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Cabal
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Cabal

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Wayland 1.0 Officially Released

Very exciting!
quote:
Wayland 1.0 along with the reference Weston 1.0 reference compositor were officially released on Monday.

Kristian Høgsberg after developing the project the past four years officially announced version 1.0 for Wayland. As described earlier on Phoronix, Wayland 1.0 doesn't mark the point that Wayland is complete and ready to replace the X11 Server as there's still a lot of work left to do but it marks the point at which there is API/protocol stability in terms of all future releases being backwards-compatible with the Wayland 1.0 release.
»www.phoronix.com/scan.ph ··· =MTIxMzA

Maxo
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Maxo

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Exciting times are ahead. Of course we will still be using X for a long time, but the groundwork has been laid and made available for consumption to move towards a more modern graphics system.

Edit: Spelling

markofmayhem
Why not now?
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markofmayhem

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Green Island also released.

TuxRaiderPen2
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said by Maxo:
Exciting times are ahead. Of course we will still be using X for a long time, but the groundwork has been laid and made available for consumption to move towards a more modern graphics system.
XDMCP? ? ? ? Didn't think so...

No thanks. X is just fine.

Maxo
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Maxo

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said by TuxRaiderPen2:

XDMCP? ? ? ? Didn't think so...

No thanks. X is just fine.

said by »lwn.net/Articles/520832/ :

What it means, is that we're confident that the
protocol we have now covers the basic features and that we can build
whatever new functionality we need with and on top of 1.0.

That v1.0.0 of a software release is not as feature complete as 20+ year old software isn't really a criticism, it's just stating the obvious.

firephoto
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And intel video users regain that feeling of great amazing things being almost possible, out there, almost within reach, to conquer the desktop video rendering battle (almost), again after a relative stable period where years passed and things worked pretty good for basic tasks to keep the user base loyal enough.

Also should we start making bets on how they'll pull the rug out from under Nvidia if they change their drivers to work with Wayland? (and thus stomping on "freedom")

Maxo
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Maxo

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said by firephoto:

Also should we start making bets on how they'll pull the rug out from under Nvidia if they change their drivers to work with Wayland? (and thus stomping on "freedom")

I know you ask the question in jest, but Wayland is under the MIT license.

markofmayhem
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said by firephoto:

Also should we start making bets on how they'll pull the rug out from under Nvidia if they change their drivers to work with Wayland? (and thus stomping on "freedom")

Place me down for GEM.
markofmayhem

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said by Maxo:

said by firephoto:

Also should we start making bets on how they'll pull the rug out from under Nvidia if they change their drivers to work with Wayland? (and thus stomping on "freedom")

I know you ask the question in jest, but Wayland is under the MIT license.

Wayland only needs the kernel driver, not the X driver. For the proprietary drivers to "work with Wayland", they only need to work with the kernel directly. Nothing needs done to "work with Wayland" like is needed with X, except full Kernel support and communciation which fglrx, nVidia, and psb can not do (due to export_symbols_gpl).

I believe the jest was towards the Kernel devs, not Wayland (?)

Wayland is not really duplicating much work {regarding Xorg}. Where possible, Wayland reuses existing drivers and infrastructure. One of the reasons this project is feasible at all, is that Wayland reuses the DRI drivers, the kernel side GEM scheduler and kernel mode setting. Wayland doesn't have to compete with other projects for drivers and driver developers, it lives within the X.org, mesa and drm community and benefits from all the hardware enablement and driver development happening there.


firephoto
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firephoto

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said by markofmayhem:

I believe the jest was towards the Kernel devs, not Wayland (?)

Somewhat, they are creating a system based only on the new bits in the kernel that are tailored to dubiously allow only the desired video drivers to hook into the kernel.

Also the outlook for desktop computing is as much a threat to anything as pissed on roadblocks in front of Nivida binary drivers.

KodiacZiller
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said by TuxRaiderPen2:


No thanks. X is just fine.

