actions. As a developer I am used to going fast through things, so when things are slow, it is noticable. Maybe it is due to pluggins, I don't know, I just know it is surprisingly slower.

Under every other circumstance, I would prefer linux/ubuntu to any other machine. I was using linux for several years as primary dev machine. At the moment I am on a mac, even though I have both linux and win machines as well.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#206
It appears that any sufficiently widely adopted Unix becomes a OS of its own. Examples include OSX, Android and increasingly Ubuntu.

( I have a wonderful proof for this, unfortunately HN does not allow to write into the margins.)

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#207
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything about "illegally". It's all open - "do what you want". It's the question whether it benefits the global Linux community, or creates unnecessary internal competition / fragmentation and spreading of resources. Competition for drivers can start (if they won't be compatible), look at Android targeted hardware and see how sick it is now (it's SurfaceFlinger only, try getting Wayland drivers and good…

Sorry I did a define on usurping and ended up being pedantic because I don't believe its true. I understand all the concerns about how it will impact the global community; But isn't it generally seen that competition is good, and who's resources is it spreading or fragmenting? * A distribution who tries to cater to everyone? * Other companies employees who now need to understand and support technology it doesn't want…

Competition is good when there is choice, i.e. when there is actual competition. When this plays out as an edge case (i.e. monopoly like situation) i.e. stuff like "SurfaceFlinger only" or "Mir only" - it's not good.

Canonical draws its success on the community (Debian and others). With that, being selfish and isolationist, while at the same time claiming to be "the Linux" is not considered respectful. I personally avoid Canonical/Ubuntu because of that.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#208
post #187
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like both Wayland and Mir are supposed to use KMS drivers.

Do you have a link to this assumption? I would really like to know.

I found these:

* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec#Mir_on_the_Free_Graphics_Dri...

* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec#Mir_on_HW_Supported_By_Close...

we are in contact with GPU vendors and are working closely together with them to support Mir and to distill a reusable and unified EGL-centric driver model that further eases display server development in general and keeps cross-platform use-cases in mind.

I hope the later means Wayland compatible drivers, because if not - it's going to be bad.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#209
No one has made the obvious comparison in the comments to ipv4 vs ipv6? The main issue with "yet another graphics protocol" is islanding. Right now all my "linux" boxes are more or less intercompatible. I can ssh -X whatever mythtv-setup and get the config GUI from a server that doesn't even have a monitor (not even sure if it has a graphics card?)

Now I / we will inevitably have three little not too compatible islands of X, wayland, mir, who knows.

My primary interest as an end user, because the machines "I do stuff on" are multiple huge headless servers and virtual images running on them, is network transparency. As long as a Mir keyboard/mouse/monitor can connect to a "real" system and give my my X when necessary, in a VNC like window or whatever if necessary, I'll be OK.

Connectivity demands go both ways. If my refrigerator ends up running Ubuntu for its user interface, I'd really like to be able to remotely connect to it to mess with it.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#210
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?

There was a pretty good talk about it on Linux conf au

http://lwn.net/Articles/536862/ http://mirror.linux.org.au/linux.conf.au/2013/mp4/The_real_s...

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