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X.org and XFree86 Reform
albepetr writes "NewsForge is reporting about a press conference held today at LinuxWorld 2004 in New York, where some members of the X Consortium, XFree86, and freedesktop.org announced that X.org and XFree86 have merged. They claim that the reformed group will be working together to bring "not just more eye candy but new functionality" to the X Window Manager for Linux and Unix." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN. Update: 01/23 18:06 GMT by M : XFree86.org denies the story. I think a more accurate description of the event might be something like, "XFree86 core developers leave XFree86, join X.org, remaining people of XFree86 are peeved".
It's nice. Now we need the big desktop systems to agree on common ground, make a "base" system that they can develop each their own systems on ;)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
Theres no sense in having talented people work on different projects trying to complete the same task. This is great news for the X interface.
I hope this means we're gotting one GOOD X server, instead of one that has the drivers but not the features, and one that has the features but not the drivers.
I still believe the Right Thing is to have an efficient system for local display, and a widget-based protocol (a la PicoGUI) for remote display, though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Ok, how many slashdot stories do we need where half the people support X and half the people want something new, or a re-write. This is what it comes down to. X has a lot of great features. X forwarding over ssh being the premier reason I use X. It's probably a feature I couldn't live without. But if linux wants to transition to being a desktop OS for everybody X wont cut it. It's just too big, slow, and full of features desktop users don't need. Directfb is more like what desktop users need, but not quite. That's all there is to it. Linux is about choice, and right now X is the only truly reliable choice for any sort of gui stuffs. We need a real alternative to X for those who don't need the features.
However, as a user of X, I think it's great these sites are joining forces. OSS is about collaboration, and the more they work together the better the end result will be. And if everyone works together they will follow the same standards like the ones from freedesktop.org programs will be much nicer. gaim easily going into the system tray which I put in my xfce4 taskbar is an example of freedesktop.org standards at work. If everyone followed them, imagine what we could do.
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The issue is that the philosophy of X (at least from what I see), is that is plays the role of a graphic server. Nothing more. "If you want copy and paste, write a deamon to manage it" type philosophy.
This is the one case where I say I like the Windows way better then the Unix way.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Yes, KDE and GNOME will now be unified in the sense that they will both run over X11. You'll be able to run KDE apps after booting into GNOME and vice-versa, introducing a glorious new era of interoperability and compataa...I'll get my coat.
Don't be silly, what this does mean is that small development groups are merging. This will be good for Linux. A unified group, with real direction is essential for our world domination a good OS.
One thing that always annoys me with programming for linux and unix is that include files are always in a different spot. I've spent days hunting for something(yes I know about whereis and assorted utils) only to find out it's name had an x infront of it, whereas on the other system it didn't or it was in another directory. Something stupid like /etc/bin/include/graphics/opengl.
Or one system uses opengl and the other mesa for example, and then your completely lost. The arguement that if you new the systems you were coding for better you would be fine, is ignorant as most people use standard libraries like opengl, sockets.h etc, because they aren't supposed to need to know much about the other os for it to work. Anyways, if the X guys standardize things like the directory structure, and procedure interfaces(although I think there are standards for these) it will make things much easier for us linux at home, unix at work guys.
XFree86 should be for x86 versions of X, or X thats generally run on x86-based OSes shouldnt it? Ideally it should be named XFree which will mean a certain implementation of X, yet architecture-free. XFree86 is already used on almost as many architectures as NetBSD supports.
And if x.org is uniting with XFree86, maybe we can keep it simple and just call it X. I know there are other implementations of X, but since x.org owns the copyright, might as well keep the name simple.
At the least, I would lose the '86'.
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That can cause serious problems. What if I just want to select some text (but not cut&paste)? It would overwrite whatever I had in my clipboard (or whatever it's called).
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I just hope that with this new, more optimitic outlook, more developers will come on board and contribute new and refreshing ideas to the development of X.
The unfortunate thing with X is that it is so important to *NIX and yet it receives less attention than the kernel. Sure, X11 isn't sexy but it a very important component none the less.
What I hope by the end of this year is a strong cohesive X server development team/community with good links to IHVs and an active programme in place to encourage people with new and exciting ideas to come forward and discuss them.
What I would also like to see is a situation where the X specification becomes more than just what we see today. We need an encompassing standard which not only includes what we have today but flexible enough to adapt to new extensions as they arise.
