LightDM Caught Off-Guard By Mir, Plans For Wayland

[dee.]

Ok so from what I gather it looks something like this (please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this):

+ Wayland system compositor 
+--- Splash screen 
+--- Display manager
+--+ Wayland compositor
   +--- XWayland

Wayland is the standard that defines how these parts interact. The implementation of these different parts can vary. The system compositor can be the default reference implementation or something else. The display manager can be LightDM, GDM, KDM or something else. The Wayland compositor can be Weston or something else.

The system compositor is at the bottom of the stack, and basically doesn't do any actual compositing per se, it just switches inputs between splash screen, display manager and the actual compositor. The actual compositor (Weston or equivalent) works as the window manager, on top of which all the applications run.

So the display manager is still needed to show the login screen, ask for username/password, and choose the session type. Then it basically just gets out of way and the actual compositor takes over.

[dstaubsauger]

related posts on LightDM mailing list:

By David Edmundson
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...ch/000358.html

By Robert Ancell (reply from the canonical guy)
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...ch/000359.html

[aavci]

Can't Wayland ask me these things directly and on its own?

Even the kernel could, but should it?

There are lots of stuff done in the display manager. If we cram all these into wayland, wouldn't that make it another X? Even a worse one?

And remember wayland is the name of the protocol. You would still need to implement it, probably in the form of a display manager.

[GreatEmerald]

Can't Wayland ask me these things directly and on its own?

Wouldn't that equate to a reference login manager?

[RealNC]

Then, how are you supposed to type in your password, select a session etc? Do you have an alternative design?

Can't Wayland ask me these things directly and on its own?

[aavci]

Those are the things that happen when a project is aimed for a specific distro.

The distro leaves the project and the project gets discouraged.

AFAIK, ubuntu is not leaving LightDM. But it is deeply integrating with Mir and thus not being ported to wayland. Now, the community needs to do all the heavy lifting to support wayland.

[aavci]

Why on earth does Wayland need a display manager to begin with? Isn't that one of those outdated X11 things we're trying to get rid of?

Then, how are you supposed to type in your password, select a session etc? Do you have an alternative design?

[RealNC]

Why on earth does Wayland need a display manager to begin with? Isn't that one of those outdated X11 things we're trying to get rid of?

[fsproc]

David E., have drink! relax.

[DebianLinuxero]

Those are the things that happen when a project is aimed for a specific distro.

The distro leaves the project and the project gets discouraged.