Does The Display Server Matter? The Latest Mir vs. Wayland Argument

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Does The Display Server Matter? The Latest Mir vs. Wayland Argument

The latest argument within the open-source camp is whether the choice of the display server is still relevant in modern times of the Linux desktop, given the advancements of tool-kits and other components. Alas, it's another Mir vs. Wayland battle...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTY0MTM

[Gusar]

So Canonical narrows the scope down to applications and then says display servers don't matter because of toolkits. That's actually a troll technique, narrowing the scope to make an argument that otherwise doesn't work. For example, what about toolkits themselves, they just magically work for different display servers? No, someone needs to implement backends for each display server. Also display drivers, they too don't just magically work, Wayland and Mir both being EGL based does not mean display server specific code isn't required. And even in the narrow scope of applications, Martin Gr??lin nicely demonstrates how things don't just work by saying the magic word "toolkit".

In short: Nice troll Canonical, but that all it is.

[garegin]

this abstraction stuff is only true in college textbooks. In reality, software is poorly abstracted and one change in the stack affects everything in the chain. that's why browser makers often have to deal with driver issues and whatnot (hardware acceleration in browsers is sometimes broken because of old drivers)

[HeavensRevenge]

Yes the display server DOES matter, this is just them trying to "brush off" something huge as something small... trying to sweep it under the carpet and hide the fact they created a mess yet again.

In Mir every window is it's own completely separate compositor making it an orchestration of compositors to create a final display output vs compositing to one surface like normal, Which is why it's architecture is a freaking interconnected mess probably worse than X itself.
is the image straight from Cononical's source repo in a png format from http://www.reddit.com/r/LinuxActionS..._architecture/ a post I had my buddy to create for me since I'm no reddit addict, decide for yourself...

PS Sorry for such a huge image, I dont know how to use a smaller version...

[entropy]

Display Server doesn't matter. Hence, we create a new one.

[TheBlackCat]

Aaron Siego goes into more detail regarding all the issues:

http://aseigo.blogspot.de/2014/03/more-on-why-display-server-does-matter.html

[AJenbo]

Everything is political

[johnc]

X.org -- it's the wave of the future.

[Ouroboros]

This just shows how ignorant Canonical is.

[Anarchy]

Sadly, only Martin has the right to complain because in the end he will have to deal with the two display servers.