Next Generation X11

Rene Rebe writes "The German News site Golem is running a report (babelfish translation) about the next generation X11 projects, like the OpenGL X-Server Xgl, Luminocity as well as Enlightenment 17. The report is including many screenshots and five videos."

Comments

Why isn't this already out?

[AKAImBatman]

1995: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
1998: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
2000: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
2005: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!

Nope, never heard these promises before...

Joking aside, I didn't see anything in the photos or videos that's revolutionary. Enlightenment looks like its usual "prrreeeeetttyyy" self, and X11 is shown with various transparency and warping effects that have been available on other platforms but have been largely unused.

The question of "Why have they gone unused?" seems to be pretty well answered by some of these videos. i.e. None of the applications seem to do much of anything different than current applications do. The only difference is that they have a "cool" interface. All I can say to that is, Kai's Power Tools had a "cool" interface as well. Didn't get them (or hundreds of other "me too!" programs) very far.

The truely interesting projects I've seen lately are:

1. Sun's Looking Glass Project. While it's not revolutionary in of itself, it is an excellent evolutionary step in user interface improvements. Sun really took the right path by keeping with existing Desktop designs, but improving on existing concepts like sticky notes and window shading (the ability to "fold up" a window). They've also left the door wide open for developers to leverage the new desktop for new UI concepts that fully utilize the 3D abilities of the system.

2. There was an "Ask Slashdot" a few days ago with a guy who was working on the mother of all touchpads. It was literally more of an interactive tactical plot that could have amazing uses in collaberative work.

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[AKAImBatman]

Yeah wasn't there a Y windows in the works at one point.

You mean this?
Fresco was the other big contender.

The Linux Kernel is so flexable in how you can customize it for the hardware situation, its a shame you can't do the same thing for X.

Modern X actually does let you plug-in, plug-out all kinds of useless^H useful crap. It has actually matured into a fairly decent system, network transparency or no.

Where this article falls flat is on trying to make us believe that any of what we're seeing is "new". We've seen it all before, just with fewer cheap effects (e.g. the "wobbly windows").

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[ciroknight]

I think the real problem is, everyone knows X Windows is broken, but nobody knows what to do about it. A few reactionary people set apart to create projects like Fresco and Y-Windows, but the fact is, those are just as useless without knowing what was broken in X Windows in the first place.

As a Mac OS X user, a previous Windows user, and a current Linux Desktop user, I will not be the first to tell you that X is slooow. Windows seems more responsive than most Linux desktop distros I've used, and Mac OS X puts both to shame. Java applications on the Mac (or Windows) even seem more responsive than X Windows.

I still profess that the problem lies with the widget set/window manager not being integrated into the core, but that's just my opinion, and I'm not an expert. It just seems to me that there has to be some code that's shared between the two systems, and together, both systems generate excessive overhead that can be eliminated if we weren't so obstanant in preference of either KDE or GNOME.

To be honest, I'm surprised there hasn't been a project yet to integrate GNOME into X, which I'm surprised hasn't sparked a project to integrate KDE into X (two new forks). It'd be a nice graduate project if someone had the time, and I'd love to see what a GUI on linux could actually perform like.

Lastly, the problem comes with there being absolutely no good drivers available. Honestly, even though NVidia/ATi tries, they're not up to par with what they've got on the Windows platform, and Apple developers have had the luxury of seeing the developer's specs, so their drivers are just as impecible.

I think one of the best things that could come out of open source as of now, would be out of the ReactOS department. Find a way to use ATi's and Nvidia's drivers, then wrap them in such a way they can be used to draw X. I think that'd be an ideal solution, even if 20 people reply and tell me that this is technically unfeasable, and that licences and shit keep us from doing this legally.

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[vadim_t]

Plugged in how?

This is something I spent a *long* time explaining to some people on a forum about a related subject. Network transparency doesn't involve significant overhead, dammit!

There has to be some way for an application to talk to X. So, you remove the network protocol, how do you want to talk it to X then, magic? In order for two different programs to talk to each other there has to be some kind of protocol, no way around it.

Now, networking indeed can slow things down a little due to things like latency. But that's effectively inexistent if you're talking on the local host. And X already has shared memory communication as well. On Linux there are also the so called Unix Sockets, which is pretty much like TCP/IP, only with even less overhead since it's done locally, so it can be implemented in a simpler way.