Along with these extensions, the toolkit communities need to work closer together with X and each other and work towards an X11/Consortium backed HIG of which all toolkits conform to. What I am trying to get at is this, different tool kits are great, each community can concerntrate on developing the strengths of that particular toolkit, however, for this choice on one hand and the adoption of Linux on the other hand to continue, there needs to be a standard set down. Once that standard is set down and the the two, X + toolkits, work closer together and allow better interoperability, the net result should be applications which look consistant no matter what toolkit is used.
WROGN!
That is not cut-paste scheme since you cannot cut and paste with it.
What most people mean with cut-paste support is support for CLIPBOARD (explicit copy).
The fact that there are two different and incompatible standards it why X people are complaining.
We need only one standard (by default, at least) and it seems that the market has chosen it: clipboard cut-paste with Ctrl+XCV keys -- alternative standard bindings that work fine even in terminals are Shift+Delete, Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Insert.
Flames away, but I am still right.
It will mean nothing for them. All this is is a consolidation of duplicate functions in administration of the projects, and maybe not even that.
KDE and GNOME are totally insulated from the poitics and even a lot of tht technical issues surrounding XFree86. X11 and the projects that run under it are very different beasts.
Now if users migrated from X11 and started using display projects like Fresco, Y, or even FrameBuffer, the KDE and GNOME teams would have to write a air amount of new 'connector' code and rework some libraries.
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That's not right (at least in terms of cut and paste). The X server handles it. Select with the left mouse button, paste with the middle. No messing with the keyboard. Works the same with every app.
The modular approach of X is one of its great strengths, not weaknesses. The same specification (X11R6) has scaled well enough that it hasn't needed reworking in over a decade. The Windows GDI seems to change whenever the wind blows.
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Control-Alt-Plus and -Minus cycle through the resolutions in your XConfig file.
GNOME and KDE don't put a wrapper around this because almost no one feels the need to alter their resolution. For example, you don't seem to care enough about it to have Googled for it, since it's right there at the top.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
I am *so* tired of being say that X is slow. I use X everyday, at work and at home, and never, ever has it been slow. There are some *applications* that are slow, most notable among them OpenOffice running on a Pentium 400Mhz machine, but on my 1Ghz+ machines it's quite nice.
The X Server has never been slow for me, and I really wonder where the myth that running X is slow. I have plenty of apps that run rather speedily on my X boxes that take longer on faster Win32 based machines. (Firebird comes to mind.) And just for the fun of it, I use a PyQT text editor that I wrote to teach myself PyQT -- it's interpreted, gui-based text editor -- and it launches and displayed in under a second on this Pentium 400Mhz machine.
No, X is not slow. The apps are.
This is obviously a strange new use of the word "intuitively" which I've never encountered before. Highlighting text intuitively implies making a copy of it? Absolutely no way.
It's not a question of intuitiveness. It's a matter of people having gotten used to the (braindead and ugly) Windows way of doing things.
Cut-and-paste works fine for me between the applications I use: GNU Emacs, Galeon, Sylpheed, OpenOffice, and gnome-terminal.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Except that, as the original poster noted, it does _not_ work between any two apps. I know this is the zillionth time this exchange has taken place here, but just because you don't use a combination of apps for which it doesn't work doesn't mean that those of us who need to paste from, say, Kate to rxvt are making up stories.
And, of course, copy/paste isn't a clipboard, copying anything but ASCII text almost never works, ...
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I find that simpler than "Click desktop -> Properties -> Advanced -> Tick new resolution -> Apply -> Yes, we are not dead -> Ok". But that's just me.
Stop complaining
Except that those two tasks perform different things.
Jason.
Anyway the current development will probably diminish the importance of having something like xouvert.
I seriously doubt that X.org, the new face of the former X Consortium (members like HP, IBM, Sun, XFree86), has merged with XFree86. They have two totally different goals. The goal of X.org is to promote a single X (currently 11R6) standard between different vendors and implementors. XFree86 was and is a member of X Consortium/X.org, and is a specific (Open Source) implementation of the X standard.
The rest of it is too confused for me to make any real sense out of. I suspect that there is some good vibes between members of X.org, freedesktop.org, and hopefully XFree86 - which is a good thing. Key developers of XFree86 (e.g. David Dawes and Egbert Eich) and X.org (Alan Coopersmith) now seem eager to move forward and work together on making better software. Getting people all on the same page and working together is a lot of work, because of different interests and goals, but I think that XFree86 will see 2004 as a busy year with lots of improvements.
