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  • #31
    Running X atop Wayland does achieve quite the contrary of what Wayland wants to be so this doesn't seem like optimal solution just to run the nasty flash. Well, maybe Lightspark or gnuflash will do somehow. But I really hope for network transparency patches coming in. Make it optional if you like (e.g. like USE flags in Gentoo) but this is a feature that is probably really handy when you need it.

    What the BSDs need is "just" some KMS. I know it isn't easy to copy and paste GPL code, so you have to kinda retype all the information but on long term it would be probably a win also for the BSDs, since a lot of drivers already really take advantage of KMS if they work in X or Wayland.
    Stop TCPA, stupid software patents and corrupt politicians!

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Delgarde View Post
      Perhaps not a full browser yet, but the following screenshot shows a Webkit port running...



      As for Flash - it might run under an X compatibility layer, though that would presumably rule out the use of a Wayland-native browser. But as you say, it's entirely tied to X, so it will never run natively under Wayland unless Adobe ports it. And I think the phrase "cold day in hell" applies to that.
      I have actually (for the zealot purpose of FOSS) uninstalled Flash and I'm ignoring sites with it. There is definitely a pretty hard transition period, but I'm getting used to it. Youtube can play most videos in HTML5 now, and if it can't play it, well I'll live without it. If I really need to see something Flash based, I'll just fire up Chrome which comes with everything pre-packaged. I do like the idea of surfing the web using a browser that presents itself as "Flash not supported". Hopefully I'm doing my part in the war against flash.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by Adarion View Post
        What the BSDs need is "just" some KMS. I know it isn't easy to copy and paste GPL code, so you have to kinda retype all the information but on long term it would be probably a win also for the BSDs, since a lot of drivers already really take advantage of KMS if they work in X or Wayland.
        Most of the relevant Linux DRM code is under BSD-like licenses, so there is no GPL issue.

        I think that lack of manpower is the bigger issue -- you can't just copy and paste, you have to port it over, and that takes time and considerable skill.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by pingufunkybeat View Post
          Most of the relevant Linux DRM code is under BSD-like licenses, so there is no GPL issue.
          I think that lack of manpower is the bigger issue -- you can't just copy and paste, you have to port it over, and that takes time and considerable skill.
          Hey, that was your 2048th post. Nice.
          on topic:
          Well, are you sure that the very things INSIDE the Linux kernel are BSD licensed? I doubt it.
          And of course you need to bend all the Linux-specific things over to BSD but then a good program should be 90% OS independent stuff, and then only at the end have necessary bonds with the actual OS kernel. Can't judge that in case of the KMS part in the kernel.

          And yes, BSD lacks manpower. Sad but then my main concern is first to have one of the free as in freedom OSs prime time ready and the other can then follow. But we really need to stand up with something that will also be useful for mass users agains the closed computing, be it MS, Apple or just combined hardware/software packages like most cellphones or tablets today.
          Stop TCPA, stupid software patents and corrupt politicians!

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          • #35
            Originally posted by Adarion View Post
            Hey, that was your 2048th post. Nice.
            on topic:
            Well, are you sure that the very things INSIDE the Linux kernel are BSD licensed? I doubt it.[...]
            Just look it up in the sources, they are free to view.

            Most things in the Linux Kernel which belong to the DRM graphics system are MIT licenced, for exactly the reason to make porting those things to other, more liberal UNIXes possible. BSDs not having KMS to date is not a licenceing problem, but rather a serious lack of manpower.

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            • #36
              Originally posted by elanthis View Post
              There is something lost by this approach which X11 offers. That is remote rendering. With X11, remoting is actually very different than what Wayland requires. With Wayland, the networked proxy would only be sending finished frames across the network, while with X11, the drawing commands are sent across the network. The X11 way kinda sorta works better in environments with very low bandwidth and very low latency, but those networks don't really exist in this day and age; just about everything is decently high bandwidth, and the networks that have bandwidth constraints also have latency problems. The other advantage to the X11 model is that thin client setups allow distributing the actual graphics rendering work out to the actual clients while the Wayland model would require the application server to do all rendering (potentially requiring more expensive application servers, albeit allowing even cheaper and "thinner" clients). I have yet to see anybody actually bitch about this, though; instead we just see "I can't SSH into a box and run an app!" which is a very different use case than thin clients, and for which the Wayland approach will work better anyway.
              This.

              Screen-scraping is never efficient. Perhaps that's what johnc meant by having no design for network transparency; sending frames, server-rendered, is a terrible bubble-gum solution because the protocol does not allow for more efficient methods. Because it was not designed to do such.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Lynxeye View Post
                Just look it up in the sources, they are free to view.

