GNOME Aiming For Full Wayland Support by Spring 2014

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GNOME Aiming For Full Wayland Support by Spring 2014

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday March 13, 2013 @02:10AM from the ten-little-kingdoms dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Canonical's plan to develop the Mir Display Server for Ubuntu rather than going with their original plans to adopt Wayland has been met with criticism from KDE (and other) developers... The GNOME response to Ubuntu's Mir is that they will now be rushing support for the GNOME desktop on Wayland. Over the next two release cycles they plan to iron out the Wayland support for the GNOME Shell, the GTK+ toolkit, and all GNOME packages so that by this time next year you can be running GNOME entirely on Wayland while still having X11 fall-back support."

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It's ironic... by wertigon · 2013-03-13 02:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

So, by creating MIR Ubuntu contributed to Wayland by giving the Gnome devs a big kick in the butt?
Well played, Canonical, well played! :)
And for the record, as long as both MIR and Wayland are more or less interoperable I don't care what's behind the hood. Both are open source and will be solid by the time they come out, so may the best implementation win. A little competition every now and then is just healthy.

--
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
1. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · 2013-03-13 02:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  For the record, as long as whatever display system we settle on provides network transparency for all applications, I don't care what's behind the hood.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
2. Re:It's ironic... by ranulf · 2013-03-13 02:32 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  So, you want X11 then? *sigh*
3. Re:It's ironic... by Chris+Mattern · 2013-03-13 02:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Why does network transparency have to be a function of the display system?
  Because if you have network transparency in the display system then all your applications get network transparency for free. They just talk to the display system like they always do and the display system throws them up anywhere you're connected to, as you like.
4. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-13 02:47 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  For the record, you're insisting that you bring forward obsolete mechanisms that 99.99% of end users will never use. Nobody outside a handful of sysadmins uses X network transparency, and only then I suspect to stroke their own egos.
  Cluestick:
  However inelegant or inefficient framebuffer-forwarding schemes like RDP and VNC may seem, their flexibility and ease of use (and not to mention cross-platform compatibility) makes them the defacto standards that they are.
5. Re:It's ironic... by ranulf · 2013-03-13 02:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's not a niche feature. Just because you don't need it, it doesn't mean that millions of others don't.
  Even on my home network I use X11 between machines every single day. It's the simplest solution to an awful lot of problems when you're using more than one machine and it generally works much better for interactive use than remote desktop or VNC on a local network.
6. Re:It's ironic... by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-13 02:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  True, though server side decorations are a must, too.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
7. Re:It's ironic... by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-13 02:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is one of the things that really gets my goat about Wayland. People effectively kleep telling me that I don't do things that I do on a regular basis.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
8. Re:It's ironic... by caseih · 2013-03-13 02:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nah that's so boring! What I want is my Linux desktop to act like MS Windows where I cannot move applications if the app is frozen, because the decorations are all client-side. And while we're at it let's emulate the feature of Windows where you can't move a parent window around when a modal dialog box is being displayed!
  Yeah, then we'll finally have the year of the Linux Desktop!
9. Re:It's ironic... by Entropius · 2013-03-13 03:04 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I know I and most people do in my field -- computational physics. I want to be able to type "graph the file XYZ" and have it work the same whether I'm on my local machine or ssh'd somewhere else.
10. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · 2013-03-13 03:05 · Score: 2
  
  For the record, you're insisting that you bring forward obsolete mechanisms that 99.99% of end users will never use. Nobody outside a handful of sysadmins uses X network transparency, and only then I suspect to stroke their own egos.
  You could say the same about Linux itself. Figure out why this statement is wrong when applied to Linux, and you'll understand why it's wrong when applied to network transparency.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
11. Re:It's ironic... by caseih · 2013-03-13 03:12 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Well, yes X11 does work very well for many of us. I agree with the GP's sentiment. Being able to remote individual applications (a rendering mode without 3d-acceleration) is definitely a must if you want to replace X11. There are many of us who use Linux professionally that use X11-over-ssh to run applications every single day. I don't care so much about the X protocol as I do being able to remote the apps. Remoting an entire desktop isn't that useful to me.
  I still can't remote individual apps on Windows without resorting to hacks with rdp, or buying into Citrix. That seems so strange in a networked world where people remote apps all the time in their browsers, in a manner of speaking.
12. Re:It's ironic... by DrXym · 2013-03-13 03:16 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  No. X11 is a bottle neck. It thinks in 2D, it's full of redundant baggage which nobody uses and all those processes introduce latency. Even X11 developers recognize that it's an impediment in a modern desktop which is why some prominent ones have endorsed work on Wayland.
13. Re:It's ironic... by malkavian · 2013-03-13 03:18 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Why do you think Citrix did so well, and the whole application virtualisation stack? RDP and VNC are ok for some things, but they simply lack the power, elegance and utility of network transparency.
14. Re:It's ironic... by DrXym · 2013-03-13 03:20 · Score: 2
  
