LibreOffice Ported To Run On Wayland

An anonymous reader writes: LibreOffice has lost its X11 dependency on Linux and can now run smoothly under Wayland. LibreOffice has been ported to Wayland by adding GTK3 tool-kit support to the office suite over the past few months. LibreOffice on Wayland is now in good enough shape that the tracker bug has been closed and it should work as well as X11 except for a few remaining bugs. LibreOffice 5.0 will be released next month with this support and other changes outlined by the 5.0 release notes.

Comments

What's the point?

[amalcolm]

What does Wayland solve for me, a standard Ubuntu user? What I have wordks ok, why does it need to change?

Re:What's the point?

[KiloByte]

Downsides: 1. you lose remote access (save for second-class stuff like VNC), 2. you need to port most software or use X emulation. Upsides: ... [crickets] ...

Re:What's the point?

[itamihn]

I'm very much looking forward to Wayland, which allegedly is the main requirement for nVidia implementing proper (dynamic) optimus support.

Re:What's the point?

[lyovushka]

As things stand, Ubuntu won't switch to Wayland but instead to their in house display server Mir. So for a standard Ubuntu user Wayland definitely won't solve anything.

Re:What's the point?

[amalcolm]

Yes, of course - I didn't rush out and buy a Tesla - even if I could afford one, I would ask precicely those questions. Isn't that how one makes purchasing decisions? My question was not meant as a criticism - I really wold like to know, what are the advantges of Wayland. I've read a few articles, but I'm still not clear

Re:What's the point?

[amalcolm]

Wow - Wayland prevents typos? Wow!!

Re:What's the point?

[kenaaker]

This statement is fundamentally crap. Every day I run multiple kde 4 applications on multiple systems back to a single desktop with ssh. The applications are not degraded and I don't have to disable any X11 features to do it. Occasionally I even use OpenGL applications remotely and they perform just fine.

Re:What's the point?

[Viol8]

"While X is remote capable try running modern applications taking advantage of full modern X11 features, you'll find they dont work without workarounds like VNC or degrading their capabilities"

So what? I don't think anyone would expect perfect alpha blending on shading at 60fps over a network link. But something is better than nothing. Currently wayland is only offering the latter.

I'm sorry but you can't just come up with a new display driver and say arrogant BS like "oh, that network transparency stuff, no one uses it anymore, who cares" just because its either too difficult for them to implement or they're just not interested in doing it. Well some of us DO use it and we DO care.

Re:What's the point?

[ArchieBunker]

The majority of Linux users don't use or need the remote features of X. They want a responsive and consistent GUI. Dump all that legacy shit meant for the days of thicknet runs and AUI transceivers. We don't have framebuffers and fixed frequency monitors anymore either.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

But something is better than nothing. Currently wayland is only offering the latter.

Your comment is two years out of date, Wayland has offered remote protocol since 2013 in the main branch, further its expected to be better supported than X11 (ie perfect alpha blending on shading at 60fps over a network link) all while using less resources than X11 and without degrading features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:What's the point?

[firewrought]

Downsides: 1. you lose remote access (save for second-class stuff like VNC), 2. you need to port most software or use X emulation. Upsides: ... [crickets] ...

Performance, battery life, innovation.

(And if you haven't noticed, X remote access is already second-class to thinks like RDP and SPICE.)

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then go back to XFree86 and TWM already you fucking dinosaur.

Re:What's the point?

[jedidiah]

This sort of thing has been supported quite possibly since before you were born.

That's the thing about something that's "old and icky" and not "new shiny shiny".

Re:What's the point?

[PPH]

Upsides:

You don't have to listen to gamerz whine anymore when an occasional CPU cycle is used for something other than rendering cartoon hookers in GTA.

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

The majority of Linux users don't use or need the remote features of X

Since most people don't use it, then just screw the people who do? Is that what you're saying? Hey, might as well burn the compiler too, and who really needs Samba? Get rid of all that nasty IPv6 code too, it's bloated and almost no one uses it.

Saying "most people don't use it, so we can get rid of it" is moronic. You are the problem with the world.

Re:What's the point?

[ArchieBunker]

How did you feel when Windows 7 x64 no longer ran 16 bit applications? Make the remote features into a module. Right now its slow and hobbled together with decades of legacy code.

Re:What's the point?

[kenaaker]

Running the Cura slicer program on a Thinkpad t400 running OpenSuSE 13.2 ssh remote connection to another OpenSuse 13.2 desktop system with an Nvidia GTX 660. I loaded the nividia glx libraries on the Thinkpad to allow the application to use Nvidia's glx application interface.

Re:What's the point?

[muep]

Most Wayland-compatible applications would likely not render things by directly communicating with the Wayland protocol. Instead, they will likely use a higher-level UI toolkit. Toolkits like GTK+ and Qt are able to switch between Wayland and X11 based on which server they detect to be available. If you need to run a Wayland-compatible application from a server to which you are logged in via ssh, you would likely be able to do so as long as X11 compatibility is retained. As long as there is no convenient way to use Wayland over network, it might well make sense to keep using X11 in that role even if otherwise the default in some distros ended up being Wayland.

On the downside, the user might encounter some uncommon bugs due to using a non-default backed. But in my experience, the situation already is that there are bugs that mostly exist in cases where X11 is used over network. Differences in performance and feature availability between X11 over network and local X11 server is quite large, so already continued availability of remotely usable GUI applications depends on people testing for and fixing issues that are specific to the over-network use case.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wayland is written by some of the X.org guys. of course they love it!

I think they should give control of X.org to non linux developers at this point. Since the future of the GNU/Linux system is systemd + wayland, let them have it. I'm tired of arguing about how it's not compatible with other operating systems. Let them have it.

Just don't pretend Linux is a unix clone anymore.

Re:What's the point?

[laffer1]

Minus apple? Apple has a remote desktop product. It's even VNC compatible!

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

Just don't pretend Linux is a unix clone anymore.

So you need X windows to be a Unix workstation? OSX would like a word with you

Re:What's the point?

[Junta]

Spice is pretty crappy (after really wanting to like it for a while). I hear rumor that RDP can be decent, but thus far I've not seen examples of it doing remote application access in a seamless way.

My personal example of how seamless remote applications can work well is Xpra. Despite it's current marriage to X, the strategy used does not use the 'remote' capabilities of X and the concept translates directly to something like Wayland. It intercepts things at the compositor layer rather than remote X calls.

Re:What's the point?

[Junta]

I suggest looking at xpra. X and even NX I didn't have a lot of fun with, but Xpra has treated me well. The kicker is that the Xpra strategy concept translates to an architecture like Wayland (it captures applications via compositor interface and contextual data through window manager calls).

I have to side with those that say X's inherent network protocols are less interesting. The unfortunate fact is that everyone then cites things like SPICE and typical RDP configurations and VNC, rather than something that achieves the same seamless behavior that the fans of X want.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

On the other hand, being second-class is far preferable to being THIRD-CLASS like crap they have in MacOS. THAT is what you get when you casually dismiss the idea of the whole "remote X" thing. You end up with something that's total garbage and is unusable even on a Gigabit LAN.

WTF are you talking about???

1. Apple has a very nice VNC client built in
2. Apple has supported X windows longer than just about anybody else. I use their X server all the time and it works well.
3. Microsoft ships a very good quality remote desktop client for OSX, it works much better than any Linux remote desktop software.
4. Wayland has remote display technology that works much better than X
5. I use this stuff regularly over a crappy wifi connection and it all works great.

Re:What's the point?

[Junta]

1. I suggest looking at Xpra. It's married to X, but is far better than X or NX at seamless remote applications. It's also an example of exactly the sort of remote experience that *could* be done within a Wayland context. The problem obviously being I had to point out something married to X as an example, rather than knowing off hand something that pulls off the same in Wayland, but the concepts are pretty sound.

Re:What's the point?

[prefec2]

correct they broke X by adding features which did not conform to the basic principle of X. They should have started earlier. Anyway, Wayland provides a basic API and on top a new better remote system can be implemented. VNC is not a solution like X. HTML5 is more like that even though nobody is running a browser as desktop engine.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

This sort of thing has been supported quite possibly since before you were born.

"Supported"??? Hah, we tried running SGI OpenGL apps over the network, we got kernel panics. No support, no nuthin. It never worked, we used other technology.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

correct they broke X by adding features which did not conform to the basic principle of X.

You are aware that the basic principles of X are that you have a monochrome screen or a 8-bit color screen with a lookup table, no acceleration, no sound, and the only allowed input device is a three button mouse?

If you are not doing all of those things then you are not conforming to the basic principles of X. 24 bit color? That doesn't conform to the basic principles of X. Sound? Ditto. Outline fonts? Totally in violation of the X principles. A screen saver that has actual security? Nope, that's not within the basic principles of X.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

In fact, not wanting to give up on "proper hardware acceleration" is the number one reason I despise Wayland.

Lies, lies, lies, yeah:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=mtgxmde

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

X code is basically unmaintainable. There is a ton of code on X that nobody uses but needs to be maintained on every little change you may add. This slows development to almost at stall.

This the big reason to drop X windows.

If you have unmaintainable code, it's probably loaded with security problems, too.

Every time anyone touches the X code looking for security problems, it's like opening a cockroach nest.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

-if a little slowly- for me ten years ago on commodity hardware running RHEL.

3-D applications have performance requirements, so in other words, it didn't work for you either.

Re:What's the point?

[thisisauniqueid]

You had me at "Ubuntu". Cough, Mir.

Re:What's the point?

[prefec2]

Beside your tone, you also missed the point. X11 is a graphical terminal technology where an application sends UI draw information to a server which renders it into graphic memory which is finally displayed on a screen. All input is collected and transmitted to the application. The server understands a simple protocol based on graphical primitives including fonts. In later years the font feature got extended, but the principle was not violated by that extension. The problem started when people wanted to use 3D and watch videos. Also audio was outside of the scope of X11 and of course printing. The addition of video required direct hardware access to be fast enough (especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s). Therefore, stuff like DRI where realized, which broke with the X11 principle that an application sends drawing information to the server which then does all the graphic stuff.

I hope that clears things up.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

you will be able to do the same from your wayland desktop, just like you can do it from your OSX desktop or your Windows desktop. Just install an X server app and away you go.

Re:What's the point?

[tlhIngan]

HELL, while you idiots were sleeping the entire rest of the world (minus Apple) warmed up to the idea of remote desktop technology. If you are bound and determined to gut that, then you are giving Linux a competitive disadvantage and setting it back 20 years.

Sure, remote desktop rocks. But they also are superior to X. For example, if your network connection burps, you don't lose your f'in work. Because the app runs locally and is displayed remotely and is completely independent on the network.

Sure remote X is great, I use it all the time. But I'm also aware that if I start a long-running process, I need to use screen to keep it alive, because now I'm depending on three things - the Linux machine hosting the app, the network, and my desktop PC showing me the app. That's a recipe for fragility in the whole thing.

