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GNOME Aiming For Full Wayland Support by Spring 2014

Posted by Unknown on 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."

21 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. It's ironic... by wertigon · · 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.

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    1. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · · 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.

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    2. Re:It's ironic... by Chris+Mattern · · 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.

    3. Re:It's ironic... by ranulf · · 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.

    4. Re:It's ironic... by caseih · · 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!

    5. Re:It's ironic... by Entropius · · 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.

    6. Re:It's ironic... by caseih · · 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.

    7. Re:It's ironic... by squiggleslash · · 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.

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    8. Re:It's ironic... by Kjella · · 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?

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    9. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    10. Re:It's ironic... by avaric · · 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. . .

    11. Re:It's ironic... by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    12. Re:It's ironic... by Junta · · 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)

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    13. Re:It's ironic... by serviscope_minor · · 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.

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    14. Re:It's ironic... by dabadab · · 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.

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    15. Re:It's ironic... by Nexus7 · · 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.

    16. Re:It's ironic... by Hatta · · 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.

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  2. Wayland still alive? by olahaye74 · · 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....

  3. Re:Flicker-free rendering is not *possible* with X by arth1 · · 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?

  4. Re:Flicker-free rendering is not *possible* with X by amorsen · · 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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  5. Wayland Remote Rendering by JumboMessiah · · 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...