  You could be doing those things over wayland. I can run X11 over Windows or OS X. I assume exactly the same will be possible over Wayland. Not to mention network transports for Wayland at some point - if a window is just as a surface, there is no reason the surface can't be coming from over the network from somewhere else.
15. Re:It's ironic... by squiggleslash · 2013-03-13 03:21 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Can't speak for the GP, but in my case, yes.
  Yes, by all means spam me now with all the arguments that claim that X11 is terrible because it's imperfect. I'm well aware it's imperfect.
  But the fact is it's not imperfect enough to warrant throwing it out and replacing it with something that lacks the more awesome things X11 does. Yes, I know the counter argument here too: "Nobody uses/needs/wants the awesome things!" says Baby Bathwater. But look at what you're proposing: a tiny, inconsequential, performance improvement and possibly cleaner API, in exchange for guaranteed incompatabilities and the removal of functionality.
  So, pretty please, knock it off with the Wayland/Mir shit, at least until you achieve feature parity.
  
  --
  You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
16. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · 2013-03-13 03:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Then get the Wayland developers to guarantee that Wayland apps will be network transparent. Then we will shut up and you won't have to listen to us anymore. Until then, expect us to bitch every time Wayland is mentioned.
  You have three options:
  -provide network transparency
  -give up and go home
  -put up with constant bitching
  Your choice.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
17. Re:It's ironic... by Kjella · 2013-03-13 03:29 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Because if you have network transparency in the display system then all your applications get network transparency for free. They just talk to the display system like they always do and the display system throws them up anywhere you're connected to, as you like.
  Except if you have very little bandwidth it is absolutely horrible and you'd do far better with a web interface and if you have lots of bandwidth you can use VNC. The pipe between your CPU/RAM and GPU is one of the fattest pipes in a computer able to push many GB/s and when you replace that with tin cans and a string you need to do something, it's like arguing that if I replace your graphics card so the game renders at 1 FPS that it's now supported for free. I'd never, ever design a system that'd depend on X11 for remote access, would you?
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
18. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-13 03:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And relying on a bloated 3d stack just to draw a damn window isn't a bottleneck?
  Face it, the only people that want to replace X which works JUST FINE are people who want to play with their goddamn wobbly windows. We get enough of that garbage with compositing, thanks.
19. Re:It's ironic... by avaric · 2013-03-13 03:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I've used both X forwarding over SSH and RemoteDesktop to an XRDP server to work remotely, quite often. I've found the differences interesting. . . In general, the RemoteDesktop connection is faster. Significantly. To the point that I use it routinely now that it's available to me. But I've noticed that when it comes to doing something like simple text scrolling, it's actually slower than the X fowarding I did prior (in an xterm or equivalent), probably because it's thinking of the window as an image instead of simply being able to send the text update. It's annoying when trying to scroll through huge text log files, so for me, X wins there. . .
20. Re:It's ironic... by csubi · 2013-03-13 03:35 · Score: 2
  