Perhaps you don't use remote X for things that take hours to run, or don't mind losing all your work because you forgot to save and now the network connection reset. That's fine and great. But some people do, and really, X is pretty deficient compared to the rest of the remote desktop protocols out there. Even VNC.

Remote X is great, but it's time to modernize it and put features that every other remote desktop system has.

Re:What's the point?

[Martin Blank]

RDP can do seamless remote applications, but you have to have a Terminal Server to use it. It's not available, AFAICT, from the basic version.

Re:What's the point?

[Endymion]

You are aware that X has an extension system, right? Or are you just leaving that part out in an attempt to pretend that the backwards compatible development style of X for some reason requires that no new features have been added? Also, your nonsense about ancient versions of X providing features similar to the limitations of ancient hardware have nothing whatsoever to do with the basic principles of the X Window System.

Supporting new features does not require removing old features - they are simply moved into "extensions". In no way does this limit the performance of those features. The idea that we need to remove the older non-extended protocol to support newer features is not only wrong, it's terrible engineering.

So which are you - a n00b that needs to learn how X (and good engineering practices) actually works? Maybe you're just a sociopathic troll? Or is this profit based and you're trying to push someone's agenda? (perhaps RedHat?)

Re:What's the point?

[Endymion]

Did you miss the GTK+ 3.0 drama?

The GNOME idiots have been making it a point to break compatibility and remove "old" (aka "working", "currently used") features. You are delusional if you think they will continue supporting X once they declare the Wayland version to be "standard".

Of course, they'll probably use their typical victim-blaming approach where claim that keeping the old version around is "too much work" that should be done by someone else.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

X (and good engineering practices)

Every time X windows gets a code audit, the auditors run away screaming at the poor quality of the code.

https://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5499_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312291830_-_x_security_-_ilja_van_sprundel.html#video

X Server Security Disaster: "It's Worse Than It Looks"

they are simply moved into "extensions"

Where the code is neglected and allowed to accumulate security problems, because "nobody uses it" and "nobody tests it" even though it is still in the product.

This by the way is TERRIBLE engineering practice.

X windows is a total disaster, security-wise.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

We didn't spend the last 20 years building LINUX for your kind. Kindly fuck off and buy a Micro$haft "xbox" if you want to "game".

Linus Torvalds:

"I love the Steam announcements – I think that's an opportunity to really help the desktop," he said, speaking at LinuxCon in Edinburgh.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

It removed pesky features (such as remote display). Features like that ruin the simple appearance of pre-internet technology that is all the rage today.

-- ok, I have heard that one of the Wayland developers did some sort of remote display testing but as far as I can tell you have to pull his personal git fork, build it yourself and you get no documentation if you want to try to use it.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

The problem started when people wanted to use 3D and watch videos. Also audio was outside of the scope of X11 and of course printing. The addition of video required direct hardware access to be fast enough (especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s). Therefore, stuff like DRI where realized, which broke with the X11 principle that an application sends drawing information to the server which then does all the graphic stuff.

I hope that clears things up.

So in other words, X11 is not designed for the modern desktop and it's only there at all thanks to some terrible hacks.

Re:What's the point?

[Kjella]

If you're a standard Ubuntu user you probably won't notice much, because it's the developers getting gray hairs from X. They work around all the shitty problems so it works for you, just like users felt IE6 worked fine.

The main issue is how rendering is done on modern applications/desktops:
1. The client draws everything into a bitmap using its own tools
2. The client passes it via X to the compositor, which puts it together
3. The compositor passes it via X to the hardware, which draws it

So X does not do a whole lot anymore, and what it does it does poorly. Lots of blocking calls, poor versioning (per client, not per bind), poor synchronization (tearing), hardware overlays don't mix well with regular compositing, support for multiple monitors and input devices with hotplugging, global hotkeys/media keys, conflicts like modal window and screensaver both wanting to be on top and so on.

So what is it X did, that Wayland doesn't do anymore:
1. Help you draw the application (use Qt/Gtk/vwWidgets/OpenGL instead)
2. Draw the application somewhere else, assuming it wasn't just passed as a complete bitmap. In that case remote X and Wayland over RDP will perform similarly.

And though it's not directly part of the protocol, you're likely to see a revisit of client vs server-side decorations since Weston - the reference implementation - only support CSD. Basically, who draws the borders, title and buttons of the window. Mobile applications make this more interesting since you often don't want to dedicate the screen space, but you still want to be able to move/minimize/close/kill frozen applications through hot corners and such. But primarily it's a technology migration.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"If you need anything X of the above, or want to keep using xfwm, wayland already has a X-window server, so you can keep using it."

Which will mean squat if applications eventually stop supporting X.

"X network layer is super inefficient sending frames"....
so. It's always better than nothing and actually not bad over a LAN. As a developer you may be able to pick apart a million things it is doing wrong but as a user all I see is something that works verses something that doesn't even offer the same functionality.

"VNC is much better for anything else."

VNC, at least in any implementation that is available for a user to download is a solution to an entirely different problem. If you want to occasionally access an entire desktop remotely inside a window from another computer then sure, VNC is great. I just wish someone would implement sound support and built-in encryption so I wouldn't have to bother with SSH tunnels.

Where is VNC's solution for bringing displaying a single application remotely so that it seems to be running locally? Where is VNC's solution to creating a permanent remote terminal complete with login window?

VNC vs X is apples vs oranges.

Re:What's the point?

[muep]

Did you miss the GTK+ 3.0 drama?

The GNOME idiots have been making it a point to break compatibility and remove "old" (aka "working", "currently used") features. You are delusional if you think they will continue supporting X once they declare the Wayland version to be "standard".

Of course, they'll probably use their typical victim-blaming approach where claim that keeping the old version around is "too much work" that should be done by someone else.

I have heard of some compatibility issues between GTK+ versions. But my impression is that one area that GTK+ 3.x improved much was the multi-backend stuff. For example, the X11 backend is no longer mutually exclusive with other backends. And there nowadays seems to be a proper OSX backend which, in my opinion, gives a much nicer user experience than what you'd get with GTK+ 2 on X11 on OS X.

Of course it is possible that the X11 backend eventually gets abandoned when it is not deemed important enough to continue spending resources on its maintenance. But currently it is there and it even is likely the backend that gets the most attention, given how it is the default in most distros. I would not expect the X11 backend to suddenly disappear even after Wayland has possibly become the default display server in some GNU/Linuxes.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

VNC vs X is apples vs oranges.

Exactly, X windows runs at a very low level in your computer so any security issues result in easy root access for the attacker. Yes indeed you have a program that has direct memory access to your computer's hardware, it runs as root, it has an open listening socket, and it's chock full of security bugs. There is no comparison at all, X is a screaming disaster waiting to happen.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

As an actual user, not just a developer talking about protocols try actually setting that up and using it. Supposedly that code is in the main branch but there is ZERO documentation about how to make it work. From what I have heard one of the developers wrote it in order to try to shut up all the people who were rightly complaining that a major feature from X was being taken away. Once he had a single demo it then went by the wayside. Does that code even work any more? Who knows, how would one even find out?

As far as I can tell remote Wayland was developed only far enough to be a publicity stunt and doesn't really exist in a usable state.

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

Every time X windows gets a code audit, the auditors run away screaming at the poor quality of the code.

Which is not a reason to create a new windowing system. It's a reason to clean up the code (or in the worst case, rewrite it, which would keep the interfaces the same).

The times when you have to break compatibility for the sake of security are very rare.

Re:What's the point?

[Endymion]

I'm even fine with changes that break existing software if it is required to fix a security issue. Unfortunately, we have people confusing design with implementation, and even more that follow the Not Invented Here principle. Anybody in that camp may want to read "Things You Should Never Do" by Joel Spolsky.

When programmers see an old, messy project they tend to want to rewrite it. They see that mess and believe they know how it could "obviously" be simplified. Usually, this is incorrect, as the simplified abstraction they are picturing doesn't actually implement the same feature. That "mess" was actually the accumulation of important details that were learned over time: subtle details that were not covered by the original design, evolving requirements, and expensive bug fixes. The "rewrite" has none of that, and those details will eventually be added back, eventually making the rewrite just as messy as the original version at the cost of many man-years of effort. Throwing out the "mess" is throwing out a project's most valuable asset: real-world experience.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

(or in the worst case, rewrite it, which would keep the interfaces the same).

Yeah, they are re-writing X windows, and keeping the interfaces the same. Under Wayland, X windows is just another application program. It will run with no noticeable difference for anyone who cares.

For those who don't want this security nightmare on their systems, they don't have to install X windows.

Re:What's the point?

[SeaFox]

What does Wayland solve for me, a standard Ubuntu user? What I have wordks ok, why does it need to change?

I hear LibreOffice has a spell checker.

Re:What's the point?

[Junta]

It is about the *seamless* version, not the full remote desktop version.

Re:What's the point?

[kthreadd]

I wish Linus Torvalds had stood-up to Lennart Poettering and made it abundantly clear GNU/Linux and specifically the Linux kernel will never support systemd and other garbage.

It's actually been the other way around. The Linux kernel has implemented lots of features for a long time which almost no one used, it wasn't until systemd when that stuff actually started to get used.

It is getting to the point where Apple Mac OS X despite its limitations and crippled nature are beginning to look like a better option. Even the Google Chromebook looks better at times. As a long-time GNU/Linux user since 1992 the current direction of GNU/Linux saddens me.

If you want a traditional UNIX system then the last thing you should look at is probably OS X. If that's what you want then OpenBSD or FreeBSD is probably a better alternative for you, or even one of the OpenSolaris descendents.

Re:What's the point?

[markdavis]

>This statement is fundamentally crap. Every day I run multiple kde 4 applications on multiple systems back to a single desktop with ssh. The applications are not degraded and I don't have to disable any X11 features to do it.

If I had mod points, I would mod you up AND the parent of your reply down.

We use remote X even when it is not remote- thin clients. X11 works great both locally and remotely. I do wish that there was an X12 effort rather than the attempt to throw X completely away... which I am quite certain this is where it is headed with Wayland. And I absolutely know this is going to be a nightmare for me when projects stop supporting X11 for reasons that most people are not expecting or covering.

Re:What's the point?

[markdavis]

>"The GNOME idiots have been making it a point to break compatibility and remove "old" (aka "working", "currently used") features. You are delusional if you think they will continue supporting X once they declare the Wayland version to be "standard"."

BINGO!!!! +1000

And then other projects will marginalize their X ports too, perhaps LibreOffice, perhaps Firefox, who knows. But at some point there will be no way to continue to really run a full-blown X11 workstation, and that *SUCKS*. Because rest assured, there are some severe issues and limitations with Wayland. Of course they are going to dismiss those as "old stuff nobody cares about anymore". Or point to some unstable demo code that nobody cares about. Or some ridiculously complex work-around that is flaky at best.