However, as far as an application is concerned, an Unix socket and a TCP/IP one are exactly the same thing, so it makes no sense to get rid of network transparency - you wouldn't win anything with that anyway.

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[hankaholic]

This gets dragged out every... damned... time... X gets a mention anywhere.

The argument goes like this:

A> X is bloated.
B> No it isn't.
A> But what about network transparency? That's useful.
B> You actually use that crap? Fine, network transparency is neat. But there should still be a way to shut it off.

Welcome to the next point in that argument -- the realization that any time the windowing system and its processes are running in separate processes, some form of communication will have to result ni order to allow the client to do such nifty things as detect mouse clicks or draw things to the screen.

Now that you're dealing with communication between processes, there are many ways to handle the problem. They all involve some mechanism by which communication can occur.

Let's see... two programs with a need to communicate with each other... we wouldn't have a mechanism which has been tested and refined over many years to be pretty darned good at communication, would we? Where would we... hmmm... let me think, I know that at some point there must have been the need for communication at some point in the history of computing...

Oh! A network stack! It's perfect! It not only allows high-performance, low-overhead local communication via highly optimized mechanisms which are available on damned near every operating system on which anyone in their right mind would ever want a windowing system (see contest rules for details, some exceptions apply, mileage estimates provided by EPA methods), but has a built-in mechanism for communication between machines!

Hoo, boy.

The point is, sarcasm mostly aside (maybe), that there is the need for programs to communicate. This isn't a requirement which you can simply opt out of, like, say, FAT support or unneeded sound card drivers. This is a requirement that you can't get rid of, and to use something that doesn't allow network usage is basically to limit yourself to mechanisms which are much less widespread in availability than an IP stack.

An IP stack is a good tool for the task at hand, and it just so happens to be really damned hard to remove networking from it.

I'd be interested if you could provide a counterexample -- find a widely available, generally reliable IPC (interprocess communication) mechanism which is for the most part platform-agnostic and doesn't require tons of massaging in order to get the data into the right format. Bonus points abound if it does not include the ability to communicate across a network, which you requested be unavailable.

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[BlueCodeWarrior]

It doens't matter if XP has the features or not...you're forgetting that the current version of Windows is Longhorn.

The correct answer is that 'Longhorn's tight integration with hardware thanks to Microsoft's close engineering work with card makers that provides a level of performance unachievable by any other vendor.'

Because, you know, even though Longhorn is over a year away we still talk about it in the present tense.

At least if you're within Redmond's Reality Distortion Field, which is growing to be as big if not larger than Jobs'...

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[AKAImBatman]

MODS: Will you please give this guy back a point of Karma or two? Just because he's got fruitcake ideas doesn't mean that he deserves to be silenced.

Parent Poster: You're way off base on the "problems" with X, but it does strike me that you're grasping for what the core issue is. The remaining issue with X.org/XFree86 is not with the controls, but rather with the monolithic architecture. X11 demands the full attention of the video card plus all other hardware it controls, and does not like to give up that control. The result is that X11 tends to be inflexible for work outside of "normal" desktop usage.

What X.org/XFree86 really need to do is separate the graphical and interface device layers from the desktop interface layer. i.e. It should be possible for any system program to be able to ask for exclusive video card access, even when the Desktop is not running. Currently, you have to chose between running X11 or using the external SuperVGA library.

You'll note that this is how the X server functions on systems like Sun Sparcs. On my UltraSparc, the system is ALWAYS in graphics mode. Running X just makes the X-Server take over the graphical screen. Very modular, very flexible. Not to mention that it places the graphics card support back in the OS drivers where it belongs, and not in a server with a focused purpose. Remember, the Unix philosophy is to keep everything in simple, bite sized chunks. The X.org/XFree86 implementation is the anti-thesis of that (although they are attempting to compensate with their portable driver loader design).

Re:Why isn't this already out?

[FrangoAssado]

While I agree with most of this, it should be pointed out that local X connections (i.e., the ones in which the server and the client run in the same machine) are usually done via UNIX sockets, not IP (witness the socket in the /tmp/.X11-unix directory while you are running an X session). The reason for it is that UNIX sockets offer less overhead than a TCP/IP stack.

Also, in modern toolkits (GTK, QT) images are usually sent via shared memory (again, only possible when the client and server are in the same machine), which is much more effecient than sending them through sockets.