  Just because you use it doesn't mean it isn't a niche feature.
  Or it might be just the other way around :
  "Just because you don't use it, it doesn't mean it is a niche feature."
21. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-13 03:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This is what I hear when I listen to X11 zealots:
  I DEMAND THE RIGHT TO USE MY 1988 MOTIF APPLICATION OVER A 28K modem connection AND FUCK ALL OF YOU WHO WANT A MODERN DESKTOP WITH A CODE BASE THAT CAN BE MAINTAINED AND IMPROVED.
22. Re:It's ironic... by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-13 03:43 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You could be doing those things over wayland.
  No you can't. This is one of the #1 pieces of FUD about Wayland.
  I can run X11 over Windows or OS X. I assume exactly the same will be possible over Wayland.
  So, how do I get an OSX app up on my Linux box over here using X11?
  Hint: I can't.
  If Wayland replaces X on the Linux desktop, then functionality is lost.
  there is no reason the surface can't be coming from over the network from somewhere else.
  We have VNC already to show us how much that sucks.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
23. Re:It's ironic... by Junta · 2013-03-13 03:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  RDP, VNC, and Teamviewer all present whole desktops. This is infuriating. I want the application windows to be seamlessly navigable among my local applications.
  That's not to say X is perfect either. X is highly latency sensitive, particularly for things like Java GUI applications. If network flakes out, the X client dies rather than 'detaching' for someone to later reconnect. X has no concept of audio streams.
  I don't necessarily want X, but I want something that recognizes the core value of application level remote display (including things like the NETWM stuff to let 'tray' icons live in the right place.) and enhance it through better audio integration, detachable operation, and better network usage (e.g. Xlib primitives are rarely used anymore, having primitives more relevant to modern usage like RDP has would be a large improvement)
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
24. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-13 04:30 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The RDP "whole desktop" is entirely an artificial limitation. It actually works great on the application level, after you've shell out the bucks. So, yes, it is infuriating that MS crippled their own product.
25. Re:It's ironic... by arth1 · 2013-03-13 04:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Re-introduce lbx. It worked fine before, until the new generation of devs didn't want to support it because they didn't use it and (quoting from memory) "bandwidth will catch up and won't be a problem".
  But even then, X without lbx or nix (which is just compression, which is better done outside) is far preferable to streaming the video output, especially for those of us who work on high latency lines (like intercontinental connections).
  VNC is hardly usable outside a LAN segment.
  ssh -X remotemachine "nedit filename" is a heck of a lot easer than to set up and wait for a VNC connection, and watch your typing being severely delayed as the video streams.
26. Re:It's ironic... by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-13 04:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Thanks to modern hardware, "thinking in 2D" is a bottleneck.
  Actually, no it's not any more.
  Modern graphics hardware is just a large bunch of stream processors coupled to some hardware perspective correct texture sampling units.
  These days forcing everything in 3D is no particular advantage. Graphics card can whale on 2D problems just as efficiently as 3D ones. It's just a question of writing some different shader programs.
  But you already knew that...
  So I really don't get your point.
  You seem to be saying that there is something fundemantal about X which prevents one from doing everything on the graphics card. There isn't. And there's no need to mess with fiddly window overlap stuff either. The BackingStore flag has been present since 1988, since even then the designers realised that it was worth keeping windows on the graphics card on advanced machines to avoid the irritating fiddling with overlaps and stuff.
  Seriously, it's been there for 25 years. X11 is actually designed to benefit from these kinds of things.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
27. Re:It's ironic... by phantomfive · 2013-03-13 04:39 · Score: 2
  
  Exactly. There is nothing in X that requires a rewrite. Everything that you want in Wayland can be done in X with incremental improvements and refactoring.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
28. Re:It's ironic... by organgtool · 2013-03-13 04:51 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, by all means spam me now with all the arguments that claim that X11 is terrible because it's imperfect. I'm well aware it's imperfect.
  Easy to say when you're not one of the people whose job it is to implement modern features on an aging display architecture.
  
  But the fact is it's not imperfect enough to warrant throwing it out and replacing it with something that lacks the more awesome things X11 does
  Network transparency is one of X11's "more awesome things"? Then why is X11 network performance trounced by RDP for many modern applications? Yes, RDP may require rendering a full desktop rather than a single app, but at this point that is a small tradeoff for the performance benefits.
  
  So, pretty please, knock it off with the Wayland/Mir shit, at least until you achieve feature parity.
  Distros are going to continue supporting running X apps until there is feature parity and I'm sure you'll find distros that snub Wayland to support users such as yourself. Besides, Wayland could always tack on network transparency later. Yes, I do realize how bad that sounds, but it appears to have turned out alright for GDI/RDP.
29. Re:It's ironic... by dabadab · 2013-03-13 04:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  get the Wayland developers to guarantee that Wayland apps will be network transparent
  Well, I should quote the Wayland FAQ here:
  "Is Wayland network transparent / does it support remote rendering?
  No, that is outside the scope of Wayland."
  Really, everybody should read that and understand it, and also its consequences. Frankly, to me, the idea, that by switching to Wayland will somehow mean that you lose network transparency it just as absurd that by switching to X you lose OpenGL support (which is absolutely not a part of the X protocol - X11 came out in 1987, OpenGL in 1992). So while Wayland itself will not support network transparency, the full stack surely will.
  