Except X sucks where security is concerned.

El Quintron
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said by KodiacZiller:

said by TuxRaiderPen2:


No thanks. X is just fine.

Except X sucks where security is concerned.

Amongst other things...

I find X to be more than a little counter-intuitive as well, just cause it's the thing I know the most, doesn't mean it isn't ripe for replacement.

rexbinary
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said by Cabal:

quote:
Wayland 1.0 along with the reference Weston 1.0 reference compositor were officially released on Monday.

No way?!

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

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And Linux takes one more step out of "The Unix Way". Not quite Unix. Not quite Windows. Incompatible with both. (Also see systemd)

koitsu
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Wikipedia article: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa ··· tocol%29

But here's the part that scares the living bejeezus out of me:
quote:
What's different now is that a lot of infrastructure has moved from the X server into the kernel (memory management, command scheduling, mode setting) or libraries (cairo, pixman, freetype, fontconfig, pango etc) and there is very little left that has to happen in a central server process. ... [An X server has] a tremendous amount of functionality that you must support to claim to speak the X protocol, yet nobody will ever use this. ... This includes code tables, glyph rasterization and caching, XLFDs (seriously, XLFDs!) Also, the entire core rendering API that lets you draw stippled lines, polygons, wide arcs and many more state-of-the-1980s style graphics primitives. For many things we've been able to keep the X.org server modern by adding extension such as XRandR, XRender and COMPOSITE ... With Wayland we can move the X server and all its legacy technology to an optional code path. Getting to a point where the X server is a compatibility option instead of the core rendering system will take a while, but we'll never get there if [we] don't plan for it.

It absolutely blows my mind how much stuff in Linux is shoved into kernel space, and for no real justified reason. I'm not trying to start an OS war -- honest folks -- but this is one thing the BSDs do not do. Keeping things in userland is good, and if you need an interface between the userland bits and the kernel, there are many interfaces for that (on the BSDs we tend to use ioctl() the most).

I imagine howardfine See Profile and I have the same opinion here.

As for moving some of the other bits into libraries (also userspace), that's good. Although all of the programs/libraries listed are what I classify as "dependency hell" (especially pango).
grunze510
join:2009-02-14
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grunze510

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I seem to remember Linus saying the same sort of thing that the kernel is too bloated.

markofmayhem
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said by howardfine:

And Linux takes one more step out of "The Unix Way".

Wayland is an API and protocol. Weston is a compositor using Wayland, another implementation named Green Island exists as well as a very alpha and early stage KWin. X Server is not a "thing", it is a composition of many small parts. Two of these small parts, Xorg and X11, are 'replaced' by Wayland when only composition is required. Wayland is a "small" thing compared to X, it is smaller. It does one thing well, very well, being lightweight with more power and modern connectivity between compositor and clients using only the kernel. Wayland works with X and all X friendly programs, working together VERY well with others. Wayland is configured and setup through flat text files. Wayland is "more" Unix than X in this regard.
said by Doug McIlroy :

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.

I agree about systemd, definitely a step away from UNIX... but it is quite nice to work with after destroying 2 coffee mugs. Still is quite the beast compared to init.

Wayland has gotten a bad rap from many whom do not understand what the hell it actually is. It is a different method between compositor and client, this is a small part of the whole X server. Wayland doesn't "replace" X en masse. It is very easy to follow the source: »cgit.freedesktop.org/way ··· wayland/

howardfine
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said by koitsu:

It absolutely blows my mind how much stuff in Linux is shoved into kernel space, and for no real justified reason. I'm not trying to start an OS war -- honest folks -- but this is one thing the BSDs do not do.
...
I imagine howardfine See Profile and I have the same opinion here.

+1
howardfine

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said by markofmayhem:

I agree about systemd, definitely a step away from UNIX

+1
howardfine

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You can't do this with Wayland.

markofmayhem
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markofmayhem

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But Wayland can do it as well as X

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
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howardfine

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I don't think that's the same thing. On my notebook I want to ssh -Y 'openoffice' and run OO on my notebook through my office machine from anywhere. Don't have time to follow the video but he's doing a lot more work than I have to do with X.