Three ENGLISH articles instead of Babelfish

[Flywheels of Fire]

I got tired of reading the article on Babelfish. A bit of googling found me these three relevant articles:

1. Seth Nickell has posted a few videos showing the Luminocity window manager doing some super Open GL hardware acceleration tricks.

2. Interview: Rasterman Speaks of Enlightenment .17

3. XGL file format specs

bablefish

[jbeaupre]

I enjoyed reading the machine translation from german. Makes you think about about how language works and it's down right funny. My favorite line (from a comment): "With open SOURCE is too much abgekupfert." Don't know what it means, but I find my self agreeing...

Re:bablefish

[toxis]

abgekupfert is the perfect form of the verb abkupfern (Kupfer = copper) which comes from the old profession of engraving famous paintings in copper and other metals.

Though it takes a lot of talent those engravers (Kupferstecher) were not creative by themselves and if today a German says something is abgekupfert he/she means it is still just a copy and ignores the hard work behind it.

Y Windows

[BlacBaron]

I recall seeing this a while ago Y Windows

Re:Y Windows

[WillerZ]

Don't go there expecting anything you'll be able to use in the near future. I fully expect HURD 1.0 to be released before we're done.

Please don't join the mailing list and ask "is anyone still working on this?" or "when will feature x be included?", because I'm tired of telling people to fuck off. We're working on it, we'll work on the features _we_ want in the order we feel like doing them. If you want something done you can do it yourself or pay someone else to do it for you.

Apologies for the rant: the usual followup to that link being posted on /. is a stream of fools bitching at Mark/Andrew/me for not working hard enough on Y. I work on it in _my_ time, and people telling me what I ought to be doing usually causes me to go do something else entirely.

Phil

( phil -at- y -hyphen- windows -dot- org )

Re:Y Windows

[AKAImBatman]

Just a friendly suggestion, but you might be able to keep people off your back if you occasionally add a news item. It doesn't have to be any big news (like a release), just something to let everyone know "Hey, we're still here! Don't bug us about it!" It can be as simple as a status report or "I had this cool idea and I'm working on coding it." It could even be the line, "Yes, we're still here." (Although that won't keep anyone's interest for very long. ;-))

Just my two cents.

Re:Y Windows

[youknowmewell]

Phil, get back to work and make me some cool graphics pronto!

Why is this in the Linux section?

[Rick the Red]

X11 is not just for Linux, you know!

Re:Why is this in the Linux section?

[jellomizer]

But we dont talk about them

How about doing something actually useful ?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about implementing dynamic X server reconfiguration to allow connecting and disconnecting external monitors to laptops on the fly? How about using different resolutions on these monitors?

Right now Linux/X11 is horribly behind both Windows and Mac OS X, being unable to detect an external monitor being connected and change resolution accordingly.

Re:copied?

[cabraverde]

To me a lot of these effects are just copied from OS X

Are you implying that that's a bad thing? OS X has many nice GUI features. I'd like to see some of them on my Linux desktop

UI stuff is tough to do open source.

[Viltvodlian Deoderan]

So in another 4-5 or more years X will have the same stuff that OS X has had for a while? This highlights the problem with Opensourcesoftwaredevelopmenten. Things go swimingly until some really un-fun interface code needs to be written. At that point, you really want to pay someone to do the grundge work. Auf Weiderscrheiben, Mike .

Re:Meanwhile Today On Earth...

[tveidt]

> come by any Apple Store and pick up a mini

This is illegal where I live. Here, we have to give money to a store in order to get something from them. Sigh.

X free of CPU and RAM usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Many complain that CPU speed does not increase much from the user perspective but what if the new X11 tech brings us GPU based jpeg decompression?

Surf your photos and they go straight to the GPU instead of storing a CPU decompressed bitmap in RAM, the speedup would be incredible. Low CPU usage in laptops as GPU does the work.

Remote X11 display without recompression of the network stream? It would become as fast as surfing. Requested jpegs being send straight to the receivers GPU, simply upgrade the GPU in school computers to get very fast thin client Linux boxes.

Look at Apple's Core Image in Tiger: possibilities will be amazing.

Re:X free of CPU and RAM usage

[Nagus]

Dude, jpeg decompression is so efficient that it's basically free. I mean, loading the actual data from disk (or network) takes a hell of a lot more time than decompressing it.

Much more interesting is the ability to render SVG images with hardware acceleration. The xsvg renderer will give us that ability (when used with glitz as cairo backend).