  --
  Real life is overrated.
30. Re:It's ironic... by DrXym · 2013-03-13 05:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No you can't. This is one of the #1 pieces of FUD about Wayland.
  It's not FUD, X11 can run over the top of Windows and OS X. For people whining about needing to run remote apps they can use X11 just as they do now. Or VNC. Or NX. Or whatever transport Wayland provides.
  
  So, how do I get an OSX app up on my Linux box over here using X11?
  You fail to comprehend. Though I'm sure there are remote desktop apps for OS X that would serve your purpose, VNC for example. And for Windows.
  
  We have VNC already to show us how much that sucks.
  Then don't use it FFS, use X11. Over Wayland. It's not rocket science to understand.
31. Re:It's ironic... by Nexus7 · 2013-03-13 05:12 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Something that's always been bugging me... why is RDP so much better (no, not flamebait, RDP has been buttery smooth even over ATT 1.5 Mbps "broadband")? And been that way for years, better than the lightweight VNCs, remote Xs, and the latest X2gos.
  Is there a fundamental difference in how RDP does it vs X?
  BTW, I'm talking the RDP clients that come with Windows, not the $$ Citrix ones.
32. Re:It's ironic... by DrXym · 2013-03-13 05:14 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And relying on a bloated 3d stack just to draw a damn window isn't a bottleneck?
  No it isn't. Modern PCs with a modern GPU will put the windows contents into a texture. Drawing a window is just a matter of telling the GPU to draw a quad with a texture. Drawing them in 3d is just means passing a model-view-projection matrix into the shader at the same time which is something that would happen anyway. 3d is literally for free. And while 3d might be a gimmick, the matrix could be used to render thumbnails, or a gnome shell view of the desktop or whatever.
  The fact is that even with X11, modern PCs are using compositors and OpenGL to do the hard work. X11 just makes it jump through extra hoops to get there, and it impedes the desktop in other ways, e.g. click on the screen with the mouse and X11 wants to hit test the coords to send it to the right window but if the window is transformed it has no idea which window it hit. So desktops have to hack around that limitation.
33. Re:It's ironic... by Alioth · 2013-03-13 05:33 · Score: 2
  
  No, RDP has become the defacto standard under Windows simply because it's really the only way to do it.
  Given that I would imagine Linux desktops are disporportionately used by developers and sysadmins rather than end users (Linux isn't used so much as a desktop for normal users), there's quite a lot of people who do use X forwarding. It *is* easy and has been for a long time, a matter of three additional keypresses when you SSH to the machine you need to work on.
  Unlike things like RDP, with the windows being part of *your* desktop, the screen lock doesn't come on on the "remote" session and get in your way while you're working in other windows on another machine.
  I'll agree that remote X sucks over a laggy WAN, but it's extremely valuable over a LAN or fast WAN, and this is where sysadmins tend to spend most of their time. You can always fall back to VNC if you do have to work over a laggy link. I don't use X11 forwarding to "stroke my own ego" as you put it, but because it's actually more usable than VNC or RDP when you're having to do sysadmin tasks on multiple systems. Getting rid of network transparency altogether instead of coming up with something better than what X11 has is a backwards step.
  
  --
  Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
34. Re:It's ironic... by LordLimecat · 2013-03-13 05:48 · Score: 2
  
  You do know that RDP IS Citrix, right? And that TS can do application-level forwarding, if you really need that?
35. Re:It's ironic... by vbraga · 2013-03-13 06:02 · Score: 2
  
  Older X11 application (like those built on Motif) are like that. They send a stream of primitives, so they're easily used over a network. But modern applications (like those built on Qt and GTK) use X11 as a screen buffer and instead of using X11 primitives, they just send large bitmaps to the X11 server. So modern X11 applications sucks when used over a network but older ones actually works fine.
  
  --
  English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
36. Re:It's ironic... by Dog-Cow · 2013-03-13 06:08 · Score: 2
  
  Can't move a frozen application? Are you one of the poor losers stuck on XP?
37. Re:It's ironic... by ADRA · 2013-03-13 06:36 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yes, There are fundamental differences. RDP simply works with input events and draw regions. The draw regions use pretty much any compression routines under the sun and supports the windowed regions, so moving windows around inside the container is basically free network IO, whereas VNC requires redraws over all delta regions. I'm not sure if Window border rendering is client side of not, but obviously the inner contents need to be redrawn with graphics sent back.
  The real killer against X over networks is in latency, since most of X is performed with operations instead of rasters. Instead of sending possibly hundreds of commands, RDP can send a single raster to represent the same thing. The possible overhead in sending / acking / processing the operations quite often causes a large amount of time. This isn't helped by the fact that traditionally X developers didn't spend much time optimizing network performance, so you'll see a large number of libraries / apps that perform highly serial operations maximizing operation processing latency (since it needs a full round trip just to continue to the next instruction).
  On a side note, there's the NX protocol which is a much more highly optimized remoteing solution for X derived services, but its proprietary, so it makes it unlikely for use in wide adoption. NX works quite closely to that of RDP/Citrix so that's why performance should be comparable.
  