I am certainly not opposed to Wayland in CONCEPT. The problem is that it won't be adding something new we can choose, it will be something that destroys X11 and negates any possibility of improving X to something like X12.

Re:What's the point?

[serviscope_minor]

I'm very much looking forward to Wayland, which allegedly is the main requirement for nVidia implementing proper (dynamic) optimus support.

That sounds rather dubious to me to be honest, given that X11 passes OpenGL commands to the DRM layer, which then does all the state tracking and everything. In fact for local programs, the calls don't even get serialised.

Re:What's the point?

[serviscope_minor]

Lots of blocking calls

Like what? the X protocol and the low level binding xcb are fully asynchronus.

poor synchronization (tearing)

I've heard the claim that Wayland will magically solve tearing. I only seem to get tearing when running two monitors (I've not seen single monitor tearing in years). Those two monitors are running at different frame rates, marginally. Your're either going to get tearing or awful juddering.

support for multiple monitors and input devices with hotplugging

Works fine for me...? I can even have different keymaps on different keyboards.

global hotkeys/media keys, conflicts like modal window and screensaver both wanting to be on top and so on.

Now this is one of the most diesngenuous claims. Traditional X11 has had three processes, in this regard, the application process in question, then WM and the screensaver. The wayland solution is to make the compositor and screensaver one process. You can already make the wm/compositor/screensaver one process if you like on X. Sure no one seems to be doing it but there's no inherent barrier. Likewise on Wayland there's nothing stopping you doing it the bad, old X11 way.

As for global hotkeys: I thought a passive grab on the key does that. Or if you're a compositing WM, you already get all keys anyway, so problem solved.

And though it's not directly part of the protocol, you're likely to see a revisit of client vs server-side decorations since Weston - the reference implementation - only support CSD.

Now that just makes me sad. It comes from the same schoo of thought as the chuckleheads who removed the "kill grab" feature. Apparently the claim was that you don't need it because it only happens when there's a bug in an application. Well shit, I write applications. Sometimes they have bugs. That, and for the same reason CSD, I feel is a deeply user-hostile feature and actively enforces the user-is-not-a-developer mindset.

Likewise, for debugging, I sometimes pop up a window and draw shit. I don't process events, because why bother? It's for debugging. Nonetheless, having no working window decorations (like move!) is going to be a right barrel of laughs.

And then there's the likes of ratpoison etc. If CSD take off, that basically wipes out a whole class of window managers.

The thing is, X11 is flawed, deeply so in many many ways. However, like so many pioneering systems it still has some brilliant features of which only poor shadows exist on other systems. It seems like people with first Windows envy and then Mac envy are determined to discard everything Linux did right in a quest to be more "friendly" to a class of user who as far as I know doesn't actually exist.

Re:What's the point?

[SEE]

Have you ever been annoyed by users of *nix systems that are less popular than Linux? Then have no fear; Wayland is an effort to kill off those platforms.

You see, first you reduce X on Linux to the sort of second-class status that it has on OS X. So then people switch their development for Linux to Wayland. So then they stop maintaining an X version of their app (even if the toolkit they're using supports both X and Wayland), since it costs them resources for such a tiny fragment of people. Then, since nobody's developing for X, the toolkits themselves drop support for X. And then all those people using *BSD or Solaris are up shit creek without a paddle. And then the makers of Linux server distros, who are the ones who have to compete with *BSD and Solaris profit.

Oh, sure, they can't come out and say openly that the purpose of Wayland is to destroy the competition. So they'll talk about all sorts of technical advantages. But then ask yourself, if the goal was simply to create a modernized/simplified/higher-performance/whatever GUI system, why deliberately choose to make it dependent on the Linux kernel, instead of developing such a system for all *nix systems?

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

Downsides: 1. you lose remote access (save for second-class stuff like VNC), 2. you need to port most software or use X emulation. Upsides: ... [crickets] ...

I'm having trouble seeing why your post was marked troll. Funny, maybe. Insightful, more like it. Clearly not a troll. what on earth is going on with mods in this thread?

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

1. you lose remote access

The X.org guys have said themselves this isnt true of X.org anymore...

Then the correct response would be to fix that lameness instead of making it more lame. Somebody lacking the requisite design skills?

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

O brave and omniscient anonymous coward, brave indeed behind that keyboard, unlike you I actually tried, using my own OpenGL app and it worked, though slow over the crappy wifi. Even the shaders worked. Knock me over with a feather.

I don't suppose you have what it takes to admit that you were wrong. Obviously, anybody can repeat this experiment.

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

Nobody was talking about SGI.

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

Worked fine for me, 10 minutes ago. I suspect that there is FUD afoot. Possibly even *self serving* FUD. From the "my shiny is teh better" crowd.

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

I will need to dismiss your nonsensical nonsense as nonsense. Henceforth, could you please consider writing words that may withstand an iota of logical scrutiny? Specifically: "works" means "functions". Please keep your own private definition of "works" to yourself.

If you want to improve the poor performance, start with a faster net connection. Then get busy fixing the code, which is broken but not unfixably broken.

OK, over to you. Expecting yet another downclue from you.

Re:What's the point?

[Tough Love]

Basically, after this thread I have no further interest in Wayland unless it gets network transparency.

Re:What's the point?

[thegarbz]

I do the same thing with an RDP session and everything runs fine too. Network transparency is not the be-all-and-end-all of technologies, and it certainly is not the only way to get programs working across the network.

I would be very interested in knowing if you could even tell the difference between a program that is sending remote drawing commands vs a program that is capturing the frame buffer. I'm willing to bet that you are using network-transparent programs and programs that are falling back via some compatibility layer side by side and don't even realise it.

Re:What's the point?

[FranTaylor]

Have you ever been annoyed by users of *nix systems that are less popular than Linux? Then have no fear; Wayland is an effort to kill off those platforms.

blah blah blah

And then all those people using *BSD or Solaris are up shit creek without a paddle.

Short memories forget that Solaris used to have its own window system, and they switched to X windows due to popular demand at the time. No doubt they could switch again.

And the vast majority of BSD systems are running the OSX window system, so a decline in X windows is not going to affect them much.

instead of developing such a system for all *nix systems?

Many linux features exist because they made their own versions of BSD features. BSD did not go out of their way to support them. Nobody is stopping the BSD people from writing their own. In fact they really should write their own, if they used the linux port they would just moan and complain about it.

Re:What's the point?

[thegarbz]

As far as I can tell remote Wayland was developed only far enough to be a publicity stunt and doesn't really exist in a usable state.

That's very true, not just as you can tell. They came out and actively said so. They have always considered the ability to remote to be a client problem for someone to implement if required. They gave an example to shut up the people who said it can't be done and then proceeded to go back to what they considered more important.

Now what really bakes my noodle is if this is an open source project, and open source linux developers really care about this support then why doesn't someone step up and maintain it. I mean look at the number of posts here on Slashdot alone. I'm sure someone here complaining about a missing feature is a developer who could contribute to the project.

I'm beginning to think people only like using open source, and the whole "you can change it yourself" is little more than lip service.

Re:What's the point?

[markdavis]

>"you will be able to do the same from your wayland desktop, just like you can do it from your OSX desktop or your Windows desktop. Just install an X server app and away you go."

We have heard that before. And I will believe it when I see it actually working, and working correctly in the real world, and with network performance at least as good as X, and working with *all* Xclients.

Tell me, how would one manage thin client machines that run ONLY an Xserver and use XDMCP? And also when that user has Xclients launching from other non-login hosts too? And sometimes even local Xclients. We do ALL that in our environment.

Re:What's the point?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Basically, after this thread I have no further interest in Wayland unless it gets network transparency.

It's unlikely you'll have to worry about it unless you decide to run Ubuntu (Ewebuntu?). My 2c - Wayland may be interesting for the "average desktop user" (WTF that is) and mobile phones. Some people that use Ubuntu say "debian package" and that get conflated with debian packages in Debian. Chances of Debian dropping X any-time soon are likely the same as those of X remaining usable (X's chances are pretty good as long as Keith Packard and Peter Hutterer live, and if they die there's always Ken Graunke, Matt Dew, Martin Peres, Peter Hutterer, Corbin Simpson, and Michael Larabel, and many others).

Re:What's the point?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

For those who don't want this security nightmare on their systems, they don't have to install X windows.

Or Wayland. As long as choices remain, and they do, there is no problem - except in the minds of fanbois. I have no problem with the idea of replacing redundant parts of system architecture. The nature of all software development (with the obvious exception of qmail) is that if it gets enough use it develops to the point where it becomes easier to replace it than rebuilt it (of course the new style of programming and project development will stop that, and we may have flying cars soon). AFAIK no re-implementations spring from the womb full grown.
As long as there's plenty of overlap between the old vanishing and the new having sufficient testing to be reliable there is no problem - unless you count those who are reluctant to adapt to change (and I don't). That's likely to be the case, except maybe for those that deliberately restrict their range of choices (shoot foot, boo hoo).

I'm happy Wayland is being developed - I'm just not ready to invest much time in it, yet. Most of the complaints about Wayland are just storms in a very small teacup (Ubuntu desktop users).

As for security of X vs. Wayland - it's a matter of context. Wayland is likely to be more secure because part of the design is to fix perceived problems in X. That's great. Learn from history.
When I have compelling reasons to use a GUI I'll use X - until Wayland proves compatible with the features I need, in a given situation. No one's forcing me to do otherwise, and my use cases cannot be the same as everyone else's (I use Linux in many different situations - as do many who believe they only use it on a desktop). Seems sensible to me.

Re:What's the point?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

The majority of Linux users don't use or need the remote features of X. They want a responsive and consistent GUI. Dump all that legacy shit meant for the days of thicknet runs and AUI transceivers. We don't have framebuffers and fixed frequency monitors anymore either.

Then the "majority" can run the system of their choice.

There are four major failings in your logic: you conflates users (at a keyboard and mouse, on a box they own) with instances of Linux; you overlook the reality of available choices by conflating a new choice with the removal of choices; you conflate the need for new with the necessity for everything old needing to be updated (plenty of 10+ year old software running in situations that don't need to change); you are ignorant of the nature of Open Source development - it's not just about desktops, and likely never will be. Nor is it just for those that use pre-compiled packages - that isn't likely to change either. And Open Source will likely never be compelled by the "needs" of "users". Impelled != Compelled.

tl;dr It's not about the majority - you miss the point of the Cathedral and the Bazaar. But I doubt you miss the point of a meritocracy, that's just something you hope to ignore or browbeat into disappearing (while failing to extrapolate on the consequences).

The good new is you can have your cake, and eat it too. But expecting everyone to eat the same cake and enjoy it are doomed to the same fate as demanding free cake made and baked to your specifications. That's why there's so many types of cakes, and not everyone eats cake.

What gets developed partially reflects the fact that if enough people want something some of them will get off their arse and develop a solution (though only a few will share it, and even less will change it to suit the desires of others). That's got nothing to do with the number of people that want that something - only that many (not most) of us want the same things.

