It's Time To Admit It: The X.Org Server Is Abandonware

[pal666]

It doesn't matter that a word _can_ have several meanings. What matters, is the meaning it's supposed to have. In context of the Mir display server, it's obvious that the intended meaning is "peace".

obviously if they wanted to mean "peace" they would just call it "peace"

[oiaohm]

I know the Wayland protocal is just that, a protocol so it doesn't really care about the underlying details. My point is about the current situation with Linux and the NVidia blob.

Those implementing compositors do care about underlying details so people don't have to implement duplication.

Yes because understandably NVidia doesn't want to spend time implementing a solution that Linux isn't going to adopt because Linux is hostile towards NVidia. To be clear, at the time the primary argument used against NVidia was a hostile version of "release an open source driver" or "use GBM directly" rather than finding a proper solution. For example KDE initially didn't want to implement EGLStreams not because of the merit's (and non merit's) of EGLStream's but because they didn't want to manage multiple codepaths and everything should be GBM based (which is kinda ridiculous because one of the main effects of Wayland being a protocol is that compositors have to deal with this).

To be correct you have not looked at libhybris right. Because that idea of GBM based is wrong. libhybris plugs into Mesa3d opengl/egl abstraction layer.

This is also two to tango. KDE stated there point they did not want to maintain 2 code paths. This does not mean everything has to be GBM at all.

Why are the Linux developers say to Nvidia support GBM. The reality is the EGLStreams cannot be implemented on top of Mesa either. EGLStreams not a universal abstraction layer it requires Nvidia particular logic.

On the other hand with Linux desktop wouldn't have accepted libhybris even if NVidia suggested it (in fact this is the first I heard of libhybris so I am reading up on it but since it is the first time I have heard of it thats already indicative enough.

This is without question wrong. Nvidia proposed libglvnd that is used to replace the Mesa universal abstraction layer that libhybrids depends on.

EGLStreams is an open standard and variants of it was used in the past (Android pre 2018).

That is no part used EGLStreams on Android devices this includes Nvidia. If you look the ARM Mali driver or any other non Nvidia android it does not use EGLStreams, Instead it uses hwcomposer set of Interfaces.

https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to-eglstream-or-not/

Please note in 2016 blog from KDE they are using by libhybris Android binary blob drivers. Nvidia binary blob drivers for Android at the time in fact worked with KDE because they exposed hwcomposer interface from Android.

You have missed how split brain Nvidia. EGLStreams comes out of the desktop/server departments. Yet the hwcomposer interface for Nvidia using Android devices come out of the embedded department. Please note the hwcomposter based driver for Android is also a GBM driver from Nvidia.

The fact is, the majority of NVidia's driver is actually a cross platform blob with an interface for every OS they support (old MAC'os with NVidia cards, BSD's, Linux and Windows). NVidia proposed a solution that gave the best performance for how their driver is designed (they said this directly).

Notice you did not write android and that is in fact correct. Nvidia Android support is out of a different department. And read what you said closer. Proposed a solution that gave the best performance based on how their driver was design this also means gave absolutely no consideration to how the other drivers of the platform were designed.

EGLStreams hits roadblock because its not design to provide hwcomposter interface Android needs and its not designed to be compatible with the existing pool of Mesa drivers.

This may be partially correct but at least according to https://github.com/NVIDIA/libglvnd, libglvnd does support EGL and also appears to be updated (last commit was 3months ago which from a company like NVidia isn't atypical workflow).

Sorry no this is Nvidia split brain. Its the normal workflow of the Nvidia embedded driver support team.

So I am not sure what the problem here is, at least according to that project repository NVidia does intend to fully support EGL unless I am missing something (the project is also open source so anyone can commit the changes necessary).

Yes libglnvd is design to take modifications so everyone driver stacks works. EGLStreams was taken straight to Khronos and set in stone with no plans to be modified to suit other vendors need. So you are AMD/Intel and other Linux GPU vendors and Nvidia walks up and say you will implement everything Nvidia way you really should not expect a good response. libglnvd is what comes out after Nvidia gets zero adoption of EGLStreams by other vendors heck when their own embedded driver development refuses to take it as well is EGLStreams absolutely screwed. For some reason Nvidia desktop developers keep on kicking EGLStream down the road.

