What Is The Wayland Display Server & Its Protocol?

[Smorg]

Another level of indirection...

[snadrus]

Wayland

From what I know, Wayland is a standalone server. It can use X.org server for server<->client stuff.

It's a library combining minimal display-related technologies (X driver, wayland protocol handler) to be used by a compositor to implement a Wayland protocol server. It appears that the compositor could implement network forwarding, although the current sample implementation does not.

Since X server can be Wayland clients, X technologies can be used beneath. The eventual goal is apps on Wayland without X, but this takes improving the Wayland protocol to a point it suits apps.

Rendering Client-side means frozen apps can't move by their top bar, but could move using the option on the window list (since Wayland holds position info). If it's a problem, GTK/Qt may implement a UI thread to keep the app UI alive. An old message queue could also produce a not-responding box.

[V!NCENT]

From what I know, Wayland is a standalone server. It can use X.org server for server<->client stuff.

[Smorg]

Does Wayland have something like X forwarding or is it for local use only?

[RahulSundaram]

As long as Wayland remain an application, you can still simply Ctrl+Alt+F4 and kill Wayland ... right?

I'm assuming Wayland is also a State Tracker?

What I want to know is what Red Hats official stance is on the project?

It was a hobbyist project done on a individual's own time and as such I don't expect Red Hat to have any official stance on it whatsoever. Said person now works for Intel now as well FYI.

[V!NCENT]

I'm interpreting this as an additional layer of abstraction between X and the kernel...

If X.org and Wyland both act as a State Tracker then they probably will be layers that exist next to each other andstead of stacked.

[droidhacker]

I'm interpreting this as an additional layer of abstraction between X and the kernel...

[V!NCENT]

We have a working X.org, so it would be interesting to get info on this R&D project and not debate here how useful it is going to be in the real world for now

[sturmflut]

The way I got it, Wayland + Compiz would make a complete desktop environment, or have I missed something?

Yes, if Compiz ran on top of Wayland.

I'm not quite in favor of Wayland - the approach is too simplicistic in my opinion. It may be usable for some kind of embedded device, or a very small desktop environment, but nowadays X.Org can be compiled into a binary small enough to run on a mobile phones, and once Wayland starts implementing some advanced features the difference will become smaller and smaller.

Some features, like network transparency, are not even possible with Wayland. This is a huge step backwards. Some other projects are also abandoning network transparency in small steps, like KDE with the new notification area, but at least there are fallbacks in place.

Maybe it would be better to just rip out all those now-unnecessary features from X.Org and streamline the protocol a bit. Most applications use a library to wrap the protocol anyways, and if the effort was coordinated with the larger distributions over an extended timeframe noone would really notice.

[Djhg2000]

Is the Window management/window decorations client side? If its client side, then that means Wayland users will see the same things windows users see when an app window hangs, or pops up a dialog, that being that they can't move the window.

Not sure if I got the concept of Wayland right, but wouldn't a window manager take care of that? Such as Compiz?

The way I got it, Wayland + Compiz would make a complete desktop environment, or have I missed something?