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

Yeah, they are re-writing X windows, and keeping the interfaces the same

Seriously? Now you're just talking like a politician.

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

we have people confusing design with implementation

Well said.

Re:What's the point?

[KGIII]

This is surely not related but I discovered, yesterday, that Vino (Linux Mint - Cinnamon) does not allow sharing the desktop with Windows with an encrypted connection using realVNC as the Windows viewer. Fortunately, I paid for the software so I was able to change it as I am not sure that the free version even allows one to change that. It took a minute to figure it out, I had to change the config and change the settings on the Windows box. Either way, it kind of sucks and is only tangentially related but I figured I would share.

Re:What's the point?

[KGIII]

And what have you done, during these twenty years, to help build Linux? Somehow, I doubt it is as much as you would like us to believe. Just a guess... Hell, I am not even a gamer. I think *they* built Linux so that we would not have to listen to whiners (such as yourself) because we can use it to do anything we damned well want if we have the energy and knowhow to put into it. Hell, if it a popular use-case then someone has probably already put the effort in. I somehow suspect that that someone is not you. Again, just a guess...

Does it feel good to troll and pretend to be something you are not while hiding behind the mask of anonymity? Anyhow, you got some herp in your durp. You might want to clean that up and save your mother the trouble.

Re:What's the point?

[adhdengineer]

Code refactoring does not make devs happy. We want to scrap the old system and create a new one. We might borrow code from the old system where we can, but we want to re-architecture it to fit the current requirements, not those from 10 years (or more) ago.

Re:What's the point?

[kenaaker]

I never said that there weren't other ways to do it. I just described what worked for me and how well.

I've been using X since it was X10, that includes all levels of programming from bare Xlib up. I've never written a server extension, but I have worked on the Matrox mga Linux kernel module just enough to make it work on IBM RS-6000 systems (you can grep for my last name in the kernel source if you care to check). I've also done a bit of messing about with the Doom3 sources to make it work better with Xinerama on a multi-screen setup.

By the way, I've still haven't seen a window layout object that works as well as the Motif Form Widget.

X-Windows can be doing either remote drawing command or sending blobs of pixels, it's all within the protocol. So, the only way to tell is to get something like xscope into the picture and see how the application is handling the data. One of the better ways to handle general window drawing (not pictures or video or other random pixels) is to send the drawing commands to the server to draw into an off-screen pixmap in the X-server, then have the X-server do a blit from the off-screen area to the viewable screen buffer.

So, yes, I can know its not falling back to some non-X compatibility layer.

Mostly these days I don't bother with xscope, because performance is pretty good. The last time I used xscope was when I thought Gnome was pretty neat, but wondered why remote performance was so poor. When I ran gimp through xscope I saw what seemed to be the toolkit asking the X-Server thousands of times how big its window was. Every one of those calls had to be synchronous and had to make a round trip to the X-Server and back. I never saw if they fixed that, but the proper way to deal with window sizes in X-Windows is to track the window size in local variables that are updated by the X-Windows event notifications the come every time the window changes.

Re:What's the point?

[salnikov]

Huey, Sidiot, mysa current teck IS Fayland!

Re:What's the point?

[goose-incarnated]

-if a little slowly- for me ten years ago on commodity hardware running RHEL.

3-D applications have performance requirements, so in other words, it didn't work for you either.

It only doesn't work if you make up constraints that don't exist. For me, when I made up no fictional constraints, it worked as expected.

Re:What's the point?

[goose-incarnated]

.

I've been using X since it was X10, that includes all levels of programming from bare Xlib up.

You must be a damn masochist.

(Sadly, I did xlib programming too in the far past)

Re:What's the point?

[goose-incarnated]

How did you feel when Windows 7 x64 no longer ran 16 bit applications? Make the remote features into a module. Right now its slow and hobbled together with decades of legacy code.

"Decades of legacy code" == "mountains of debugged and user-required code implementing logic that was never written down anywhere".

"Fresh new code" == "fresh new bugs".

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

Keep in mind this is pretty low level stuff. We aren't talking about coding yet another mp3 player (which is just a frontend for lame). We are talking about hardware drivers, video backend stuff, network protocols... I am a 'developer' myself but I would have absolutely no idea where to even begin working on something like this. Just listening to the Wayland developers talk about the internals of X vs Wayland and why Wayland is better gets me lost after a paragraph or two at most.

The population out there that is capable of working on a problem like this is probably much smaller than the population that might contribute to other aspects of open source software. Of those few that are qualified apparently none use this feature even though many of the rest of us depend on it.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

Which addresses exactly none of the deficiencies I brought up regarding VNC as a replacement for X.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

1) Developers being able to address new problems more easily because they have a more sane codebase
2) Better local video in a variety of ways. For example media coherence (i.e. video and sound won't get out of sync)
3) Better handling of latency so better remote desktop over Wans.
4) 32,768 pixel limit (not a problem yet but with 5k displays becoming more standard we are getting close to having a problem)
5) Validated Windows trees so windows won't get lost as often

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Actually no. You gain remote access. Wayland has something like Windows RDB. That hasn't been true in years.
As for X emulation... you can run an X11 server on Wayland same as you do on Windows/Aero or OSX/Aqua/Quartz. This one has never been true.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

LAN or WAN?

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

They implement a far better remote usage system They didn't implement network transparency. If you don't understand the distinction maybe you should assume that the developers who work on X11, which is the Wayland team, know a bit more than you do about how X11 works

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

A respectful comment from the anti-Wayland side! Well done.

Anyway the reality is that Wayland guys wanted to get a prototype working to make sure there weren't any problems with remote... i.e. in theory a remote system could meet Wayland's "every frame is perfect". They don't actually care if in reality the frames are even visible for end users right now. That is the need it to work as essentially a unit test they don't need it to work right now for end user.

They do agree remote usage is an important feature and it is something they intend to add. Remember that applications, especially those that are often used remotely, are likely to be somewhat delayed in how long before they switch to Wayland only versions. Also VNC works much better with Wayland. So in their mind they have years to fix the remote problem. They do agree it is something on their todo list.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Get a grip. There are 3 use cases

a) CPU is on the same bus as the display
b) CPU is on a low latency LAN with the display
c) CPU is on a high latency WAN with the display

Case (a) is the most common followed by case (c). X was optimized for case (b). Because that was the most common 30 years ago. Case (b) should still be covered but the system should be designed around (a) with strong support for (c).

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Why don't you try considering how people are actually using their computers these days. They want access to their apps from the "cloud". The success of Google Docs, Office365, Photoshop in the cloud,

All those push data to a local rendering system. Precisely the opposite of network transparency. Your own examples prove how bad the X approach is for today's applications.

.[RDP] untenable across a slow or latent WAN link.

You have that backwards. RDP is far more usable across a high latency link than X because round trips are minimized. Network to work requires very low latencies that are impossible to achieve over WANS. And thus X11 has all sorts of work arounds which are part of today's codebase which can't really work because of fundamental contradictions in the design that go down to the core.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Yes probably. I'd assume Gnome 4 works on X11 but worse and support is dropped entirely or almost entirely by Gnome 5. Similarly KDE 6 works better on Wayland with KDE 8 dropping support for X11.

People who want to use X11 applications in 2030 are going to have run legacy applications almost exclusively.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

I think you are wrong there. With X freed from the burden of supporting high speed local applications including modern GPUs... there is a very good chance that X12 as a network display system could be quite a bit better. Go back to the UNIX way. X12 is the display manager for remote, and while usable locally it is designed for remote.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

The solution for bring displays into a single application in practice isn't going to happen at the window manager level under Wayland. What's going to happen is the Graphical display system will handle it. So let's say you are pulling:

A: KDE application from server 1
B: Gnome application from server 2
C: WX application from server 2

Under X things are complicated. Under Wayland they won't be your local KDE/Gnome and WX will handle the details of their respective applications with Wayland's RDP handling the communications. Then they will render. The compositor can handle multiple windows so they can combine onto your one physical desktop and they can talk to each other. So for example via. your local dbus you will be able to drag and drop from A to B.

Re:What's the point?

[thegarbz]

The population out there that is capable of working on a problem like this is probably much smaller than the population that might contribute to other aspects of open source software.

That is most certainly true, but there are many capable developers who deal with that kind of specialty and many of them will chime in on /. arguments too. All it takes is for a couple of helping hands.

Re:What's the point?

[kenaaker]

Mostly LAN. Occasionally WAN. The LAN systems are all OpenSUSE, a couple of different versions. All remote connections are via SSH. The Cura application that uses OpenGL is also via an SSH connection.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

X works wonderfully over LAN, that sort of middle latency between desktop and WAN was the use case X it was designed for. The problem with X is with higher latency like one experiences on WANs or taking advantage of the very low latency on desktop.

You didn't mention what desktop you are using is. On OSX if you want to see what others are experiencing play with XCode's Network Link Conditioner. On Linux: Netem / MasterShaper, WaNem or similar product to jack up your latency. Set it to say 150ms and you'll see the problem pretty quickly.

Re:What's the point?

[kenaaker]

I've been using KDE for a long time. I haven't done anything with Gnome since the "Let's remove all the confusing options" movement started.

Thank you for the information, but I haven't been inspired to do any work to improve UI behavior over WAN connections. Years and years ago the worst UI behavior I saw was for a connection that was running over a 26.5 dial up connection. Strangely enough, some X apps were actually still usable. But, most weren't, and some took an hour to paint the first window. The worst ones seemed to be behaving like gimp did, causing a continuous stream of unnecessary synchronous calls to the X-Server.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"Remember that applications, especially those that are often used remotely, are likely to be somewhat delayed in how long before they switch to Wayland only versions."

To me it's not the ability to remote those applications that makes X great. It's the ability to remote the ones that most people would never even think of remoting.

Today the cloud is all the rage. The market is demanding it not just the 'geeks'. For an application that truly begs remoting I think the question isn't does the operating system support remoting it's "why doesn't the application have a built in web interface?!"/ (to the lay user X or Wayland is a part of the OS)

To me the fact that X allows me to display applications that the author never wanted me to display remotely is awesome. It's part of a broader environment of "I get to decide" what features are useful to me, not an application author, not the market or anyone else. This is generally the way Linux has worked until recently. For a system that makes these decisions for you, where the things a typical user would want just work a Windows or Macintosh desktop would be just fine. That need is already filled!

That is not to imply that it is only important to me on a basis of ideology. I happen to use a remote X terminal myself. i use it as though it were just another face of my main PC, not as a way to run specific, specially remote-worthy applications. It's a way that I can have one and only one highly customized desktop to babysit and yet have it in multiple places.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"They do agree remote usage is an important feature and it is something they intend to add."
"They do agree it is something on their todo list."

Are you privy to something that I am not? According to the FAQ it is out of scope. I've watched the videos... all I see are statements that it is someone else's problem and that X doesn't do remote anymore anyway.* Wayland developers and supporters have even suggested that networking support be moved to the GUI toolkits. Surely that would result in a fractured feature that works differently on some applications than others and probably not at all on some.

