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Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

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Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#81

Post by holowoodman »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #72
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #55

> GNOME’s Wayland session is now stable and usable with Orca. They did that via an out-of-band D-Bus protocol, rather than going full Wayland. I'm all for keeping D-Bus around for backwards-compatibility (lots of things use AT-SPI2, and I certainly don't want a repeat of the CORBA -> D-Bus migration), but Wayland's AT support should be first-class, not relegated to proprietary GNOME extensions. Per Matt Campbell's ar…

Excellent excellent call out. This feels very wrong direction, this using a side-band for accessibility!!! I had no idea. It's surprising to me that security would prompt the push to D-Bus. Wayland's design with the compsitor as the message bus center was built to center security in the architecture, to make the compositor the arbiter of data flows. I'm struggling to picture what the issue was here with sandboxed app…

Compositors are incompatible with one another and have totally different levels of functionality. Most compositors don't do any proper kind of security and permissions and just limit data flows in the most primitive and restrictive way possible. Using something with existing security but the possibility of cross-communication like DBUS is just easier here. Although I expect a lot of confused deputy type of exploits there...

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#82

Post by lotharcable »

holowoodman wrote: post #74
ChocolateGod wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> X11 had problems, but instead of fixing them You can't fix a protocol that simply isn't designed for how modern graphics hardware works. Both macOS and Windows have upgraded their display stacks over the decades, but it was seamless because unlike Linux, nearly all applications dynamically link the system library which they can upgrade. Linux is late to the party here because everyone wants to make their own toolki…

Wayland also doesn't even remotely resemble anything that would be fit to talk to modern graphics hardware. DMA buffers and DRM (direct rendering manager, not the digital restrictions management) are an afterthought, a separate protocol that is not even all in stable yet. Vulkan usually doesn't work. Latency with Wayland got worse and won't get better because "frames have to be perfect". Tons of unnecessary blitting…

DRM is literally the 3D acceleration driver framework for Linux. It has been around for decades and is same set of drivers that are used for any sort of accelerated graphics in X.

If you want to get rid of DRM you have to start over and rewrite all graphical drivers for Linux from scratch.

DMA is part of the basic architecture of modern computers. It is how you can do things like have fast USB devices or network devices because it allows device hardware to by-pass the CPU and write things directly to memory.

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#83

Post by holowoodman »

ChocolateGod wrote: post #76
holowoodman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wayland also doesn't even remotely resemble anything that would be fit to talk to modern graphics hardware. DMA buffers and DRM (direct rendering manager, not the digital restrictions management) are an afterthought, a separate protocol that is not even all in stable yet. Vulkan usually doesn't work. Latency with Wayland got worse and won't get better because "frames have to be perfect". Tons of unnecessary blitting…

> Wayland also doesn't even remotely resemble anything that would be fit to talk to modern graphics hardware. DMA buffers and DRM (direct rendering manager, not the digital restrictions management) are an afterthought You don't use Wayland to talk to graphics hardware, you use Wayland to communicate with the display server. The Wayland protocol lets apps negotiate an area to write it output to and how it gets written…

That is complete BS. The application doesn't talk to the graphics hardware alone and then just copy a bitmap into a Wayland buffer. You don't just magically talk to the GPU. There is this little problem called 'security', 'multiprocessing' and 'multiuser' in between.

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#84

Post by lotharcable »

vidarh wrote: post #63
elsjaako wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think XWayland is basically an X server that supports Wayland. It is based on Xorg though. But if you really think it has a bunch of features nobody uses, you could try to delete those simplify that way. Or am I misunderstanding what you want to do?

I don't want an X server that supports Wayland. I want a leaner, simpler X server without Wayland. EDIT: To clarify, the reason I mentioned Wayland compositors is that it'd be an opportunity to pick a low-level rendering backend that has been written from scratch without the baggage of Xorg. The "good parts" of X that modern apps actually use are comparatively simple compared to the low level bits - the protocol is t…

XWayland can be run in 'rootless' and 'rootful' modes.

Rootless is what it is typically ran as and allows you to integrate X11 apps into your Wayland desktop environment.

Rootful would allow you to run X11 desktop with X11 Window manager and the whole ten yards.

I don't know how well rootful mode is working because it is rarely used. I imagine it would take some work to make it fully functional. But it something that exists and I would expect that the Xorg/Wayland devs would like to see it fully fleshed out.

But that essentially gets you most of the way there.

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#85

Post by holowoodman »

lotharcable wrote: post #82
holowoodman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wayland also doesn't even remotely resemble anything that would be fit to talk to modern graphics hardware. DMA buffers and DRM (direct rendering manager, not the digital restrictions management) are an afterthought, a separate protocol that is not even all in stable yet. Vulkan usually doesn't work. Latency with Wayland got worse and won't get better because "frames have to be perfect". Tons of unnecessary blitting…

DRM is literally the 3D acceleration driver framework for Linux. It has been around for decades and is same set of drivers that are used for any sort of accelerated graphics in X. If you want to get rid of DRM you have to start over and rewrite all graphical drivers for Linux from scratch. DMA is part of the basic architecture of modern computers. It is how you can do things like have fast USB devices or network devi…

> DRM is literally the 3D acceleration driver framework for Linux. It has been around for decades and is same set of drivers that are used for any sort of accelerated graphics in X.

Yes, exactly. And Wayland ignored it for years, from the start, and only later slowly adopted it as an extension.

> DMA is part of the basic architecture of modern computers.

