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Mir Won't Ship Even In Ubuntu 14.04

Posted by Unknown on from the long-live-x11 dept.

jones_supa writes "As can be recalled, Mir didn't make it to the Ubuntu 13.10 release to replace X.org as the display server. Back then it suffered of problems in multi-monitor support, along with other issues. Now it turns out that Canonical's product will not make it even into the next LTS version (14.04) of the Ubuntu desktop. Mir itself would be ready for showtime in the schedule, but there are problems with XMir, which is the X11 compatibility layer that ensures Mir can work with applications built for X. The comments came at the Ubuntu Developer Summit: in an online event Mark Shuttleworth stressed that the 14.04 desktop has to be rock-solid for customers with large-scale deployments, such as educational institutions. In the meantime, you can already try out Mir in your Ubuntu system."

7 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think Mir might eventually replace X. It's already been replacing Hurd for quite some time.

    1. Re:Interesting by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I honestly don't care what they use.

      The fact is, if I can program against the X libraries, and load up that have been programmed against the X libraries, and distribute programs that have been programmed against the X libraries, it needs to all "just work". And it needs to work as good as, or better than, X itself.

      When you have that, it pretty much doesn't matter what faddy crap is underneath.

      It's like if they replace ext2 with ext3, or ext3 with ext4. I don't care so long as I have tools to read the data, it works as a filesystem, and it has no downsides compared to the previous version. What my filesystem actually *is* is irrelevant so long as it works. What my display manager actually is is irrelevant so long as it works. And in the case of an X-compatible display manager, it has to work like X in all cases without me needing to make changes to my software.

    2. Re:Interesting by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So it's really baffling to me why Cannonical is reinventing the wheel here

      I think the main reason is by owning the display tech they can shut their competition out of the mobile / tablet space. Mir is dual licenced - proprietary or GPLv3. They can do what they like under their proprietary licence while hamstringing their competition with the onerous requirements of the GPLv3 (e.g. not being able to link proprietary drivers, limits on DRM). It's probably why Intel walked away from the project.

      The Ubuntu wiki is tries to provide technical reasons but it's all pretty vague - it alludes to issues like lack of support for 3d input devices and a few other problems with the protocol but these don't sound very convincing arguments to write everything from scratch.

  2. Re:Makes sense by rotaryexpress · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Supported for 5 years, not 3. But your point is valid. Mir can be rolled out in 14.10 (the next non-LTS release) and have a year and half of testing before the next LTS.

  3. No kidding? by m2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have the hubris to say that you are going to fix everything that is wrong with X11 / X.org AND also provide a compatibility layer on top of your new shiny solution to support running the programs that still use the thing you are claiming to fix ... and now you are surprised because getting said compatibility layer right turned out to be thornier than you had expected?

    Several years ago I wrote a transport mechanism on top of VNC that allowed you to access high end graphics services (read OpenGL) from devices without any hardware acceleration to speak of (back then it was an ipaq). I did the initial implementation in one evening, which worked for 80% of the use cases. Together with another developer, it took us probably a month to get it to 90%. A third party worked for half a year to get it to 95%. Several years later it was up to 98%... maybe.

    Whenever you try to pull this kind of stunt off, you are going to run into the same situation. Most of the stuff that you are interested in is easy. Then there's the stuff that makes "creative" uses of existing APIs. And then there's the stuff that works because of, not despite of, existing implementation bugs. And then you run into the really weird...

  4. Lost a good opportunity for a haiku, mate by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ubuntu reigns king
    Forces Unity on users
    Its own crown of thorns

  5. problems with multi-monitor support? by Laxori666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why are people still struggling with this? I mean, why is it so technically challenging? It's a simple concept and it's been around for years...