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Hawaii Desktop Stable Released, Powered By Qt 5.2 & Wayland
An anonymous reader writes "The Maui OS Project has made their first stable release of the Hawaii Desktop. Hawaii is still catching up with GNOME, Xfce, and KDE in terms of features, but it's written from scratch atop next-generation open-source technologies. In particular, Hawaii 0.2.0 is powered by the brand new Qt 5.2 tool-kit and runs natively on Wayland's Weston 1.3 compositor. Hawaii 0.2.0 carries all standard Linux desktop features but more advanced desktop functionality is planned while focusing around a Wayland design and eventually their own Green Island Compositor."
I may be in the minority among the /. crowd, but I cannot help feeling that Linux, in general really missed the boat in 2013.
2013 was not to be the year of the linux desktop. Neither will 2014. It could have been "the year of the Linux tablet" though. From my way of thinking, linux is perfect for a tablet. It runs perfectly fine on slower hardware AND you still get to actual computer stuff!
The entire reason I do not own a tablet (aside from a 64gb HP Touchpad given to me) is that I like to do actual work. Tablets are, with the exception of the, to expensive Surface Pro 2, are media consumption devices. Very good at it mind you, but consumption products nonetheless.
If I knew that I could buy a Nexus blah blah or a Samsung tab umpteen and install an actual Linux OS, which was designed with a proper touch interface, I would be all over it.
Just think, being able to run a full office suite and run programs in a, I know it's crazy, window!
I know there are loads of apple and android fanbois out there who will scream how wrong I am, but I am not wrong. Mobile OSs like Android and iOS are complete crap for anything other than watching media and playing nonsense games.
And that being the case, I really think that Linux missed a once in a lifetime opportunity by not providing a touch friendly, lightweight OS which works on ARM platforms.
And please dont say ubuntu touch. And if you insist on saying how wrong I am, try saying why I am wrong since I am just not seeing it.
You sed: RDP is not the same as network transparency. It is the opposite of the network transparency.
In that case, any even remotely modern version of X isn't network transparent either since X is basically operating as a poorly implemented version of RDP using any GUI toolkit like GTK or Qt. P.S. --> The lead developers of X.org agree with me that the modern version of X that real people use in the real world is not network transparent, so unless you are even a more experienced X developer, I'm going to agree with them and not you.
You sed: With X you can run side by side on the same physical screen applications from the different servers.
2008 called and it wants its complaint about RDP back (this functionality was introduced a LONG time ago). RDP can be implemented using Wayland too you know, it's not a strictly a Windows thing.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
The lead developers of X.org agree with me that the modern version of X that real people use in the real world is not network transparent
So you apparently have no idea what they are talking about, but somehow Keith Packard agrees with you? LOL
They talk about server-side vs. client-side rendering. And it is true that it doesn't make much sense and RDP in a way is an improvement. But that argument rests on the generalization that there are no other X using applications beside GTK/GNOME and Qt/KDE. There are still plenty of Motiff/Lesstiff/Athena/Xaw/Tk applications around.
Anyway, if we are to generalize, then why not generalize it to the logical end: everything is a web app. Even now, what most consumers see on their screens is a rendered HTML. And PCs are dead - long live tablets.
2008 called and it wants its complaint about RDP back (this functionality was introduced a LONG time ago). RDP can be implemented using Wayland too you know, it's not a strictly a Windows thing.
So. You have no idea what "network transparency" really means.
Or you would have mentioned the seamless RDP - and all PITAs associated with it. That thing (with the "official" XenApps) is a such miserable experience that nobody willingly is using it.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
No... you don't.
Thanks for enlightening me! I wonder then what I use everyday in the office then!
[...] since modern local rendering technique such as DRI and compositing is completely [...]
... and utterly useless. Except for the games and video. But that sector of software moving to tablets/etc.
if X were so beautifully perfect at network transparency then using it over a WAN connection wouldn't be one of the leading causes of suicide in network administrators
Nobody said it is perfect!!! I would be the last to say it. I'm doing it every frigging day in office!!!
But it is on *average* is *magnitudes* better than the alternatives. I've dealt with: VNC, RDP, Xen, NX, Xvnc and LTSP. General observation: presence of the X in the stack generally increases desirability of the remote access solution. Raw X over SSH is simply unbeatable in reliability and usability. Even if one has to wait occasionally a second or two for the process to finish rendering the shit. (The biggest downside of X over SSH is BTW the network connectivity: loss of connection means termination of the applications.)
[...] in a kludgy manner [...]
That's summarizes your argument in its entirety.
Where "Me" includes the X.org developers including Keith Packard BTW.
Since I'm not X developer, I'm not going to tell you how to do your stuff. All I can do is to express the frustration of the users who use the tech daily and then some developer explaining them what is their problem really. Sadly I have to conclude that you have no idea what problems the *users* have - only the problems the *developers* have. Which are two distinctly different things.
All in all, Wayland breaks something that is working. And it is doing it for the purpose of supporting scenarios for which the target systems are not going to be even used in near future. *rolling eyes*
All hope abandon ye who enter here.