Adam Jackson On The State Of The X.Org Server In 2020

[oiaohm]

I'm talking about usability. Your answer proves my point: this implementation can do this, that implementation can do that. But there is no single, ready, finished implementation that does everything X does.

In fact, who wants more than one implementation?

X11 does not just single implementation for crossing over the network. Basically stop using a bull crap example.

You are liking to forget xpra, xvnc, nx, freerdp server .... So X11 x.org server does not do everything in a single implementation when it comes to crossing network either.

When it comes to desktop or applications over network its a multi implementation mess be it Windows, X11 or Wayland.

Ferry like it or not the area you picked to attempt to make a point is not a area that is valid to make a point by as there is really no difference between X11 and Wayland for how this is functionally implemented.

Please note general X11 protocol network stuff does not tollate network disruptions at all this is why for work stuff you will be using one of the alterative not what is built into the X11 protocol in most cases.

Yes the x.org X11 server source contains both protocol X11 network and xvnc because for crossing network a single implementation is not good enough.

freerdp server for Wayland was merged into Weston and in fact made stable where the X11 version of freerdp server is unstable. Waypipe is the generic Wayland way over network to be compositor neutral.

The idea that a single ready finished implementation that does everything X does as a objective of Wayland to match is crap because X11 is done as multi implementations and no single X11 server implementation can do it all either. Nothing like a totally unreasonable demands ferry. Ferry basically stop asking for something X11 solutions don't in fact offer of wayland.

[ferry]

X11 does not just single implementation for crossing over the network. Basically stop using a bull crap example.

You are liking to forget xpra, xvnc, nx, freerdp server .... So X11 x.org server does not do everything in a single implementation when it comes to crossing network either.

When it comes to desktop or applications over network its a multi implementation mess be it Windows, X11 or Wayland.

Ferry like it or not the area you picked to attempt to make a point is not a area that is valid to make a point by as there is really no difference between X11 and Wayland for how this is functionally implemented.

Please note general X11 protocol network stuff does not tollate network disruptions at all this is why for work stuff you will be using one of the alterative not what is built into the X11 protocol in most cases.

Yes the x.org X11 server source contains both protocol X11 network and xvnc because for crossing network a single implementation is not good enough.

freerdp server for Wayland was merged into Weston and in fact made stable where the X11 version of freerdp server is unstable. Waypipe is the generic Wayland way over network to be compositor neutral.

The idea that a single ready finished implementation that does everything X does as a objective of Wayland to match is crap because X11 is done as multi implementations and no single X11 server implementation can do it all either. Nothing like a totally unreasonable demands ferry. Ferry basically stop asking for something X11 solutions don't in fact offer of wayland.

vnc/rdp have nothing to do with X.

If you want to open a remote app with X all you need is ssh -X to the remote and then just start xclock& or whatever. You seem to forget in the "old" days (like 30 years ago) we had a single hpux server with multiple xterminals, using xdmcp. And if you drop all security, you can still do this today.

[oiaohm]

If you want to open a remote app with X all you need is ssh -X to the remote and then just start xclock& or whatever. You seem to forget in the "old" days (like 30 years ago) we had a single hpux server with multiple xterminals, using xdmcp. And if you drop all security, you can still do this today.

Yes that what you did 30 years ago. For over 95 percent of current day X11 applications ssh -X does not work and still does not work even if you drop security if you stick to what is provided by the X11 protocol. Issue is opengl. So the start whatever claim by you is mega bull crap because you cannot do that using what X11 protocol provides.

https://xpra.org/trac/wiki/Usage/OpenGL

Yes one of the ways around the Opengl issue with modern day applications is to use xpra in combination with wayland based solution. Waypipe is basically xpra for Wayland.

Really around 2004 the old solution with X11 started breaking as toolkits started using opengl more and more. Yes this is 4 years before Wayland.

Waypipe with wayland could also be used to serve up to multi wayland running terminals while supporting opengl and vulkan applications.

The reality is you are saying do something that with X11 has been dieing the death of a 1000 cuts and is basically not functional any more.

Wayland provide with waypipe is very much equal to if you look at X11 and restrict yourself to universal working solutions right down to requiring some bit of third party software to deal with the image buffers over the network.