Maxo
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Maxo

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said by howardfine:

I don't think that's the same thing. On my notebook I want to ssh -Y 'openoffice' and run OO on my notebook through my office machine from anywhere. Don't have time to follow the video but he's doing a lot more work than I have to do with X.

When thin-client tools are stable in Wayland I hope they do a better job than X. The X network protocol is quite expensive making it mostly useless over the Internet.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine

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said by Maxo:

The X network protocol is quite expensive making it mostly useless over the Internet.

As one who uses it every time I'm on the road, I argue that's not true. More importantly, X can do it. Wayland cannot.

markofmayhem
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markofmayhem

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said by howardfine:

said by Maxo:

The X network protocol is quite expensive making it mostly useless over the Internet.

As one who uses it every time I'm on the road, I argue that's not true. More importantly, X can do it. Wayland cannot.

Wayland can't tie your shoes either... I'm not quite understanding the point here, at all. Wayland also doesn't do sound or defragment a filesystem. Wayland is an API and protocol between clients and a compositor. The client can be local or remote. The compositor can be local or remote. Use whatever network protocol you wish, VNC/NX/XDMCP, blah, blah, blah... go wild. Wayland will connect the client and compositor for all of it.

Maxo
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said by markofmayhem:

Wayland can't tie your shoes either... I'm not quite understanding the point here, at all. Wayland also doesn't do sound or defragment a filesystem.

And given that this is V1.0.0 that nobody actually expects to see in any real production environment, how much can one expect from it. Right now there is only the promise of a stable API that can be coded against without fear of constant breakage from a shifting protocol.
It is well understood that as we see Wayland trickle into distros, we will still be seeing X shipping for the foreseeable future because nobody expects that Wayland can reasonably replace X today. So pointing out that Wayland is not a good replacement for X today is not a criticism, as even the most avid of Wayland supporters acknowledge this.

TuxRaiderPen2
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said by KodiacZiller:
Except X sucks where security is concerned.
So if you need a new lock on your house... you build a whole new house?

No. That is not a means to justify a total change in the system.

Improve, enhance or correct the issue.. not throw the baby out with the bath water.

This boils down to:

solution looking for a problem.. I always see a litany of response about how this going to solve everything from the Linux desktop to world hunger, gasoline prices in the US, and peace in the mideast... No it its not. Its just more headaches to deal with and YET ANOTHER fork in the road to cause more hold back on acceptance of Linux corporate and personal.

coders who just don't want to conform and work on X because maybe the rules are more rigid than their accustom to, and their ideas were rejected. Welcome to the real world.

You want to rewrite X and refactor to fix 20 years worth of development and add features, or improve, I am all for it. BUT

It will still BE X and 100% backward compatible! That includes network transparency aka XDMCP, remote X via SSH... All those whippersnapper coders touting cloud computing... well Sonny We've been there done that DECADES ago! Just because maybe you were not alive or around to know it is not my problem to teach you the history of computing. Thin computing aka cloud has been around a long time. And its technology, XDMCP, remote X are things I use and cloud computing rely on daily.

This is more wasted coding time that could be better utilized elsewhere in the Linux chain.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
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howardfine

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+2

Maxo
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Often time, in software development, it is easier to rebuild a system than it is to continue patching it. Google hoped to get Firefox in a good state to enable the type of rapid development they wanted to see in browsers. Eventually they realized it was easier to build a new browser from scratch than it would be to get Firefox's codebase in proper order. That's why we have Chrome/Chromium.
At work we are doing the same thing. We've rebuilt our ordering, inventory, billing, and invoicing systems from scratch. Sometimes a new project that can work alongside the existing project is the best way forward.

howardfine
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howardfine

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But they didn't break the web in the process. Wayland breaks compatibility.