Also FYI: Google is also developing a new kernel that will eventually replace Linux for Android and one of the main features of their new kernel is that it maintains an ABI for drivers which sit in userspace (in other words it works much better with proprietary drivers) rather than expecting everything to be in the kernel tree. This is because of very real issues that Android faces where a lot of phones are using outdated Linux versions and the Linux version can't be updated independently of proprietary drivers (which poses obviously problems).

This skips over a lot of important history. Android is first released with user space driver support on Linux. Vendors decide to use proprietary drivers in kernel space because it will be faster and more power effective so vendors over rode that orgonal idea. Is this the first time this has happened no.

Back in year 2000 there was a ABI designed for a universal to share the same kernel space binary blob driver between FreeBSD, Linux and other Unixs. Number of commercial drivers released supporting it the answer was 1 did the mainline Linux kernel support this the answer is yes. Nvidia also responds being locked out of internal kernel ABI stuff would hurt their performance so they would not be providing drivers. Yes this feature was removed from the Linux kernel for lack of usage and a open source driver had replaced the 1 commercial driver using the interface. So its a mistake to think Linux did not try to be more friendly to binary drivers.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/process/stable-api-nonsense.rst

Yes the issues that come out of that early experiment are written up here.

https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/generic-kernel-image

Google is not just looking at one solution to the driver issue. There is every chance that Google new kernel will have lack of driver support. Its all due to the performance effects of being able to optimised code paths with each other the mainline Linux kernel gives.

[timrichardson]

The big picture is that wayland has OEM support for embedded platforms, things that X can't run on. This is an important market. Wayland included this use-case in its design and therefore, Wayland is a product with a commercially viable future. Look at the enormous effort behind building a Wayland-native backend for Chromium. That was paid for by commercial interests that need it ... not for the linux desktop, but Wayland is a protocol: a linux desktop which supports Wayland can take advantage of this work.
No one is paying for X. It is commercially dead.

X11 is dead because it is a technological dead-end and this makes it a commercial dead-end. Once there was a Unix workstation market. Now, not so much. The linux desktop community on its own could never have sustained the development of X11. The Linux desktop market is not important enough; it never, ever was. We got lucky that someone else had a business case to build X11. Now, the business case & funding exists for Wayland (automotive for instance). Linux desktop is a hitchhiker looking for free rides, but the X11 ride is broken down on the side of the road. Wayland is motoring along.

[oiaohm]

X11 is dead because it is a technological dead-end and this makes it a commercial dead-end. Once there was a Unix workstation market. Now, not so much. The linux desktop community on its own could never have sustained the development of X11. The Linux desktop market is not important enough; it never, ever was. We got lucky that someone else had a business case to build X11. Now, the business case & funding exists for Wayland (automotive for instance). Linux desktop is a hitchhiker looking for free rides, but the X11 ride is broken down on the side of the road. Wayland is motoring along.

This is not quite right. You have overlooked something important.

https://wiki.c2.com/?XwindowProtocolShouldBeStabbedAndBurnt

There is a repeating pattern of the Linux desktop community getting upset with X11 starting their own new non X11 solution and it dieing out due to lack of vendor support. This leads to a lot of work on mesa to make own open source drivers.

Like it or not there was a very long term goal to get away from X11 server. So its not that the linux desktop community could not have sustained the development of X11. Its how do you be highly motivated to keep X11 alive when you know it defective.

Please note the reason why X11 was not the default interface of MacOS is when they looked it the result was that X11 was brain dead stupid.

There has basically been a long arguement to kill X11 off. Nvidia is now basically the last hold out. So if Nvidia wants X11 server on bare metal to stay alive they need to pick up the x.org X11 server maintenance if not they need to update their driver to be compatible.

[Ironmask]

choice is being taken away from Linux users, day by day.

I really hate it when people regurgitate the "Linux is about choice" crap, it's like an Apple fanboy saying Mac never gets viruses. "Choice" isn't some magical endless resource that flows out of Linux and is being restricted by evil people. Alternatives to software exist because real people are working on them, and it's a lot of effort to do that, even more so as software is just expected to do more than ever before, and probably will continue to do so. Software doesn't exist in a bubble, it needs the support of it's surrounding ecosystem. If a piece of software has no support from other software, like addons or API compatibility, then it's useless. And the more alternatives there are out there, the harder it is to write alternatives, because they all need to be compatible and work together.

