Patches So Nouveau Users Can Try Out Wayland

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Patches So Nouveau Users Can Try Out Wayland

Chia-I Wu, the open-source developer who previously worked to bring Mesa to Android devices and worked on the new EGL state tracker, is now working for LunarG and has just published a patch-set that enables the Nouveau graphics driver to run the Wayland Display Server...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODczMg

[oliw]

I know it's still relatively young but I still don't understand why anybody would want to run Wayland. What is it's aim? How long is it from being usable?

[Bulldog]

I know it's still relatively young but I still don't understand why anybody would want to run Wayland. What is it's aim? How long is it from being usable?

If you compare it with X-server (a bit missleading, because they don't do the same things)

Visual quality: Wayland can archive better quality, better on animation and tearing.

Lighter: Wayland is lighter on resources, doesn't implement as much functionality as X-server. Much of this extra functionality in x-server is not used any longer by modern toolkits like QT or GTK+, but has to be supplied for backwards compatibility.

I think also Wayland integrates better with technology like OpenGL and Cario.

[89c51]

also Kristian posted this:

Quite a few things have happened since the last update, so I'm overdue
for a blog entry update on the project. We're now running on all
upstream software, no personal branches necessary, we have an X11
compositor, we have a multi-pointer, input redirection aware DnD
protocol, we can set cursor images, we have a SHM buffer transport
mechanism. We have fairly complete gtk+ and Qt ports, there's wayland
backend in the clutter project, we're using libxkbcommon for keyboard
layouts. We have a logo!

when we get complete gtk+ and qt how easy (or difficult ) will be to have a complete desktop without X?????

[smitty3268]

The main thing is that Wayland just drops all backwards compatibility and requires modern driver/kernel features in order to minimize the amount of code required. The result is a lighter program that integrates better into current technologies.

As far as being usable, I'd say it's not that far away for mobile devices running Meego, for example. But I doubt it will be seen anywhere on the desktop for quite a while. Dropping backwards compatibility there is a big deal, and not something that can just be done without lots of planning and a roadmap. Just for starters, they'd probably want to wait for NVidia and AMD to release binary drivers that would be compatible with it (Meego will likely only ship with Intel chips). The Qt/GTK toolkits need more time to finish getting ported/stabilized. Apps like Firefox that use some X-server API's directly need to be ported. Someone will need to figure out how remote desktop should work (embedding an x-server? VNC? A new protocol, possibly added into Wayland?) All of those things could take a while to fully finish, and most of them haven't really even started yet except for the toolkit porting.

[89c51]

isn't firefox a "pure" gtk application ????

[smitty3268]

isn't firefox a "pure" gtk application ????

No. Certain parts deal directly with X. Although I don't think it's a whole lot, so maybe it wouldn't take that long to port.

[some-guy]

No. Certain parts deal directly with X. Although I don't think it's a whole lot, so maybe it wouldn't take that long to port.

No, firefox does not use gtk at all, it has its own toolkit XUL which fakes the look of gtk.

[smitty3268]

No, firefox does not use gtk at all, it has its own toolkit XUL which fakes the look of gtk.

Firefox does use GTK, just not everywhere. XUL is a homegrown toolkit that lies on top of GTK (in linux) and other toolkits for other operating systems. Like how OpenOffice uses GTK in linux but has their own widget system on top for cross-platform code.

The system requirements page lists GTK 2.10+ as a requirement. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox...uirements.html

I can't remember where all Firefox is directly touching X, but I think it was in the event handling code. Also plugin handling, maybe. And scrolling? I'm not really sure, it could be all over the place or very limited.

[highlandsun]

The main thing is that Wayland just drops all backwards compatibility and requires modern driver/kernel features in order to minimize the amount of code required. The result is a lighter program that integrates better into current technologies.

As far as being usable, I'd say it's not that far away for mobile devices running Meego, for example. But I doubt it will be seen anywhere on the desktop for quite a while. Dropping backwards compatibility there is a big deal, and not something that can just be done without lots of planning and a roadmap. Just for starters, they'd probably want to wait for NVidia and AMD to release binary drivers that would be compatible with it (Meego will likely only ship with Intel chips). The Qt/GTK toolkits need more time to finish getting ported/stabilized. Apps like Firefox that use some X-server API's directly need to be ported. Someone will need to figure out how remote desktop should work (embedding an x-server? VNC? A new protocol, possibly added into Wayland?) All of those things could take a while to fully finish, and most of them haven't really even started yet except for the toolkit porting.

Designing a windowing system in this day and age that only has networking/remote desktop support added as an afterthought sounds rather pathetic. We're in an era of connected devices - handsets, tablets, desktops all should be able to interact, drag'n'drop, whatever. Jettisoning cruft is one thing, but jettisoning network-aware design is sheer ignorance.