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Canonical Announces Mir: A New Display Server Not On X11 Or Wayland
An anonymous reader writes "On the Ubuntu Wiki is now the Mir specification, which is a next-generation display server not based on X11/X.Org or Wayland. Canonical is rolling their own display server for future releases of Ubuntu for form factors from mobile phones to the desktop. Mir is still in development but is said to support Android graphics drivers, open-source Linux graphics drivers, and they're pressuring hardware vendors with commercial closed-source drivers to support it too. They also said X11 apps will be compatible along with GTK3 and Qt/QML programs. Canonical isn't using X11 or Wayland with their future Unity desktop as they see many shortcomings from these existing and commonly used components."
Seems like Unity lesson didn't teach Canonical anything. This will end badly too.
You are going to need it.
* and should you succede against all odds, we would all benefit.
Unless they can convince the wider Linux community to adopt some of their technologies, Canonical is basically going to end up forking the platform. If that happens, it will be a fairly major step backwards for Linux on the desktop since developers will be on the hook to adjust to supporting not just multiple packaging systems and multiple library versions, but also multiple incompatible core system API's. Essentially Ubuntu will no longer be "Linux" in any way that matters to developers and all the support for Linux out there now will either die or just switch over to being Ubuntu specific and I don't see how that benefits anyone in the community.
I'm thinking Canonical should just stop beating around the bush and split. I wouldn't be surprised if they announced their own kernel soon.
Ubuntu, We Want To Be Different.
Sure, breaking tradition will cause a little more fragmentation in the Linux world, but is that so bad? We don't think our needs, or that of our users, are always met by sticking to the 'same old song and dance' so we're bucking the trend.
There is good and bad in change.
But didn't Mir come crashing down in fiery chunks?
Anybody want a peanut?
Licences:
GNU GPL v3, GNU LGPL v3, MIT / X / Expat Licence, Other/Open Source
(Boost Software License - Version 1.0)
https://launchpad.net/mir
No, but they did cram it down everyone's throats while for 99% of users it's functionality was meaningless and it severely broke all kinds of applications. I think that's close enough.
http://xkcd.com/927/
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
A lot of times in software someone starts some grand plan project which takes forever to get anywhere. Then some lone programmer comes along with something small, well focused and just plain well thought out, which causes the grand project to be abandoned. There are so many examples of this one can't count. The Linux kernel itself compared to Hurd is just one example. Let Canonical have a shot at this. They've got some good ideas, if they can pull it off, the result will stand on its own merits.
I think you had it the other way around. Wayland was started by a lone programmer in his spare time. Mir, on the other hand, is the grand plan project in this case.
This is clever - this way they automagically get full GFX support for closed source vendors (MALI400 drivers on cheap tablets for example).
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Don't be a hypocritical drama queen.
Waa waa dictatorship, waa waa taking away freedom, waa waa forcing users
For someone who loves choice so much you're pretty hard set on X fanaticism. In any other arena X would be described as a monopoly. Should Canonical not be allowed the freedom to compete? Or should your zealotry force their roadmap?
We have competing window managers, competing graphical toolkits, competing desktop environments, X even has competing methods of rendering, a competing display server will make things interesting and looks like it's paving the way for easier cross platform application development.
Chances are Mir will be an open source, open spec standard under a nicey nice GPLish license allowing freedom of choice to distributions, application developers and end users alike.
Linux has been a fractured splintered platform for well over a decade, this doesn't really make that much of a difference.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
>> "I also find the name to be odd. Do they name it after a soviet space station as an indication that they are planning to take away our rights in a soviet style dictatorship?"
I'm not sure if you're trolling or just ignorant, so let me share some knowledge in case anyone takes this silliness half seriously.
The Russian word "mir" is typically used to mean "world" or "peace", depending on its usage. The term "mir" can also be used in a similar sense to the English words "village", "community" or "global". The word "mir" is actually a perfect fit with the rest of Canonical's naming structure. Ubuntu refers to community, the Unity desktop is named with an idea of many coming together to form a whole, and Mir continues this trend as the term refers to a unified group or community.
Problem is quite simple - Wayland started very small and simple, but of course were held back by legacy support requests (and then there's those closed binary video drivers) and Ubuntu planned to do next LTS with it. However, Canonical suddenly changed their direction 2 years ago, and tried to push into mobile market. Wayland (and Xorg too) can be used for mobile platform, it just needs more work. Problem is Canonical's time is running out. They can't wait. They also don't want to be in same position as others. They want to be first. They don't want to waste all their money only be beaten by some guy who will put GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell together, make it sexy and make all phone/tablet wannabies run for their money. So they retreat more and more in NIH land.
I don't mean them ill. But it's serious fragmentation and trying to destroying de facto Linux desktop ecosystem - to become ultimate winner instead. I'm not sure I can support that in any way anymore.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
In case you havent figured it out yet, the future is going to be very fragmented. Start learning to glue stuff together or get left behind.
Good-bye
I really don't have the technical knowledge to praise or damn the idea, but as I understand it, there are some clever moves in this;
It appears that they rip out enough of Android that they can use the Android graphic drivers for Mir, so that every device with android drivers delivers "free" drivers for Mir too. That would give them a huge advantage in the Smartphone and Tablet arena.
QtMir, QtUbuntu, Qt/QML; it looks like Ubuntu dumps Gnome/GTK in favour of Qt5 for core OS (GUI) development. As I see it they will clone KDE/Qt, substituting the KDE parts with QtUbuntu.
Their time line seems very optimistic though.
I think we're seeing a natural cycle in the software world. During the 80s there were dozens of architectures, operating systems, languages, etc. and the best (for some definition of best) became dominate and during the 90s consolidated. Now we're in the midst of another explosion in new technology (languages, display servers, processor architectures, perhaps even operating systems) that will eventually lead to reconciliation and consolidation in another five to ten years.
