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X Might Be Ready For IPV6
makapuf writes "According to linuxtoday, the X Consortium has published enhancement proposals to let X and IPV6 interoperate. This is surely a relief for the masses here that longed for X support for IPV6. Or the contrary? The proposal can be found here."
IPV6...pah! Transparent windows are what we need!
I don't care about IPv6, you don't care about IPv6, my grandmother doesn't care about IPv6 and 99.99% people don't care either. And even fewer care about X supporting IPv6 (hi guys). But one day in the future, you may care, when IPv6 spreads out, and if you happen to want X working that day you'll be glad.
Some dude at Microsoft, echoing what many people thought at the time, said nobody needed more than 640K in their computer. Just look at how much RAM you have today ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You are so wrong, my presription glasses had to be wiped clean.
The purpose of IPv6 is: fix some flaws within the design of IPv4 and expand network addressing.
If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when the global networks start using IPv6 for the same strengths they needed and IPv4 did not provide.
If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when you need an IPv6 X client to connect to your server and VPN is not an option.
If you think IPv6 is a waste of time, you wait when even streaming media or realtime data requires IPv6.
LOOK: IPv6 has strengths that IPv4 doesn't have and never will be able to have, with exception to workarounds on the application layer. Don't knock IPv6, it is a Good Thing(TM).
Everything doesn't go through a tcp/ip stack.
Are you using DRI?
If you were, you'd probably not be complaining about performance.
You might want to consider compiling Xfree86 + DRI modules for your arch also.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I don't understand why IPv6 would ever catch on as anything but a backbone protocol
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Maybe we don't need IPv6 *right now*, but networks are growing at an alarming rate. it would not be hard to see a future in which almost EVERYTHING is attached to a network, your PDA, desktop, laptop, car, appliances, watch, etc.
while you could just stick everything behind a NAT, why do it when you can give everyone (and everything) an IP, why add that extra level of complexity.
Whenever a new development comes out, people always claim that it will never catch on, because the current system works fine. However, they are usually wrong. "this will never catch on" is broad statement to make. "never" is a big time range.
Let's make a difference
First on the list is accessing servers behind a NAT. Wouldn't you like to connect directly to the multiple Linux boxes behind your NAT box without having to first log into the NAT and out again, or having to set up ad-hoc port forwarding kludges? Configure 6to4 on your NAT (easy if it's a Linux box) and you can establish a direct logical end-to-end IPv6 ssh connection even if the path in the middle is IPv4 only. Works great for me. I have been maintaining my parents' network in exactly this fashion for some time now.
Also on the list is VoIP. Look at all the hassles involved in running H323 from behind a NAT. (SIP may be more NAT-friendly, I haven't investigated it yet.) If only H323 supported IPv6, life would be so much easier.
But the real killer app for IPv6 will be cell phones. If cell phones are to implement true VoIP, there is simply no alternative to IPv6 because there are simply far too many cell phones in the world for the number of available IPv4 addresses.
Basically, IPv6 is all about wiping out the NAT plague and restoring the end-to-end model that originally made the Internet great. That's exactly opposite to the claim you make in your subject line. If you don't use NATs, or if you're unimaginative enough to think that you'll never need to do what they make difficult or impossible, then you probably won't be excited by IPv6. But eventually you'll probably discover why IPv6 is inevitable, even though it will have to coexist with IPv4 for a very long time.
It works poorly with the Radeon because ATI makes shitty drivers. Get a real videocard (nvidia) and you'll appreciate the sudden disappearance of flakiness.
As for the rest of your complaint: take the beef up with application or toolkit developers. X sure seems faster than Aqua for me, even for Mozilla. Mozilla is pretty slow by itself. Also, the desktop doesn't run in double-buffered mode, so the windows don't exactly move smoothly. This is not an X problem, it's a toolkit/desktop environment problem. If KDE doesn't use XRender and Xv to render faster, it's not an X problem.
X certainly has its inherent problems. Slowness is not one of them.
For starters, it's essential that the old addressing scheme be a straightforward subset of the new one.
You're obviously still lacking in clues.
Go back and read some more.
Never get your opinions from Slashdot. Just becuase some PC technician at "The Wiz" can't see the sense in ipv6 doesn't mean Nortel networks and Lucent don't have a use for it.
We shouldn't stop at just X Window. Many other vital network-able applications should be on the list. VNC would be a prime candidate for IPv6 support; many programs such as ssh and standard utilities in the major BSD's already prove themselves in terms of IPv6 support. Instant messengers, online games, etc. should also be next on the IPv6 support bandwagon.
Honestly, there is no reason why we shouldn't take advantage of functions that make IPv6 transition (as well as IPv4 compatibility) trivial. IPv6 provides many clear advantages as to why it would be the next de-facto Internet protocol, thus I am able to say with certain confidence that IPv6 will be next up on the plate, and therefore applications should support IPv6 early on for the quickest, most painless transition. If you're interested in seeing why for yourself, just hit www.faqs.org/rfcs/ and search for RFCs on IPv6. They will tell you everything you may need to know as to why I'm ranting.
If you're interested in trying out IPv6 for yourself, I highly suggest using freenet6.net if you are running a flavor of Unix. Otherwise, on Windows XP and similar, simply type 'ipv6 install' on a command line, reboot, and test your connection with a simple ping6 www6.netbsd.org. Oh yeah, if you do join the IPv6 world, make sure your webserver supports IPv6--I'll be sure to visit :)
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And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
IPSec does the encryption you know... It's not that crazy.
The problems with X need to be addressed by X developers, not by more hacks. Tight/RealVNC work fine for now, but they absolutely suck compared to the better methods out there.
It's pretty amazing really. Very often it seems that Linux/BSD is far ahead of every other OS out there, except when it comes to X, which is in quite a sorry state.
If you'll excuse me, I have to reboot so I can change my resolution now. After that I think I'll swap videocards, and just sit back and watch as XDM tries to restart X every second for hours at a time... Then I'll spend a week trying to get TV-out on my video card to work, and end up throwing my computer through the window instead.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hint: If the problem and solution are so obvious get off your arse and fix it
"* For starters, it's essential that the old addressing scheme be a straightforward subset of the new one."
You can simply run dual stack. No problem in there.
Glad you think so. Tell that to all the admins that now have to change their setups from "one stack" to "multi-stack". And don't even try to tell me you won't get mysterious glitches.
"* What the heck was the idea of making it 128 bits, so no human can deal with the raw numbers?"
No human should ever want to, even in the IPv4 world.
That is utter bullshit. Either you have never done any admin, or you have Alzheimer disease.
We've got a nice little thing called DNS which makes it possible to assign nice and easy names to those horrible numeric addresses.
Oh, and you've never had your DNS down? You never had to ping your gateway by IP address? You've never had to set up ARP? Track down mysterious problems using ipdump?
"* And we DON'T NEED TO BE ABLE TO ADDRESS EVERY THUMBTACK ON THE PLANET."
We don't need more than 640 K of memory either.
We are not talking about memory, we are talking about PUBLIC ip addresses (i.e., doesn't include the ones embedded in your stereo).
Let me try to explain this in terms you'll understand: when you were 1 year old, you were only two feet tall, so now you're a million miles high, right? Or to put it in precise terms: public addresses are not memory. They are not like memory. Analogies with memory do not support your argument. At all.
Thank you.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?