Resolution-independent graphics, rendered at high speed. That is what will make for really amazing possibilities.

HCI

[paithuk]

It has actually be shown a number of times that fancy features (such as integrating a physics engine into the desktop as so) actually leads to a more complex and harder to use system. I have to congratulate these guys on what they've achieved, but at the same time I have to wonder if this is the right direction to take, especially since Linux's only major flaw is in fact its lack of usability.

Well sure, but...

[FreeLinux]

surely you can see the immediate need and usefulness of transparent windows and wobbly windows. Not to mention that the present versions of X11 are only using from 50 to 100 megabytes of memory when modern systems have 512 to 1 gig available. I think once we get the bugs worked out of these new features, then we can look into more advanced stuff like "hot-plug monitors" and dynamic resolutions.

agree with the article...

[uodeltasig]

I would have to agree with the article on the following point:

The problem here is to implement in all drivers sufficient 2D-XRender-Hardwarebeschleunigung - those actually simply only one special case of the existing 3D-Beschleunigung represents.

I've had a hard enough time trying to figure out how to say "Hardwarebeschleunigung" let along trying to implement all the drivers for it.Despite this it is good to know however that...

Without the parallel running videoaufzeichnung the animations ran absolutely liquid.

Karama Reedemer: Below is the babelfish translation to the mirror. Mirror dot translation

What I want

[RealProgrammer]

I want an interface that lets me think in 3D.

• I want to be able to grab an edge of a window and push that edge out of the way, with the window aspect changing according to how far I push it. Grab the left border and move it right, and the contents of the window compresses (e.g., making the text look skinny).
• I want to be have a large virtual desktop which I can zoom out away from to show groups of screen objects (windows, icons, local backdrops, etc.), and zoom in on to show the objects close up. The objects should not all be in the same plane, so when I zoom in on one set of object I can still see ("far off") other tiny sets of objects. One effect of that would be to allow hiearchical groups of objects.
• I want to take a group of objects and wrap them in a box, which I can label arbitrarily. The box should have variable opacity, perhaps password security, and should respond to signals (it should be a process).
• I don't want to have to use a pointing device. If necessary, I'd rather use a subvocal microphone/sensor, keyboard mouse driver, eyeglasses, or a chin strap than a mouse, touch pad, trackball, or nipple.
• I want a video driver / X server that outputs stereovision to two displays (or two halves of a single display).

And I want it to be Free.

To answer the obvious retort: every time I get started learning X programming, my feeble little brain starts to hurt. Kudos to you wizards out there who grok X.

Re:What I want

[glwtta]

Like all of these 3D desktop ideas, this doesn't sound all that compelling.

Face it, monitors and input devices are two dimensional (well mice at any rate, keyboards are one dimensional), simulating a third dimension adds complexity - both in use and in implementation - and doesn't add anything to useablity or productivity. Sure, you get about 5 minutes of "Oooh, shiny!", but that's about it.

Navigating 3D space with any of the current input devices is a huge pain in the ass, trying to do useful work with a large amount of data on such a thing will get frustrating very quickly. They make it look cool in movies, but that's becuase it's scripted.

Babelfish translation?

[c0ldfusi0n]

You mean that babelfish translates?!

Man, all this time i was thinking it was only generating random words in given language. All of it were lies. LIES!

It's a Translation!

[duerra]

Now Slashdotters have an excuse for not reading the articles!

Re:luminocity = longhorn in linux?

[DrWhizBang]

Oh brother.

There is a language being developed codenamed cairo..

No. Cairo is a 2D vector graphics library, not a language. ...to be used in Linux...

or Windows. or Mac. It is a cross platform library.

its a GTK fork...

No. It is not. The CVS head version of GTK uses cairo for drawing. ...and its special feature is ability to use opengl rendered screens in place of bitmaps for window drawing...

Among its features are multiple drawing back-ends. One is OpenGL, another is Render. Because it is a vector library, it may or may not render to bitmaps - depending on the backend.

A product is already being developed using this called luminocity.

Luminocity is a fork of the metacity window manager that has a built in composite manager that renders to OpenGL.

Now that that's been cleared up...

Flawed argument

[AvantLegion]

The problem with your argument: a desktop that is "really neat" in 1995 is not "really neat" years later.

1995: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
1998: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
2000: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!

All of these have been met. Maybe not as timely as would be nice, but met. What you don't seem to understand is that "really neat" is a moving target.