Also... on the To Do list? Wayland is already being pushed in production. This should not happen with basic features still on the "To Do" list. I'm not sure if there are any desktop distros defaulting to it but there is Tizen. I for one have been looking forward to being able to remote display applications from my desktop on my phone or vice versa ever since I used my old Sharp Zaurus! Do you think it's too impractical on the small screen? I often worked this way on the Z'. I even occasionally did real work with SSH on a 3x2" screen with T9 keyboard Nokia Series 60 phone back in the day.

"A respectful comment from the anti-Wayland side! Well done."

I do not believe that there has been much respect coming from the pro-Wayland side. The attitude from the developers seems to be.. you are a minority.. you don't matter. The stuff you care about doesn't work now anyway (even though you are currently using it without problem) Non-developer Wayland supporters are even worse, accusing people who are concerned about remote display of being Neck Beards that are holding them back from getting 3d video acceleration. If the anti-Wayland side seems disrespectful perhaps it should be viewed as a natural response by a community under attack.

* - As Xorg developers I'm sure they know what they are talking about regarding X not doing remote anymore... on a developer level. So it's not really using the X protocol as originally intended when I display something remotely or something like that. As a user I really don't care. I just know that my application is displaying remotely. In other words... it just works.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

" but there are many capable developers who deal with that kind of specialty "

Capable of developing a display server? Really? Why?

Until recently pretty much every *nix used X. Of course Windows and Mac also exist, clearly somebody develops those. There are a few outliers like Syllable & ReactOS. All in all I would think that the number of display servers or non-server systems serving that purpose could be counted on one's fingers.

If that's true... why would there be a bunch of available developers with the knowledge to do such things. What are they already working on and why?

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

To me it's not the ability to remote those applications that makes X great. It's the ability to remote the ones that most people would never even think of remoting.

Under the Wayland model, once it is fully developed, most all applications will remote well with the RDP type interface. There may be some that won't and there may be a bit of a patch when remoting gets a bit worse. You might move from 100% in 2015 to 70% in 2020 to 90% in 2025 coverage. However the 70 and 90% will be much more practical over a WAN than X is now.

LAN users are potentially getting a downgrade though I don't think it will be anything horrible rather something which does make things a bit worse. X was built for LAN, moving from something built for desktop with good WAN support ... Yes there are minus to the design for some people. There are tradeoffs in engineering. Doing something to help X can frequently hurt Y. Right now WAN and desktop users are hurt badly by the LAN centric design of X11. That's something the anti-Wayland people don't take into account.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

all I see are statements that it is someone else's problem and that X doesn't do remote anymore anyway.* Wayland developers and supporters have even suggested that networking support be moved to the GUI toolkits. Surely that would result in a fractured feature that works differently on some applications than others and probably not at all on some.

Well yes it does result in a fractured feature. They Wayland people see the fracturing as a plus. By fracturing the GUI toolkits are able to make more intelligent decisions about what to do locally and what to remotely. By fracturing more stuff can be done locally with fewer roundtrips.
Pro/Con: Network transparency vs. RDP style remoting
is a fair conversation about X11 vs. Wayland. Talking about Wayland not having remoting implying that Wayland applications won't remote isn't fair not accurate. I hope the distinction is clear.

Also... on the To Do list? Wayland is already being pushed in production. This should not happen with basic features still on the "To Do" list.

In production means applications should start supporting Wayland. They need to do what Libre Office did and start working through the bugs. Lots of features are on the todo list. Legacy mature software often gets replaced before its full feature set is replaced. You look at the list of the top 100 features say: better at these 40, same on these 50, worse on these 5 and doesn't do these 5 at all: ready to offer as an option.

I'm not sure if there are any desktop distros defaulting to it but there is Tizen.

The ecosystem isn't ready yet. Where we are is getting the ecosystem ready. It wouldn't shock me if say by 2018 25% of Linux applications have better Wayland versions than they do X11 and so distributions want to start defaulting to X-Server on Wayland rather than X11 running directly on hardware. Maybe it is Gnome 4 / KDE 6 that force the change from option to default but I suspect it is before than. But certainly in 2015 there is no good reason to make it the default.

I do not believe that there has been much respect coming from the pro-Wayland side. The attitude from the developers seems to be.. you are a minority.. you don't matter.

I don't think that's true. I think what's true is:
a) Supporters of network transparency don't know what network transparency is
b) People who want to remote over a LAN are a minority and their use case for the overwhelming majority of applications should be handled similarly to WAN remoting.

Non-developer Wayland supporters are even worse, accusing people who are concerned about remote display of being Neck Beards that are holding them back from getting 3d video acceleration.

The other side gets to present use cases that X11 doesn't do well as well. There are advantages to splitting application and video buffers for network transparency. There are advantages to unifying application and video buffers for performance. You could let the applications decide but that's fracturing the implementation. You have to make choices. Deciding to help you is deciding to harm others. People who want better games (and BTW I don't game) are making the same argument you are in reverse.

. If the anti-Wayland side seems disrespectful perhaps it should be viewed as a natural response by a community under attack.

Attack by whom? This argument should have been about X's strategy for remoting vs. Windows (RDPs) strategy for remoting. A positive case for X's design over Microsoft's. It was never that. It started immediately with absolutely provably false claims about how X works, that haven't been true since the days of NEC dumb X servers. The attacks came in response to the hysteria.

Re:What's the point?

[thegarbz]

Capable of developing a display server? Really? Why?

Because despite your assertions there's nothing magic about X or driver development. For the most part it's about understanding how a display server works (for which there are far more developers than just those actually working on the servers), it's about understanding the APIs (which are documented) and about understanding how to program.

Beyond that we're not asking someone to start from scratch. As mentioned very high up in the comment chain example code exists for the Weston compositor that implements remote desktop using both VNC and RDP. Remember Wayland is just a protocol which relies on a compositor, Weston is an example compositor which can be built upon.

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

Get a grip.

DIAF. Your post didn't address mine at all.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Yes it does. You are case (b).

Re:What's the point?

[phantomfive]

Posting something related to my point is not the same as addressing my point. Let me repeat what I said:

Merely because person A doesn't use a feature is no reason to remove it for person B

I don't even think you disagree with that.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"Well yes it does result in a fractured feature. They Wayland people see the fracturing as a plus."

So does this mean that I wouldn't be able to say remotely display a desktop environment which uses QT and within that click a shortcut to a GTK app and expect it to open and be managed by that QT desktop environment.

That is the functionality we have now. Once you have your desktop environment displaying remotely everything you do looks and feels local. How can you have that when each app may have a different remote implementation?

>> Talking about Wayland not having remoting implying that Wayland applications won't remote isn't fair not accurate.

Yes it is. In my previous statement I chose QT and GTK as examples because they are so common. A user could have any number of applications using any number of GUI toolkits. Assuming they will all bother to implement their own remote access would way over-optimistic.

>> a) Supporters of network transparency don't know what network transparency is

There are many levels to look at things. You can look at electrons traveling through silicon or the behaviors of transistors combining to form logic gates. Skipping a lot of levels, further up you get all these software buffers, etc.. that Wayland supporters like to talk about. Some levels up from that there is an end user who sets their DISPLAY variable or runs "xorg -query ", etc.. and gets remote access to their desktop. Wayland supporters keep talking about those buffers and other low level things and saying that what goes on at that level isn't really network transparency. Ok. But the user doesn't care! I know I don't!

" You have to make choices. Deciding to help you is deciding to harm others. People who want better games (and BTW I don't game) are making the same argument you are in reverse."

  If I can watch a high definition video feed in real time over the internet then I should be able to remotely display a desktop or a user should be able to remotely display a game. The two should not be mutually exclusive. Surely it is possible to fix this in a way that pleases the gamer without screwing it up for the remote desktop user.

You probably are thinking I just proved your point but I did not. I said we should be able to remotely display our DESKTOPS. Not just individual programs. I should be able to see my favorite desktop manager and click shortcuts within it without worrying about which toolkit each uses. It should just work.. just like it does now.

Before you say.. VNC... nope. That is not the same. I use both remote X and VNC. My remote X server is configured to automatically connect when I turn it on. (It just runs xorg -query ) The very first thing I see is a login screen where I can log in as any user of the client computer. If I happen to have changed out the monitor.. well.. auto detection will have already adjusted my resolution accordingly.

I have three VNC sessions running in the background at all times. Two run under my login. One is just the perfect dimensions for my Lapdock. The other is the perfect dimensions for my iPad and happens to be usable though not great on my monitor at work. The third session runs as my daughter's user for her to log in. Most of the time all 3 are unused and yet all 3 are running because otherwise I would have to ssh in first and start them before I could use them.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

So does this mean that I wouldn't be able to say remotely display a desktop environment which uses QT and within that click a shortcut to a GTK app and expect it to open and be managed by that QT desktop environment.

Remember KDE and Gnome cooperate and there is dbus. What would likely happen is something like this:

a) KDE desktop is running and you click on a Gnome application.
b) KDE passes a message to the local Gnome to handle remoting
c) local Gnome establishes a session with remote Gnome.
d) Those two communicate making the application effectively local
e) The Gnome applications displays on the KDE desktop using the tools they use today to do this sort of thing (dbus...)

So from an end user standpoint nothing changes

Once you have your desktop environment displaying remotely everything you do looks and feels local. How can you have that when each app may have a different remote implementation?

You could get a local feel, its up to the toolkit. You could get something much better. Each application and each toolkit makes intelligent choices about how to handle latency issues. So for example one application might very aggressively cache if latencies are high, while another might be more worried about processing delays and thus might keep intermediate buffers shallow to reduce the effective latency as much as possible even though this means the buffer runs dry. Apple incidentally is currently doing some brilliant work on buffers taking ideas that Linux invented and making them practical. With Wayland Linux applications and thus users will be able to take advantage of these advances.

Yes it is. In my previous statement I chose QT and GTK as examples because they are so common. A user could have any number of applications using any number of GUI toolkits. Assuming they will all bother to implement their own remote access would way over-optimistic.

If an application is written using a toolkit that doesn't support remoting then the application doesn't support remoting by design. The major Linux toolkits are already working with the Wayland team they fully intend to support it. I'd assume that highly specialized toolkits which don't remote, don't remote because they can't tolerate latency. For example good touch toolkits might fail at 1ms latency, 1ms is too fast even for almost all LANs to keep up.

So let's use this example. Human brains aren't designed for touch latency... you are using a touch toolkit that would be unusable remotely. What's the problem if it doesn't remote?

If I can watch a high definition video feed in real time over the internet then I should be able to remotely display a desktop or a user should be able to remotely display a game. The two should not be mutually exclusive. Surely it is possible to fix this in a way that pleases the gamer without screwing it up for the remote desktop user.