  --
  Bye!
38. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · 2013-03-13 06:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Frankly, to me, the idea, that by switching to Wayland will somehow mean that you lose network transparency it just as absurd that by switching to X you lose OpenGL support
  If you run an X program, you are guaranteed that network transparency is available. If you run an X program, you are not guaranteed that OpenGL is available. Saying that Wayland *can* support network transparency is insufficient. I should be able to *rely* on network transparency being available to arbitrary apps.
  If I find someday that a Wayland app that I need is not network transparent, what should I do? That's never even been a cromulent question with regards to X.
  So while Wayland itself will not support network transparency, the full stack surely will.
  I hope you're right. But I'm not about to shut up about it until the "full stack" exists, has all the features X11 had, and performs better.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
39. Re:It's ironic... by suy · 2013-03-13 06:45 · Score: 2
  
  I ran X11 over a 28.8k modem using SLIP/PPP, and it worked just fine. Stop using your fucking bloated window manager with 3800 gadgets running simultaneously and it would probably work fine over a "slow" network.
  Wrong. The problem are not the 3800 gadgets. After all, when you run a program through ssh+x11, is just the application. The problem is that normally the application, if is something meaningful, requires to interoperate with other tools, and normally such tools, frameworks or services don't comunicate properly through ssh+x11.
  I've tried to achive such allegedly cool network transparency on my local network several times, and has always been useless because real world applications use things like D-BUS.
40. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · 2013-03-13 06:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Then don't use it FFS, use X11. Over Wayland. It's not rocket science to understand.
  What do we do about native Wayland apps?
  If it's not rocket science, explain that to me. The whole point of Wayland is to deprecate X11. If Wayland is successful, it will supplant X11 and people will not write X11 apps anymore.
  So explain to me how running X11 over Wayland is a solution to the lack of network transparency in Wayland. If it's easy to understand, it must be easy to explain. So go ahead, explain it. Please! I really don't want to have to worry about this or bitch about this.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Go away by Extremus · 2013-03-13 02:27 · Score: 2

Haha! Funny country is that of yours. In mine, the gnomes come from gardens and other magical places.
Re:Go away by wertigon · 2013-03-13 02:27 · Score: 2

Nono... That's TROLLS!
Gnomes are small cute persons. They're even smaller than halflings.
Sheeesh, kids these days...

--
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Re:Lots of people demanding what nobody wants? by flyingfsck · 2013-03-13 04:21 · Score: 2

No, those VNC type of things do NOT fill the same use case. Serious developers and network admins are frequently logged into and running apps on multiple remote machines at the same time. Try that with VNC and see what a fine mess you get yourself into. People who use VNC are clueless to the fact that you DON'T need to remote the whole bladdy desktop because your local machine already HAS one. Remoting single apps from multiple machines is an extremely useful and powerful feature of X.

--
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Wayland still alive? by olahaye74 · 2013-03-13 04:32 · Score: 5, Informative

It looks to me that Wayland developers only have one desktop at home and were Windows users that want gaming on their linux box.
- What about asynchronous rendering? fast text scrolling in a windows like "find /" or "make -j32" thru a modem connection works in X11, I'd be surprised to see the same on Wayland.
- What about single GUI App running remotely: ssh to a cluster with no network card and need to start paraview or gnuplot? Should I run a full desktop with useless fancy gadgets just to see a gnuplot window?
- What about client application that freeze: Can't move the window because the decoration is done by the client?
- Wy can't I move parent windows when a modal window is open like a file selection dialog box. How do I move the parent app to see my shell window behind. Should I do the same as in windows: close the file selection dialog box move the windows and reopen the file selection dialog box?
- What about lost event because the client is buzy? I click on the button, but the event is lost because the client is buzy.....
Wayland is just a LOL in professional environment.
Thanksfully, I'm running KDE...The original desktop that Gnome tries to imitate since it's creation...I'm curious how it's manage the Wayland migration....
No, I just want network transparency by dbc · 2013-03-13 04:37 · Score: 2