Nobody's taking away your choice. Choice is restricted because it's a monumental task to create, maintain, and gain support for new software. Look at how much of an uphill battle Wayland has to go through, and that's with the entire industry supporting it. The only reason Linux had the illusion of "choice" in the past was because it was a toy OS with lots of toy programs. Now it's an actual serious OS with actual business software.

More importantly, alternatives aren't as important as customizing existing software. The more options and features existing software provides, the less reason you'd have to stop using it, and thus you won't have to go through the pain of replacing it and learning a new piece of software and dealing with the growing pains of it not working with other software you use. DEs are a perfect example of that, it's horrible to have to switch between them.

[Sonadow]

Choice is being taken away from Linux users, day by day.

Linux was never about choice.

It was always about letting people do whatever the fark they wanted to do with its source code by virtue of it being OSS.

[timofonic]

I would be careful about making judgements based on a few developers. Using that same reasoning Gnome is also experimental (actually considering how many things Gnome has broken historically and how many times they have changed their vision of "desktop" I would consider gnome more experimental).

The fact that a huge number of people are using KDE without problems means that its stable (which is the opposite of experimental).

GNOME seems too experimental to me to, but in different ways.

I knew lots KDE developers at Install Parties personally, and a neighbour of a friend was a KDE developer too.

[milkboy]

This discuss is getting looong.

IMO Xorg will be commercially abandoned, but will continue as a community project.
just because it has no commercial support does not mean it is abandonware, openssl has been running with just pure donation after all, not even commercially supported prior heartbleed.

I mean, this sounds like many previous discussion in the past to me.
like GNOME2(now MATE), Systemv, Flash, OSS sound server, etc....

even thou its been abandoned by the big players, few still used it.
so will it be an abandonware any time soon(in less than 5yrs)? nope, many people dislike change.
will it be abandonware 10yrs+ time? yes, nothing last forever.

Article title could be made better like "The X.Org Server Is Commercially Abandonware"

[oiaohm]

This discuss is getting looong.

IMO Xorg will be commercially abandoned, but will continue as a community project.
just because it has no commercial support does not mean it is abandonware, openssl has been running with just pure donation after all, not even commercially supported prior heartbleed.

I mean, this sounds like many previous discussion in the past to me.
like GNOME2(now MATE), Systemv, Flash, OSS sound server, etc....

even thou its been abandoned by the big players, few still used it.
so will it be an abandonware any time soon(in less than 5yrs)? nope, many people dislike change.
will it be abandonware 10yrs+ time? yes, nothing last forever.

Article title could be made better like "The X.Org Server Is Commercially Abandonware"

Really we are seeing the death by 1000 cuts to X.org X11 server.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=xf86-video-modesetting-VRR-June

The reality is the Intel particular graphics driver for X.org X11 server is basically dead. You have intel graphics and you run X11 x.org you will be using the xf86-video-modesetting driver or the Xwayland driver. AMD is also with X11 server is heading in the direction of xf86-video-modesetting being the driver left with their own custom xf86 driver for x.org going away.

xf86-video-modesetting driver is using libglvnd to get acceleration the same as Xwayland.

When mode setting is done in kernel space. Acceleration is done in opengl libaries exactly what point is there to have vendors keep on providing their own drivers for X11.

Wayland compositors also need the driver location simplify.

Basically Nvidia is failing to get the memo the old X11 system is going away.

[f0rmat]

I still use X over Wayland. Why?

Is there a Wayland version of Chromium or Firefox that actually works? Nope. Chromium doesn't exist and Firefox is glitchy and officially pre-alpha quality.
Is Xwayland usable for those? Nope. Xwayland has a timer granularity of 1ms. So instead of 60fps, both run at 58.8fps and stutter excessively.
So there's no acceptable web browser.

What about multimedia applications? Well, few games use Wayland, so we're back to Xwayland. That 58.8fps thing rears its ugly head again. Wine doesn't work well with Wayland , either.

I do not know about Chromium but I have absolutely zero issues with Firefox on KDE Neon wayland (Plasma 5.20.1 on Ubuntu 20.04) on my old A10-4800M APU. I watch various TV shows through Firefox and have zero issues. Kodi also works perfectly fine with KDE Neon wayland - zero issues. I do not use the system to play games - just occasional work but mostly as a HTPC.

Now my intel/nVidia other laptop, is used in a more personal business and professional way. Wayland was bad for me there - I did not even try Firefox.