It isn't possible to do both. I'll just repeat what I wrote in the post directly above, " There are advantages to splitting application and video buffers for network transparency. There are advantages to unifying application and video buffers for performance." You have to pick. Either the person who wants performance has to lose or the person who wants network transparency has to lose. There are lots of either / or choices in life, there are lots of either / or choices in designing a windowing system. You cannot build a system where everyone gets everything. And even if I were wrong, X11 most certainly is not such a system. In the world of 2015 X11 mostly sucks at everything but via. hacks is painfully being kept alive. The low level choices you keep dismissing fundamentally alter what the system is capable of doing. For you to get feature F Mr G has to not get feature H.

Wayland people are not taking away stuff to be mean or because they are lazy.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

Is remote display unimportant because there are more people who only run locally? Remote display is somewhat of a fringe thing. But.. so is all Desktop Linux. We are here BECAUSE we are on the fringe. If we weren't we would be on Windows or OSX! Desktop Linux is painful. People are always sending documents, videos, etc.. that require special effort to install proprietary codecs or run semi-functional applications in Wine. If you are sticking to Linux on the desktop then there is probably already some fringe feature you love or rely on or you wouldn't be here. What happens if one day it goes away? If any fringe users of Linux are going to be written off as not significant then you might as well pack it up because we are all fringe users in one way or another.

A local Gnome? A local KDE? My main purpose for running remotely is to NOT have to install and maintain all that baggage in multiple locations. At that point one might as well just set up a NAS to hold their home directories and install the full set of software on every computer. But.. then.. might as well just run Windows. That's how just about every Windows shop office is set up. At that point how does Linux provide something unique?

"It isn't possible to do both."

To do both of what? Display both kinds of applications remotely? Or use two different underlying implementations? It can't all go through one buffer AND go through separate buffers. Ok. Maybe I should say this.. I don't really care about X11 the protocol vs Wayland vs the display protocol of that Mac compatible OS the aliens used in Independence Day. I'm not arguing for or against keeping the underlying architecture behind remote or local display unchanged. X11 serves me well although I am quite aware it is not perfect. If a different method of getting the display data from one place to another works better then why would I be against changing it?

Wayland supporters often say that X11 network transparency or remote display or whatever is already broken. OK. My limited understanding is that as originally intended an application told X to draw a shape or add text, etc.. what got passed over TCP/IP was the command to do so, not a raster graphic of the shape. What I gather from the various pro Wayland posts is that under the hood various hacks have mostly replaced this and now everything is getting drawn at some higher level and passed as bitmap. Ok. But when I go to use an application remotely IT STILL DISPLAYS. In fact, now I have VirtualGL installed so I suppose that has things rendering entirely outside of X and just streaming through as bitmap. But.. it is working! Actually, I love the idea of doing 3d applications this way. Let me build up ONE client that has ONE big honking video card and play video games on it but displayed elsewhere without making me invest in a house full of GPUs.

But that isn't what I came to talk about. It's the interface that I am interested in. I just want to be able to tell the current session that my display is over here. And it all displays. If I feel like doing this with a single application at a time.. I want that to work. If I want to remote display my desktop environment.. then that should work too. If I open a desktop environment remotely.. then when i open something within that environment it should display there. X forced this. When you linked against X-libs it didn't matter if you were actually linking against GTK or QT or ____ which in turn linked against X libs or even if you coded directly to X libs. Implementing remote display at a lower level meant everything had it.

So.. different methods of remote display are needed for different applications. So what? I don't see how that still can't be implemented at a lower (and thus common) level. just give it a default implementation that may not be the most efficient but at least works. If the application or toolkit programmers don't care about remote access then it falls into that by default. Big deal.. at least for LAN users it probably doesn't matter anyway. If s

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

You are relying on every author to care about this issue. I don't think that even a majority will.

I'm relying on the author of every (or most every) toolkit to care. Once the toolkits remote you have better remoting on a per toolkit basis than you do under by X. Your hypothetical application author has to have chosen an obscure modern toolkit which doesn't remote. If they choose a common one it is going support Wayland. If they choose an old one it is going to support X. You are talking well under 1% of all applications and those likely designed not to remote.

How bad is the latency going to be anyway? Today's cable modems are much faster than the LANs where I first learned to 'love X'.

I think you are confusing bandwidth and latency. Latencies on LANs are probably slightly higher than they were 25 years ago. Latencies on WANs aren't remotely close to LAN latencies 25 years ago, and are slowly creeping up not decreasing. Internationalization and additional layers of servers are mainly to blame. SIP has a hard 150ms barrier. This used to be no problem now with international especially to the 3rd world even 200ms variants aren't slow enough.

Moreover we don't have any solution to latency. While we might be able to half them through technology and better engineering to go beyond that we either need to shrink the planet or increase the speed of light.

A local Gnome? A local KDE? My main purpose for running remotely is to NOT have to install and maintain all that baggage in multiple locations.

I'm starting to think you are constructing your objections to be difficult. If you are an end user what do you care what sits on the hard drive? You install a mainstream distribution you install the standard toolkits, done. There is nothing to maintain beyond running Linux. You mentioned cut and past in earlier posts. The X-Server doesn't support any interaction beyond plain text, like clicking on applications starting the appropriate support libraries without those toolkits being installed. So you are doing this now. You are contradicting yourself on your use case. You can't have this being a feature you use in the last post and then in this one want to run without local toolkits. You don't have that now.

You are going eventually be able to construct a use case where X11 is better. I will freely acknowledge there exist possible use cases where X11 will be a better fit than Wayland. Say 1% or users. But by the same token I can easily construct a 100 use cases where X11 is terrible for every use case that exists on which Wayland introduces a slight problem. So those arguments don't do much. When you choose X11 you choose all those problems for other people. You need to argue that X11 is better than Wayland not that Wayland is imperfect. My opinion is that X11 mostly sucks at everything. It has been a disaster for Unix, forcing Unix to emulate hardware configurations that no one has used for two decades. In today's world X11 doesn't do anything well, and does most things far worse than any of the other mainstream competing graphical display systems.

And I'm including remoting in that. X11 doesn't even have a security layer or traffic shaping. SSH which is the dominant security layer breaks 3rd party traffic shaping. I'll start throwing out examples of non-fringe use cases where traffic shaping is needed like international or congestion and X11+Security will collapse.

So if you want to be remoting on a LAN not WAN, have a not quite dumb terminal but a Linux box that for some reason has enough of the toolkit installed to support the X-Server versions of applications but not the X-Client versions of those same applications, and want to run lots of applications from different sources then X11's remoting will work better. With a use case that important I'm shocked that the Wayland project hasn't been cancelled already. The realit

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"Your hypothetical application author has to have chosen an obscure modern toolkit which doesn't remote."

Availability of choice is something that has made Linux great for a very long time. Will there be no future development in this area? Is it going to be QT/GTK forever?

"If you are an end user what do you care what sits on the hard drive?"

Because I'm the one who has to put it there. Hey, remember when Linux was a 'hobbyist OS'? We still aren't all technicians setting up labs for an employer somewhere. Some of us actually use Linux at home still!

You seem to care about security. That's part of why I want my clients thin. The fewer things installed on them the fewer things need to be locked down. Ideally I want a very small display server and just enough underlying OS to run it.

"So if you want to be remoting on a LAN not WAN, have a not quite dumb terminal but a Linux box"

Yes! Yes! Absolutely! Is that not what I have been describing? Was i somehow not clear about it? Actually.. I'd go for a real dumb terminal except old PCs are essentially free and the only dumb terminals I know of are old CRT beasts with no audio support. My remote devices are tiny PCs that I think used to be cash registers. They run off of wallwarts, have no fans and came without hard drives. I added CF cards rather than real hard drives to keep noise, heat and power consumption down while eliminating moving parts.

", forcing Unix to emulate hardware configurations that no one has used for two decades."

See! I told you Wayland supporters were rude. You are calling me 'Nobody'! Go look at other forums discussing this topic. Apparently this 'nobody' is not alone!

You aren't even addressing the fact that I already said I don't really care about X11. I care about remote functionality. Providing network support at a layer between the toolkits and what Wayland provides would be fine by me so long as it meant that this layer was what the toolkits or applications are coded to talk to, not Wayland directly. That way ALL applications could still be remoted. And.. if that layer used similar methods to what X11 used to provide remote access or something entirely different or even used multiple methods, chosen by the application to best suite the kind of content being displayed... that's all ok by me!

"I don't know you tell me. Wayland is a different but better method of getting display data from one place to the other and yet you object to changing it. So why?"

Because.. as it seems to be proposed Wayland is NOT a way to get ALL display data from one place to another. That is outside of Wayland's scope. With remote support moved to the toolkit or application level we only get remote support where someone chose to support that feature. The old system meant EVERYTHING could be displayed remotely. I only want the baby saved, you can pitch the bathwater.

>>>>"To do both of what? Display both kinds of applications remotely?"
>>"Have a display system that both shares and doesn't share buffers. And as far as remoting to properly the same remoting strategy. One is designed for strategies the other doesn't support and vise versa."

Ok, I know the word buffer to mean an area of memory. Basically a big array containing pixel data. Why do I care if remote support is implemented in one big array or a dozen? Hey.. either way.. knock yourself out. Do whichever works better.

Do you mean something different when you say this? Are you saying that we can't have both full desktop remote access and also be able to remote single applications? I do this in Windows with RDP every day at work! On one monitor I display a terminal server desktop to run Visual Studio. i display the full desktop because Visual Studio spins off lots of child windows and that doesn't work as well if I just display Visual Studio remotely. At the same time I am displaying Navicat, running on that same terminal server but by itself, outside of the desktop. it shows up in my local taskbar... it's ju

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

OK... it certainly is the case that Wayland remote will work worse with dumb terminal type setups. Wayland is assuming the the box remoting into is smart. A phone is plenty smart to run Wayland, and if you kept your applications light (i.e. about 10 years old) would be able handle the toolkits. So for your lapdock type setup you could actually run your desktop applications in a way that is comfortable over mobile data and not chew up insane amounts of data. Again as is usual for the actual use case you are describing Wayland is likely far better than X11. Not far better at doing things the X way but far better at doing the same function as long as you are willing to not cut against the grain.

As far as security goes the receiving machine can have an unwritable filesystem (or unwritable from the OS running Wayland) or be virtualized and just blow away and restore the image after use.... You can achieve the same security with smart as you do with dumb.

But if you want actually dumb, then you need to virtualize your screen. Then you talking something like VNC. Wayland makes use of smart so doesn't support dumb as well. Smart is the more common situation today....

Availability of choice is something that has made Linux great for a very long time. Will there be no future development in this area? Is it going to be QT/GTK forever?

Any toolkit can have Wayland remoting. That's going to be a standard part of writing new toolkits in say 10 years.

Providing network support at a layer between the toolkits and what Wayland provides would be fine by me so long as it meant that this layer was what the toolkits or applications are coded to talk to, not Wayland directly.