I really hope that freedesktop does not widely diverge from XFree86, let it be a test bed sure, but not a competing product.
When the XF86 Core Team decided to disband three weeks ago, weren't we told by Overly Critical Guy that this indicated that XF86 was falling apart rather than healing itself and that it was proof that the open source community can't produce sufficiently reliable software?
Where is that guy? I want his insights on how to understand these developments.
Actually I find the fact that Winders tries to bring the formatting with to be very anoying. Most of the time it doesn't work right, and causes all sorts of behavior, Esp in Word and Outlook.
If Linux does get this feature I hope that there will be two different paste methods, to past with or without formating.
XML is the best data format; unless your data needs to be read or written by a human or a computer.
Is this going to get stuck in RC-limbo or are they going to finally release it?
Thanks,
F.O.Dobbs
The problem with PRIMARY is: how do you select text in one document, then select text in another document that you want replaced, then paste the text from the first document???
The only way around this is to delete the text you want replaced first, then select the replacement text, then paste it into the correct location. This requires flipping between the two docs/apps/whatevers at least twice. Why??
The vast majority of the time, I am replacing text with previously selected text. Or moving text around. And having the PRIMARY buffer overwritten when all I'm trying to do is select text is a royal pain in the ass.
Selecting (highlighting) text and copying text into a buffer should NOT be the same action.
This is even more of a pain at a console.
Um, maybe the fact that so many people want it means that it *isn't* such a rarely altered setting?
Maybe the fact that both Windows and MacOS make it very easy to change resolution and colour depth might be taken as a hint that usability experts agree that it's worth making it easy?
Just because this is the way Windows works doesn't make it bad, either.
X is not slow by design. Look at SGI machines, they all run X. Even the really old 30Mhz ones will provide a nice snappy GUI experience and they were made in 91! The linux implementation needs further refinement which is some of what this project looks to provide (finally).
As far as the eye-candy goes, you are right for many casual/home users. With regard to enterprise computing you are dead wrong. People are supposed to be working with their machines. The less that gets in the way of that, the better.
Do we need the work? For sure. Is any of this stuff work replacing X. Not a bloody chance. X plays hard in the enterprise computing space, saving money & time through central administration and effective use of avaliable computing resources. Buffers simply cannot compare.
Network transparancy was wonderful and innovative 20 years ago. Just think, networks were young then and they still bothered to build it. Today, we have networks everywhere, and people call for the removal of the network display feature? WTF! Now is the time to be pushing it because the networks/ OS / hardware are all dirt cheap!
The only reason people say this sort of thing is because of the PC mindset.
X is great today, and it is going to continue to get better. Most of the old slashdot responses are dead on in that regard. Will we get the eye-candy nirvana you claim other systems have?
Given the excellent response qualities of my SGI, running X, I would say it is only a matter of time for Linux...
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I think you've just unknowingly illustrated MY pet peeve with the X system for copy/paste. That is, step 1 MUST be done before step 3. This doesn't reflect my normal thinking -- If I want to copy/paste, I first get the text I want and then I go to highlight the text I want to delete. The problem, of course, is that the system wipes out the text I want when I highlight the text to delete. This system is fragile, easily breakable. Your alternative proposal is stronger. The Mac and Windows methods are stronger, too.
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It's a bad habit to respond to a post without reading the whole post. As I mentioned, the Mac OS X Terminal.app is just that -- "a new terminal program" that behaves correctly in a GUI environment, including supporting the GUI keyboard commands, including "copy". KDE's Konsole and Gnome's gnome-terminal also attempt (with a lesser degree of success) to work with rather than against the GUI.
I'm not talking about making new GUI environments compatible with xterm. I'm talking about making new GUI environments' terminal emulators more compatible with (1) existing terminal-based programs, and (2) the GUI environments themselves.
Why does Terminal.app fit better with its surrounding environment (Mac OS X) than Konsole fits in its (KDE)? Because, for all its features, Konsole (which I use) has to forego some of the surrounding environment's standard keystrokes because they were chosen in such a way that they conflict with necessary terminal keys.
Konsole doesn't trap Ctrl-C or Ctrl-X; this fact makes Konsole better as a terminal program than if it did, but worse as a KDE application (because KDE does use Ctrl-C for "copy" by default). If KDE's defaults had been chosen in such a way as not to conflict with terminal keys, then Konsole would not need to deviate from the KDE standard behavior -- just as Terminal.app does not deviate from the Macintosh standard behavior.