Yes, I know.

DMA is even older and not limited to Linux or Graphics. Back in the old VESA, SGI and Windows 3.0 times, DMA was a cool new feature (but actually old even then). When Wayland was conceived, it was boring and old. Yet Wayland didn't originally include DMA buffers, just later added it as an extension when it became obvious that they had just gotten rid of a 40 year old feature that was really really necessary for modern graphics...

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#86

Post by ChocolateGod »

holowoodman wrote: post #85
lotharcable wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM is literally the 3D acceleration driver framework for Linux. It has been around for decades and is same set of drivers that are used for any sort of accelerated graphics in X. If you want to get rid of DRM you have to start over and rewrite all graphical drivers for Linux from scratch. DMA is part of the basic architecture of modern computers. It is how you can do things like have fast USB devices or network devi…

> DRM is literally the 3D acceleration driver framework for Linux. It has been around for decades and is same set of drivers that are used for any sort of accelerated graphics in X. Yes, exactly. And Wayland ignored it for years, from the start, and only later slowly adopted it as an extension. > DMA is part of the basic architecture of modern computers. Yes, I know. DMA is even older and not limited to Linux or Grap…

> Yes, exactly. And Wayland ignored it for years, from the start, and only later slowly adopted it as an extension.

DRM is not part of Wayland, and Wayland does not use DRM. Wayland is the protocol between the display server and application, DRM is a functionality provided by the kernel to allow user space applications to use and share graphics hardware.

The display server can use DRM, as will applications wanting to use OpenGL/Vulkan, but these are not "wayland".

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#87

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Fr3ck wrote: post #31
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #12

More and more people are using GPT for editing. I admit to sometimes using AI to help me too. To be fair, I'm not sure what to think of this particular slick style quite yet.

What in particular drove you to leave this comment? I am just curious. This doesn't strike me as Gen AI slop like other posts I see sometimes.

Ah, a lot of people do use LLMs for editing. And when I read this I can just hear GPT-4.x's style and tone of voice in my head.

None of the following are smoking guns, but together... well, either it's GPT or it's https://xkcd.com/810/ .

* Bullet point lists

* emdash

* extensive use of bold

* sentence fragments

* "Here's the good news:"

* juxtaposition over emdash: "This transition is happening — but we’re not being ignored anymore."

* Bullet points that simply MUST have a conclusion " The entire workflow? Gone." , " not just for me, but for every user who deserves to choose how they compute.", "And they shouldn’t have to." , "But we have to start over."

* "I hope it’s done right — not half-baked, not bolted on."

* "We lost an ecosystem."

* "That has to change. / And it starts with every compositor agreeing on what “accessible” actually means. "

etc....

Maybe it's

A) A human who is a very skilled writer with a particular style

B) GPT4.x

but my best guess is

C) Both: Human did the rough draft, then had GPT4 edit it into shape.

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#88

Post by ChocolateGod »

holowoodman wrote: post #83
ChocolateGod wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wayland also doesn't even remotely resemble anything that would be fit to talk to modern graphics hardware. DMA buffers and DRM (direct rendering manager, not the digital restrictions management) are an afterthought You don't use Wayland to talk to graphics hardware, you use Wayland to communicate with the display server. The Wayland protocol lets apps negotiate an area to write it output to and how it gets written…

That is complete BS. The application doesn't talk to the graphics hardware alone and then just copy a bitmap into a Wayland buffer. You don't just magically talk to the GPU. There is this little problem called 'security', 'multiprocessing' and 'multiuser' in between.

> That is complete BS. The application doesn't talk to the graphics hardware alone and then just copy a bitmap into a Wayland buffer. You don't just magically talk to the GPU. There is this little problem called 'security', 'multiprocessing' and 'multiuser' in between.

This is literally what DRM/DRI is for... which is not Wayland.

If you think the display server should handle applications using the GPU, then even Xorg dropped this approach.

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#89

Post by wizzwizz4 »

ThrowOregonAway wrote: post #52
anonym29 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate more on discussions about XLibre being banned on here? Are accounts that mention it getting banned? Is there just mass downvoting by partisans with some kind of agenda? I get that X11 has security issues, but NVIDIA drivers and Wayland still seem to have no support now and no support planned for the future, so Wayland is a non-negotiable non-option for many (most?) Linux desktop users, including mys…

[flagged]

Wayland is a ridiculously simple protocol: I could run it on pencil and paper. It doesn't require anything I'd describe as a "hardware backdoor". What are you on about?

Re: Wayland is growing up. and now we don't have a choice

#90

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

vidarh wrote: post #80
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it only takes popular distributions making it default, then all sorts of things will start depending on it, and it will be difficult to not switch eventually. As somebody that has written a lot of xlib/xt/motif code years back, and that still has the full O'Reilly X series set on my bookshelves, I would prefer X11 to continue; but just like sysv->systemd it seems things are moving against that being the case.

To me, the only thing that'd be troublesome to replace would be a browser, but worst case I'll run a Wayland compositor on my X11 server for that. (And yes, I'd rather do that than go all in on Wayland)

> but worst case I'll run a Wayland compositor on my X11 server for that

This is actually surprisingly easy, too. My first experiments ran a wayland app in cage ( https://github.com/cage-kiosk/cage ), but in order to better handle multiple windows I switched to sway with a lightly tweaked config, and other than some input weirdness (I think it struggles with modifiers held while switching focus) it works pretty well.

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