In theory Wayland supports that. In practice it isn't going to be what's going to happen so I don't consider it particularly relevant. In practice it happens at the toolkit level and applications pick up their remoting from their toolkit unless they want something more complex.

But... if I don't have my lapdock on me remoting the phone to a computer would be a handy way to handle long-winded text conversations.

That's session sharing. What's better is not remoting the conversation to the computer but that the computer syncs with the phone and has a copy of the conversations at all times. Many messaging systems already provide that. I do that today. No reason to remote just push the data.

I see something like moving the remote support out to the toolkits as making this dream far less likely.

I disagree it makes the dream far more likely. To actually be remote you need good WAN behavior on high latency connections, like a cell phone. That's unfixable not available with X11. Everything else is just using a secure potentially unwritable image for remote machines (VM...) and enjoy. Yes when your main OS changes toolkits (something like KDE 5 to 6) you will need to update your dumb images to match but that's not hard in your scenario.

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

>> Any toolkit can have Wayland remoting. That's going to be a standard part of writing new toolkits in say 10 years.

Ah.. but I thought remote access was a niche application, no longer relevant enough for developers to care about? That's what I am hearing when Wayland supporters say that 'nobody' is using it. It's too niche for Wayland and yet widespread enough that each toolkit will bother to implement it all on their own? I really don't get that. And why should they, each one would be re-inventing the same wheel!

"That's session sharing. What's better is not remoting the conversation to the computer but that the computer syncs with the phone and has a copy of the conversations at all times. Many messaging systems already provide that. I do that today. No reason to remote just push the data."

By texting I mean SMS. You have something that lets you do that from your computer? It's not like I am going to force all my friends and family to switch to Hangouts or Skype or something like that just so I can type easier.

"Yes when your main OS changes toolkits (something like KDE 5 to 6) you will need to update your dumb images to match but that's not hard in your scenario."

i don't even use KDE or Gnome. I use Stumpwm along with the pager from Lxde. Am i going to have to install Gnome just so that I can remotely access GTK apps and KDE so I can remotely access QT ones? Is there any room for a variety of window/desktop managers, especially lightweight ones in a Wayland world? Even if I was still using KDE (I used that for years) I don't think i would want to see Linux change in a way that FORCES users onto one of the big two. On top of that, i have it all compiled from scratch (Gentoo) so that it runs nicely on my older equipment. That's another reason I don't want Gnome+KDE on the dumb terminals. Neither of KDE or Gnome is going to fit on the CF cards I was describing to you anyway. I'm not just complaining so that I can keep MY setup. Why keep upping the hardware requirements when we have a working solution already? Aren't the landfills full enough?

i guess there is TFTP but that is frankly a pain in the ass. To use that you have to set up your own custom DHCP server rather than just use either a commercially available router or a simple router distro.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Ah.. but I thought remote access was a niche application, no longer relevant enough for developers to care about?

That's a bit much. I suspect what you are hearing is that Network Transparency is a niche application.... Remote access while vastly less important than it was 20 years ago is still used. Which is why Wayland supports it and supports it better than X11. This is what I keep saying you cannot confuse remote access which is far better with Wayland and X11's specific methods of remote access. BTW we know KDE and Gnome are going to support remote because they have been working with Wayland already.

I use Stumpwm along with the pager from Lxde.

LXDE is in the process of becoming LXQt. It fully intends to support remote using Qt's system. As per the June 2013 announcement Hong Jen Yee (PCMAn) is waiting on the freedesktop guys to tell him the messy details are worked out, right now they've told him what not to use in Qt 5 if he wants to easily be on Wayland and along with Razor they are making sure that LXQt doesn't use that stuff some of which is being backported to LXDE. I suspect that LXDE will never be native Wayland. I do know they are ripping out X11 dependencies from the LXDE codebase to make such a port easier if they choose to go all the way but they don't intend to.

However getting to your use case: LXDE right now works beautifully with SOC configurations. That's why it is exist. So the kind of lighweight dumb system you are asking for now that you want it for LXDE become much easier. These are sold all over Asia using LXDE based distributions and they are cheap (generally under $200, often like $125). I'm not sure if they include additional languages or even test against English but even if this is not a "just go out and buy this" it certainly is a proof of concept. So there you go: If you want to use LXDE you will have terrific support and get an upgrade.

As far as Stumpwm none of the X11 windows managers will work with Wayland. Window management for most is a rewrite from scratch. You can use Stumpwm for X11 on Wayland of course. However Stump isn't really a window manager as much as a programming exercise demonstrating how to do windows management in LISP. So in theory you got lucky while someone is going to have to port it to Wayland, it very well might be pretty easy. However to complicate this under Wayland the display server, window manager and compositor are complied into one process there is no abstraction like there is in X11. So Stumpwm while getting to run native on Wayland is easy to do anything useful with it it is going to need to be hard paired with a display server and compositor. I don't see any evidence that Stump will go there. So let's assume Stumpwm as an end user product is gone even if it still exists as a teaching tool.

Moreover I'm not sure the culture is going to allow you to be able to just casually change window managers under Wayland. For example LXQt will only be tested against its own compositor which will be tuned to LXQt. You can run other applications but when you run LXQt (again the version of LXDE that will exist on Wayland) you have picked your GUI.

This BTW is where you get huge advantages. You LXDE top to bottom can be compiled for the SOC hardware (the way Android works today) so you will see huge increases in battery life and much better performance.

By texting I mean SMS. You have something that lets you do that from your computer?

Yes. There are many solutions. Apple's built in Messages application does this. http://mightytext.net/ works for Android.

Why keep upping the hardware requirements when we have a working solution already? Aren't the landfills full enough?

We don't have a working solution already. X11 doesn't work. New OSes / features up hardware requirements. T

Re:What's the point?

[morgauxo]

"LXDE is in the process of becoming LXQt. It fully intends to support remote using Qt's system."

That's interesting. I'm glad people will still have a sort of lightweight choice. I'm not really an LXDE user myself though. I just use the task bar from LXDE. I suppose I was being overly garrulous in mentioning that part of my setup.

" Stump isn't really a window manager as much as a programming exercise demonstrating how to do windows management in LISP."

That's an interesting statement. The author wrote Ratpoison first. His big motivation there was he wanted a GUI that didn't require a mouse. He was a big Emacs guy and used to having Lisp as part of his environment to work with. He found he was building Lisp like abilities into Ratpoison so he decided it made more sense to do a re-write this time using Lisp from the start. At least that's what the website says. Whenever I look for Lisp configuration help online the questions and answers I read sound like other users are actually using Stumpwm as their main window manager. I've never seen anything to indicate that it is only a programming excercise!

Personally, I use it because it is tiling. I used to really like Konqueror in KDE. I used it's split-screen feature a lot. You could run a terminal in the bottom. I used to run emacs in that, edit PHP code and have the page I am working on displayed in the window above. It also worked as a file manager, with scp support so I would have a second tab for uploading image files and stuff like that.

When KDE started pushing their new browser over Konqueror at first I thought my preferred way of working was going away. I read people's arguments about it, stating that Konqueror was no good because it tried to be too many things.. counter to the Unix philosophy. i suppose they were right. I realized that what I really wanted was tiling. That's basically what I was using Konqueror for.. a tiling Window manager. That's what Stump is to me now, not a Lisp exercise. As a bonus.. where before I was running my text editor in Konqueror's terminal, now I get to run the GUI version of it!

Maybe what I need to do is learn to write my own compositor. I don't want to do that. I have sooo many projects I am already working on and no idea where to even start. Contrary to how it might seem i am not married to the idea of X forever. i just don't want to lose any features, only gain them.

"Yes. There are many solutions. Apple's built in Messages application does this. http://mightytext.net/ works for Android."

Thanks, I will check that out.

"$.03/hr in electricity over a WAN (wired LAN is close to 0)."

For remote X I mostly use wired LAN. I value the fact that I can do remote X over the Wan but I do mostly use VNC for that.

I don't like Wifi much because we have too many neighbors using it and causing interference. I prefer non-portable wired terminals in heavy use spots. Of course we use wifi with portable devices like tablets but I'm ok with VNC on those anyway.

I mostly use remote X as a way to access the computer in my den in my workshop. Yes, I know, i could install VNC. I really like that just turn it on and go, the illusion that the PCs in the workshop and in the den are one and the same. I have additional small, old cash register PCs that I intend to eventually set up the same way as a media PC in the livingroom and maybe in the kitchen for looking up recipes and stuff like that. Yes, I know, this is kind of a 1950s-70s retro-future image of computing. It's better than maintaining a bunch of separate desktops. Todays tablets and etc... are awesome but there is still something to be said for full size monitors, keyboards and mice. I think there would be a lot to gain if thin-clients were to become more mainstream.

It's also nice to be able to point out that using open source software allows me to create a custom setup like this. Even if you don't like my setup.. you can implement YOUR favorite setup. I can customize it the

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

Many of the ideas are taken from XMonad which is also used by people who like it and at the same time is also an excellent example of how monadic window management works. LISP is like that, everything in LISP is just a DSL so it is scriptable.

You are right before that Linux is becoming professional. It has been far too successful in too many areas to want to keep the hacker culture that existed 20 years ago. Of course the BSDs still have that. But you like hacker OSes go with something much more interesting than a UNIX. House / HaLVM (also Haskell) are pretty cool extensions for the modern world.

As far as tiling window managers for Wayland they already exist and I'd assume will get more sophisticated with time: There is Velox which is a varient of XMonad and Orbment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It seems like as things currently stand most of the pieces to do this exist. X does remote display. PulseAudio does network audio (though I am struggling to make that work). There is USB over TCP/IP support in Linux but you have to go to the commandline and tell a client to share a specific USB device

Wayland does Audio and Video now and can keep them unified. usb device redirection is part of the protocol so GTK/Qt should be implementing controllers that work within their respective desktops.

Anyway, implementing all of this.. if remote support is fragmented across toolkits, possibly non-existent on some lesser used toolkits.. that sounds even harder than it has ever been!

No it is far far easier. GTK, Qt, wxWindows, Mono... all understand that USB and sound exist so no hacking. For example Gnome -> Gnome can pass off intelligent information about streaming and buffering so remote sound is both good and responsive even if the lots of jitter on the network. USB of course requires device driver virtualization and the toolkits, already support that. Etc... This all becomes almost trivial.

Once you start trying to use Wayland the way it is meant to be used this becomes easy.

I think there would be a lot to gain if thin-clients were to become more mainstream.

They are mainstream its called remote desktop. That is in 2015 people using thing clients aren't remoting the video but remoting the desktop. The reason is that is doesn't cost much to add some CPU and video to the local machine and it makes it much more responsive. So the local system has a thin base OS. It loads toolkit information from a server when it isn't being used. When it is being used the server just passes it specifics about what's running. This is the model that can go on top of RDP which is what Wayland is implementing.