I don't care if it is X11. But display across the network is critical to my needs. Everyone that is trying to replace X, for whatever motiviation, needs to stop being in denial about this issue. Display across the network that is complete transparent to the application and works for all applications is critical for some computing environments.
Re:Flicker-free rendering is not *possible* with X by arth1 · 2013-03-13 04:47 · Score: 4, Informative

So: Please tell us what "awesome" things X11 does which cannot be done with Wayland or go fuck yourself.
Open a remote editor on a machine the other side of the world? Have it integrated with my wm?
Copy and paste between windows on different machines without the app having to provide the copy/paste functionality?
Being able to set my preferences once, and not having to reconfigure 40 different desktops to my liking?
Get the correct DPI and fonts for the display I'm on, not the one of the remote machine?
Being able to run VMs that look and function the same as when run natively?
Re:Flicker-free rendering is not *possible* with X by serviscope_minor · 2013-03-13 05:14 · Score: 2

Get the correct DPI and fonts for the display I'm on, not the one of the remote machine?
In fairness to Wayland, that doesn't work well because the nitwits at GNOME didn't understand WHY the preferences sit on the server, not the filesystem and reimplemented it badly.
As usual.

--
SJW n. One who posts facts.
bigger picture by conorpeterson · 2013-03-13 05:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

Here we have an identity crisis within the linux community, and I find it distressing how few people see the underlying opportunity. The decision between X and wayland/mir depends on what you think linux is. Is it an industrial-strength swiss army OS used by the technically inclined, or is it the platform upon which the tablet renaissance is being built? Of course it's both, so quit with the civil war and pay attention to what's happening in computing.
If general purpose computing is going to survive Apple, Microsoft and Google, we need a rich, high-performance compositor that can run on embedded devices AND a next generation framework for network transparency in applications, preferably in separate packages. Since I'm being dragged into cloud computing, I want to become my own cloud: I want to blur the line between my laptop, server, desktop, and tablet, but I want to do it in an open-source, platform agnostic way. I want to leave my CAD software running on my desktop and connect to it from my tablet to get dimensions for some part. I want automatic syncing ala dropbox for my LAN. I want to stream audio and video to my stereo without using airplay. I want generic compute jobs to be distributed to idle computers on my personal network. I want to lease an EC2 instance just for the week that I have to do some high-quality rendering and have my desktop parcel the job up and send it out to be executed with a minimum of manual plumbing.
In other words, I want network abstraction for input and display, a toolkit to aid with responsive UI design, local openGL compositing, a framework for exporting big, blind compute jobs, and some network utilities to help me get my services configured correctly, and I want them to be designed to work well together. Some of this is Hard but all of these technologies already exist in some form, they just haven't been integrated into a single open-source platform. Usable by consumers. Yet.
The open source community has the opportunity to stake a claim while the world of computing has been turned on its head. Fretting about X11-style network transparency at this point is like sweating over the future of IRC. (Hint: all my chatroom correspondence is now owned by some shitty company overvalued at $27 a share). When all new software is designed to run on top of webkit, will your remote GIMP even matter?
Re:Flicker-free rendering is not *possible* with X by amorsen · 2013-03-13 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Get the correct DPI and fonts for the display I'm on, not the one of the remote machine?
Forget it. Anything vaguely modern renders client-side and gets it wrong.
X applications die with the network connection -- they cannot survive when the machine running the X server changes IP or hibernates. They are tied to one X server, so you cannot move them from your laptop to your tablet.
It has been at least 10 years since I used X forwarding for anything except the rare GUI installer or similar short-running application. VNC is much more useful.

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Wayland Remote Rendering by JumboMessiah · 2013-03-13 05:43 · Score: 4, Informative

For everyone bitching about Wayland vs X11 and network transparency, you need to watch this talk by Kristian Høgsberg. Keith and the rest of the devs have always said that remoting would eventually come down the pipeline.
And for everyone else talking about efficiency of sending pixmaps via the network, you should learn how your current stack actually works. It will be much better with Wayland.
I've used X11 since 1995, I'm very fond of it. But I also realize it needs to go...
1. Re:Wayland Remote Rendering by JumboMessiah · 2013-03-13 05:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  For those too lazy, fast forward to the 1:10 mark and watch. You'll realize that the remoting prototype for Walyand is pretty damn sweet.
2. Re:Wayland Remote Rendering by CajunArson · 2013-03-13 06:16 · Score: 2
  
  I wish every single Wayland hater would be forced to watch that video and then think logically before making ignorant posts...
  
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