Things like Wayland have to appear, and even fail: their existence allows new ideas to be tested giving us a better idea of where to go from here.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
I understand the desire to replace X.
It's the desire to trash everything and start again, but this time doint it *right*.
Big chunks of X either aren't needed any more or have moved into other locations (mostly the kernel).
Yes and no. Mostly no.
For better or worse, quite a bit of the hardware side has moved into the kernel.
The other bits (old-style graphics and font rendering) is no longer big. It was big in 1987, but by 2013 standards it's a few k, perhaps even a few M of memory. Utterly irrelevant.
The other parts of X work really pretty well.
Sure there are warts. But the better solution is not to nuke it from orbit, it's to come up with protocol fixes to give thigs like persistence and fewer round trips (e.g. like NX). The trouble with nuking things is that all the edge and corner and even marginally non mainsream cases just get thrown away too.
X does a lot of things well, and large parts of the protocol have aged very gracefully. Did you know that copy/paste with advanced (non text) types and drag and drop is all implemented using mechanisms compatible with the original 1987 X protocol?
Oh, and you can pry my server side decorations from my cold, dead hads :)
Also what moron on the X team got rid of the keycombo to nuke server grabs for misbehaving applications? I think the reasoning was that it shouldn't be necessary because that's an application bug and should never happen. No shit it's a bug, sherlock! Now these monkeys are trying to give us the next great compositor.
Basically they have no respect for the user.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's kinda the whole problem with Linux is that any "standard" is just defacto and ever shifting. Yeah for sure, it is something that holds Linux back compared to the stability of proprietary platforms. But also, it is the thing that allows it to move forward. Canonical will give this a shot, and if its great, perhaps it will be the new standard. If its rubbish, it won't be. Let's just see what they come up with. If Wayland were perfect, I'm sure Canonical would not want to throw money at a problem that is already solved.
My points are valid. I remember when Ubuntu took up each of these issues and adopted or created software to solve these issues.
Network manager is far from perfect. Try setting a static IP address for you wired adapter with network-manager. Or getting a working bridge going. Or having a wi-fi connection active upon booting a computer but before logging in. When Ubuntu adopted network manager and people filed bug reports and brought up those shortcomings. Ubuntu said it wold get taken care of in the next couple releases. They did not.
They said we would have grub to desktop graphic boots. Did they work on it for a bit. But even now, most desktops do not have a graphic boot from grub. Forget about that as an out of box experience with a Nvidia card. From not working in GRUB you move to not working in Plymouth Again Ubuntu did not create these technologies, but they did adopt them, set as a goal what they wanted to do with them. Then they fell short, got bug reports, promised they would fix it in a release or two. After a release or two, they announce another half baked initiative and move on.
Does pulse audio work? Yes, Does it still have issues? Yes. Can it be a pain to get software designed to work with OSS or ALSA working with it yes it can. I have every right to complain. Ubuntu promised 6 years ago when they adopted it that they would get it all fixed and sorted out. They have not.
You mention Unity and Upstart. Upstart still is not delivering on Ubuntu's promised sub 10 second boot times. Which by the way, were promised with graphic boot screens as well. Still not happening. What about 200,000 million users by 13.10? Again another half baked promise.
Ubuntu has done a lot. The Linux desktop is better off than it was in 2006. Ubuntu has helped improve some of these projects. But so far, every time Ubuntu announces an initiative and makes some big claim about what they will accomplish, they end up doing a half baked job when you look at how well they have met their objectives.
200 million users by October 2013
10 second boot times
Desktop looking better than OS X
100% graphical boots on all Linux systems.
Network manager as robust as OS X or Windows XP network manager
Pulse Audio as robust as OS X or Windows XP sound system.
I am not the one making these promises. Ubuntu is. They are the one telling us we should all hop on board and promote Ubuntu to all of our friends. All of this great stuff they are doing.
What I see are half-baked half-fulfilled promises. Being told we are a community, and the minute the majority of us don't like something like the close button being moved to the left side of the window, or Unity. we are told Mark is in charge and it is not a community decision. I see the word Linux purged from anything Ubuntu is involved with. I am tired of being lied to and treated like the ugly girlfriend that Ubuntu want to have sex with but will not hold her hand in public.
vi +
GNU/Linux may be fragmented, but Ubuntu isn't.
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Edubuntu et al...
I've been a user of Kubuntu since 2007 and happy too. I don't get why people only talk about ubuntu, and when disappointed with it switch to other distributions, when kubuntu still gives you the classical desktop experience, and not something broken like unity.
I hope that whatever they do with mir they don't end up breaking Kubuntu. At least it survived the unity madness, and doesn't send your keys to amazon.
Plus LTS and all the versions in between the last LTS and current.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Let me tell you a story. A bunch of Swedish guys stay in a hotel in the US. Their manager speaks Spanish and chats to the staff. The staff complain the Swedes don't tip. So the manager talks to them and explains they should all put a dollar bill on the table each day. Some of them leave change and the cleaners tell the manager this is unacceptable. Eventually all but one of them do the crisp $1 per day thing. The one that doesn't claims that tipping is feudal and turns the cleaners into supplicants, the hotel should pay the staff a decent wage like in Sweden, the US should have a social democratic party like in Sweden to stick up for the workers and so on and so on and refuses to do it.
When he checks out he finds out the cleaners have put on the porn channel every day after he left the room and turned it off just before he got back.
I think we can all learn a lesson from that story, can't we?
I would say that the lesson is that hotel cleaners in the US are criminals. And that the tipping system in the US sucks.
If the cleaners (or others in the service industry) feel they are entitled to the tip, it is not really a tip any more, it is just a hidden direct taxation for services.