Wayland doesn't make thin client less practical but rather makes it vastly more practical because you'll be able to thin the client down to something like an Android device and thus have the base OS built in. Microsoft is way ahead of Linux on thin client, because of how naive is about toolkits.

Re:What's the point?

[jbolden]

last line should read Microsoft is way ahead of Linux on thin client because of how naive X11 is about toolkits.

Will it also run on...

[fallen1]

Yutani? I am sure they are in it together. And they know all about the aliens on LV426 - the bastards.

Main links hijacked by ads

[innerpeace]

The post links twice to an offsite article that is hijacked by an overlay ad from which there is no escape, making the article unreadable. There is a hidden x on the ad overlay which only shows by scrolling, but clicking it only makes the x vanish, not the flash ad overlay. Reloading the article only reloads the problem. I'm running Pale Moon, a lightweight Firefox derivitive, on Linux.

Re:Main links hijacked by ads

[innerpeace]

So it's the webpages fault? or your browser? Think carefully as no one else seems to be having the issue.

Let me put the question back to you. Think carefully as I've visited over a thousand web pages this week, many of them chock full of ads, with this browser and haven't had the problem on any other web page.

Re:Main links hijacked by ads

[jones_supa]

Are you joking? Modern web is extremely clunky to use if you browse it with scripts turned off by default.

Re:Main links hijacked by ads

[innerpeace]

How cute, you let web pages run scripts by default. Which is a really idiotic thing to do.

Yes, and I do it on Puppy Linux, which runs as root.

Re:Main links hijacked by ads

[KGIII]

I have been playing with a 'firewall' for the browser in Opera. It is called uMatrix (micro-matrix) and it is actually not all that bad. It is annoying at first but you eventually get the settings dialed in. They are on a per-site basis and, once dialed in, you do not have to play with the settings any longer. As I tend to flit about the web like a schoolgirl at her first drinking party this has been a neat addition to my browsing.

Git is here:
https://github.com/gorhill/uMa...

You may find it is available for Chrome at least. There may be a Firefox version as well. If not then the source is at the Git that is linked above.

Re:Wrong Person

[jedidiah]

Isn't that supposed to be what sophisticated code reuse concepts from CIS 101 are supposed to be for?

Only the X developers should be whining about the burdens of coding X.

Re:Wrong Person

[FranTaylor]

Only the X developers should be whining about the burdens of coding X.

Says someone who has clearly never written an application for X Windows.

OpenSSL

[ArchieBunker]

How did all that legacy code work for OpenSSL? Oh yeah it was a fucking mess that everyone here installed while spouting off about open source and simultaneously not reading a single line of its code. Once the OpenBSD team took a look they started gutting legacy bullshit. Oh yeah we really need OS/2 and VMS support! While I was a fan of both those operating systems I realize their retirement had long passed.

Re:OpenSSL

[phantomfive]

How did all that legacy code work for OpenSSL?

OpenSSL's problems had nothing to do with 'legacy code.' If legacy code were a problem, then OpenBSD would be in trouble, because there's plenty of really old code in there. OpenSSL had problems because they wrote shitty code.

Re:OpenSSL

[thegarbz]

Code size is related to attack surface. Shitty code and big code are not mutually different ideas. Maintaining well written code with lots of legacy cruft is just as difficult as maintaining poorly written but small and lean code. This is one of the reasons the Libre team started by ripping out all the support for cross platforms before they even started cleaning up the stuff that was important.

Re:OpenSSL

[phantomfive]

Code size is related to attack surface.

Yup.

Shitty code and big code are not mutually different ideas.

When someone decides to rewrite a project from scratch, it's prima facie a bad idea. Which is why the Libre team didn't do that. They kept the old interface, and even some of the code.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[Martin Blank]

I can't speak for Debian, but Fedora has it available at least for Gnome in F21 and F22, and they're trying to make it the default under F23. You could create a live-boot USB drive to test it out on your hardware.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[FranTaylor]

When the fuck will Wayland be usable on my system?

when you find someone competent to install it for you

X is not going away

[FranTaylor]

You will still be able to run X windows apps on your wayland desktop: fire up an X server, just like you would do on OSX or Windows.

Re:X is not going away

[morgauxo]

Sure you can run X apps on Wayland.. For now...

Then distros will suddenly standardize on Wayland. Soon after X versions of applications will not be available. Then.. bye bye remote display. Were you still using that? If so then you are just a neck beard who is afraid of change and was holding up progress so that some poor kid's video game ran a couple of FPS slower. Your features don't matter but the gamer's needs do matter. I guess that makes sense seeing that video games are the only life many of those sorry slobs will ever experience anyway...

Re:X is not going away

[FranTaylor]

Soon after X versions of applications will not be available. Then.. bye bye remote display.

Really? So X windows is going to disappear entirely because linux decides to improve its display technology?

And it's going to take RDP and VNC with it? And what about the native wayland remote display protocol? All going away? No more remote displays???

Re:X is not going away

[serviscope_minor]

You will still be able to run X windows apps on your wayland desktop: fire up an X server, just like you would do on OSX or Windows.

Yeah and running X11 apps on Wayland will be just as shit an experience as it is on OSX and Windows too. It's been a while, but last time I tried, copy/paste was limited to text, drag and drop didn't work, keymapping didn't work properly and a whole host of other issues.

Oh and the X11 window manager wouldn't manage native windows. So either you use the crappy native WM, or have half the windows managed by FVWM and the other half managed by something awful.

Saying "it's as good as it is on Windows or OSX" is kind of like saying "it's as good as a huge smelly turd".

Re:X is not going away

[FranTaylor]

You say you want X windows for its ability to run applications remotely.

copy/paste was limited to text, drag and drop didn't work, keymapping didn't work properly and a whole host of other issues.

This is the present reality when you try to do this, so things are not getting any worse if you are running remote apps.

So either you use the crappy native WM

I have no problems with the OSX window manager, it works fine for me.

Re:X is not going away

[serviscope_minor]

This is the present reality when you try to do this, so things are not getting any worse if you are running remote apps.

That's outright untruthful. Copy/paste/DnD works via the x protocol, and as such is completely network transparent. If you disagree, prove it by quoting chapter and verse of the ICCCM or the XDND spec.

That is not an answer

[walterbyrd]

Is Wayland dependent on systemd, or not?

Why accuse me of trolling if you don't even know?

Re:That is not an answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not dependent on systemd. You've posted this same comment before whenever Wayland comes up.

Grow the fuck up.

Re:Only you know the answer

[Martin Blank]

Except it will change when Ubuntu moves to Mir by default.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Fran. You've just made the entire open source community look like a bunch of useless assholes once again. Here we have a user asking a legitimate question, and instead of just answering the question you treat that user like dirt. And people wonder why The Year of Linux on the Desktop is always "next year". Normal people don't like being treated like crap, regardless of whether it's because the open source software they're being subjected to is broken, or whether it's because they're being treated terribly by open source advocates. Linux will never be anything but a niche OS, and by extension Wayland too will remain a niche product, all thanks to people like you and the way you show so much disrespect to everyday users.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[FranTaylor]

Thanks, Fran. You've just made the entire open source community look like a bunch of useless assholes once again. Here we have a user asking a legitimate question, and instead of just answering the question you treat that user like dirt.

Duh, when it's ready to go, it's ready to go. When it's not ready to go, it's not ready to go. No amount of hand waving and

Normal people don't like being treated like crap

Since when do "normal" people compile debian packages from scratch?

Wayland too will remain a niche product, all thanks to people like you

Yeah, wayland will fail because I posted on slashdot! World domination is MINE!

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[jedidiah]

The Wayland fanboys are certainly in full force today upvoting any mindless worship and downvoting anyone with a contrary opinion.

BTW, a contrary opinion is not trolling.

That's something else you know if you're an "old neckbeard".

Re:Wrong Person

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who still has to program in Motif occasionally for legacy systems I would like to say that the inventors of X should be beaten with a crowbar. Even if they are already dead.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[jedidiah]

This reminds me of why I defected to a package based distribution back in the 90s. I was trying to install GNUstep and got bogged down in building all of the dependencies.

No. If there aren't usable Debian packages for it then no one should even be talking about it yet. All of you blithering fanboys should just keep your collective trap shut until something that's remotely of some use emerges.

Until then it's a misguided fantasy (at best) and vaporware.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I fear that there is a sad contrast with some programmers, whose only wish is that their client should "make up his mind what he wants", and who will welcome his most elaborate fancies as a challenge to their programming ingenuity. How many of them are ignorant of, or prefer to ignore, the known techniques used successfully by others, and embark on some spatchcocked implementation of their ow defective invention?" C.A.R. Hoare.

Wayland seems such a thing. It would probably be simpler just to work directly with EGL and get rid of the middle man.

Re:What's a Wayland?

[DeAxes]

It has to do with different ways of creating a GUI (graphical user interface) within Linux and BSD.
If you truly want to understand it beyond that, look at the wikipedia pages for X Windowing System and Wayland Windowing System.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:That's ignorant.

[FranTaylor]

Unix/X/Linux/etc. got to where it is today by offering powerful tools that other systems did not. Seamless remote display technology is one of those tools.

Yeah, Mac OSX can run X windows very nicely as an application process, just like the wayland desktop.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[kthreadd]

Actually, Fedora 22 (current stable release) already runs the gdm login screen under Wayland.

Re:Wrong Person

[serviscope_minor]

Says someone who has clearly never written an application for X Windows.

I have. It's not that hard. The X protocol is pretty sane for a low level protocol. I rather like it.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[ChunderDownunder]

Unstable is fairly conservative about the bleeding edge.

Pick a different distro if you want to try Wayland or, say, KDE5.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there are two of you who have made all open source supporters look like raging assholes.

And the Year of Linux on the Desktop? Well, it'll be 2017 at the earliest now.

Re:When the fuck will I be able to use Wayland?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Dear coward

Now there are two of you who have made all open source supporters look like raging assholes.

And the Year of Linux on the Desktop? Well, it'll be 2017 at the earliest now.

When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Thanks for the wakeup call. I now realise I need to make some serious changes and I'm grateful for you lifting the scales from my eyes.

From now on I'll be devoting all my free time to only producing code for "Desktop Linux", and I'll strongly encourage all other Open Source developers to do the same. No more selfishly writing code to scratch my own itch.

There's a slim chance that you're not a troll and/or shill, and that we are not the only people in the room so...

• I do read the angry rants of people who claim Open Source does not solve their problems, and bad bug reports - I never know when there may be some wheat amongst that chaff. Of course that does limit the amount of time I have to spare for dealing with useful bug reports, and to devote to actual development.
• If you wanted to set an example you could respond in point form rather than just broad complaints.
• If you really want to win the Desktop War you could start by defining Desktop

Is GTK still going how about a Qt version ?

[OdinOdin_]

GTK has done well for itself for a GIMP toolkit.

I stopped using Linux desktop years ago when Win7 productivity was so much better. That is mainly due to X.11 issues, but GTK is a horrid API for a GUI and didn't render itself much better.