                Most things in the Linux Kernel which belong to the DRM graphics system are MIT licenced, for exactly the reason to make porting those things to other, more liberal UNIXes possible. BSDs not having KMS to date is not a licenceing problem, but rather a serious lack of manpower.
                Um, okay, now that you mentioned it I went to my /usr/src/linux.../drivers/gpu and yes, wow, that is a lot of MIT lic. stuff, at least as far as I checked nouveau and radeon. Okay. Just better for the BSD and other Unix people.
                I really laughed when I saw the amount of code for the SiS chips compared to nv/ati.

                I didn't expect that stuff all to me MIT because I talked with a BSD person on a Linux-Tag (Linux Day) and I asked him if that wasn't fine to have all the specs for the atis now, and he said yeah, it would be nice but it "stinks" that it relies so much on Linux specific KMS. My first though it was then mainly a licensing issue. But okay, so it's manpower in reality.
                Stop TCPA, stupid software patents and corrupt politicians!

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by leeenux View Post
                  Totally agree.

                  To all of the network-transpara-tards: Network transparency in X was somebody's great idea before people had properly figured out the right way to do that kind of thing: web applications, and/or VNC. You might as well get on board with doing things the way they should be done, or commit yourself to using old computers, old operating systems, and old applications. Have fun with that.
                  I'll attempt to go for some light here, and turn down the heat. But first, such a nice, enlightening term, "network-transpara-tard" - good to know one of my many attributes.

                  I'm typing this on my lunch break at an F500 company, on my laptop running a company-tweaked RedHat 6.2. The laptop is beefy enough to do most of my job, but every now and then I need more. So on another desktop I'm ssh'ed into a beefier machine, with the DISPLAY exported back here, running the company-mandated VLSI CAD tool suite. (It runs on my laptop, but not the particular jobs I need to be spawning from it right now.) This is normal, for me and for my co-workers. Keep in mind that this is "industrial" software, and most of the place is running a tweaked RedHat 5.x, and the software was developed on something at least that old.

                  This weekend I'll likely do my usual Saturday maintenance on my 4 active Gentoo machines scattered around the house. For my convenience I'll sit at one machine and ssh into the other three, exporting the DISPLAY back. It's mostly text mode, but now and then I fire up a GUI text editor, use "diffuse" to update configuration files, and I like to use "xconfig" to configure my kernels. There are 4 tabs on my terminal, and once set up they all work alike.

                  Sometimes I work from home, and that takes 3 forms. Sometimes I run locally, including the aforementioned VLSI CAD suite. Sometimes I ssh into a machine at work and export the DISPLAY back. Sometimes (usually a weekday evening) I ssh into my laptop at work, start "x11vnc", and use vncviewer at home to get access to my complete work environment. There are different reasons to use all 3 methods of remote access. That's based on how long I'll be working from home in a session, how graphically intensive that session will be, etc.

                  All of this "just works" today, and I don't think there's anything "tard" about any of it. I'm getting a job done, getting paid for it, and I'm using the right tools.

                  How does Wayland fit into this?

                  I can see that in the future my home Gentoo machines would migrate to Wayland ahead of any corporate machines. Assuming that the corporate machines will be very late on any conversion, I guess I need answers to 2 questions:
                  1 - Will I be able to do my "Saturday Gentoo maintenance" with full user interface symmetry on all 4 machines - 1 local and 3 remote?
                  2 - Will I be able to use all 3 modes of work-at-home?
                  2a - Run legacy X11 applications, including but not limited to VLSI CAD suite locally?
                  2b - Run legacy X11 applications, including but not limited to VLSI CAD suite remotely, with some equivalent of exporting the DISPLAY back?
                  2c - Run something like x11vnc to get my active desktop at work displayed locally?

                  The only one I've received absolute assurance on is #2c, but earlier in this thread it's suggested that all of these can be made to work. Perhaps the most problematic is #1. I could see getting to the point of having native Wayland tools that I'd normally use, but is there some layer in them or that can be added to get the remote display? As mentioned, symmetry is the key, so that all 4 systems act alike as I do my maintenance.

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                  • #39
                    Try nx to see how inefficient the default X forwarding is. Yes, nx is considered an ugly hack but it shows that there is room for much improvement. And so far I would just wait what the wayland hackers can do...

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                    • #40
                      @ChrisXY

                      If that was meant for me, have you ever seen the cpu use of VNC serving? Even one is a lot, but try 50 clients.

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