[ferry]

Yes that what you did 30 years ago. For over 95 percent of current day X11 applications ssh -X does not work and still does not work even if you drop security if you stick to what is provided by the X11 protocol. Issue is opengl. So the start whatever claim by you is mega bull crap because you cannot do that using what X11 protocol provides.

https://xpra.org/trac/wiki/Usage/OpenGL

Yes one of the ways around the Opengl issue with modern day applications is to use xpra in combination with wayland based solution. Waypipe is basically xpra for Wayland.

Really around 2004 the old solution with X11 started breaking as toolkits started using opengl more and more. Yes this is 4 years before Wayland.

Waypipe with wayland could also be used to serve up to multi wayland running terminals while supporting opengl and vulkan applications.

The reality is you are saying do something that with X11 has been dieing the death of a 1000 cuts and is basically not functional any more.

Wayland provide with waypipe is very much equal to if you look at X11 and restrict yourself to universal working solutions right down to requiring some bit of third party software to deal with the image buffers over the network.

You sound a bit emotional. I am not the enemy here, I know that opengl won't work across X. And potentially one of the wayland implementations may solve that.

And I agree, X is dying slowly. But then really slowly. And one day, wayland will be ready to replace it.

But 95% not working?
- Synaptics works
- Firefox works
- Libreoffice, works
- Running MS Office under Wine, across X, works
- this list goes on and on

So, what doesn't work? A game? Kodi?

[oiaohm]

You sound a bit emotional. I am not the enemy here, I know that opengl won't work across X. And potentially one of the wayland implementations may solve that.

Waypipe and xpra does kind of solve it. Something to be aware of all the wayland implementations use xwayland and xwayland combind with any of them doing network provide at least software level opengl support to X11 application and with amd/intel gpus accelerated. So this is not potentially one of the implementations may solve that the answer is in fact all of them with a network protocol solve it.

But 95% not working?
- Synaptics works
- Firefox works
- Libreoffice, works
- Running MS Office under Wine, across X, works

List does not get as far as you presume.

Firefox have a problem. Cairo

https://www.cairographics.org/OpenGL/

Horrible as it sound Firefox to function properly wants at least 2d level opengl software rendering will do. This is not X11 protocol network. Without it you have increased firefox crashes. Yes this is needing something like xpra or waypipe to function right.
MS Office under wine really does not work right either. MS Office uses DirectDrawRenderer wine offically only will support you if that DirectDrawRenderer is done by opengl as the GDI path these days not well developed and high buggy. This leads to incorrect rendering of documents and extra crashes. Again you are needing something like xpra or waypipe so it functions right.

Libreoffice I would say works without extra crashes without opengl. But font rendering in fact degrades this does effect your what you see is what you get.

So out of those 5 you listed only 1 works with X11 protocol across network without issues then 1 being Libreoffice has minor rendering issues the other 3 have extra crashes and instability. The odds of running a X11 applications these days across networking using X11 protocol network stuff and not having problems is insanely rare.

So, what doesn't work?

The reality is you created a list where the majority of the applications that in fact don't work correctly when you ssh -X with a normal X11 server. The list of applications that in fact work over X11 protocol networking correctly these days is insanely small.

Yes I have had people complain because they have been attempting to use some of the applicaitons you named over ssh -X and were complain that there had to be network issues when the applications themselves were crashing out because they are no longer fully compatible with X11 protocol over network.

[JPFSanders]

Waypipe and xpra does kind of solve it. Something to be aware of all the wayland implementations use xwayland and xwayland combind with any of them doing network provide at least software level opengl support to X11 application and with amd/intel gpus accelerated. So this is not potentially one of the implementations may solve that the answer is in fact all of them with a network protocol solve it.




List does not get as far as you presume.

Firefox have a problem. Cairo

https://www.cairographics.org/OpenGL/

Horrible as it sound Firefox to function properly wants at least 2d level opengl software rendering will do. This is not X11 protocol network. Without it you have increased firefox crashes. Yes this is needing something like xpra or waypipe to function right.
MS Office under wine really does not work right either. MS Office uses DirectDrawRenderer wine offically only will support you if that DirectDrawRenderer is done by opengl as the GDI path these days not well developed and high buggy. This leads to incorrect rendering of documents and extra crashes. Again you are needing something like xpra or waypipe so it functions right.

Libreoffice I would say works without extra crashes without opengl. But font rendering in fact degrades this does effect your what you see is what you get.

So out of those 5 you listed only 1 works with X11 protocol across network without issues then 1 being Libreoffice has minor rendering issues the other 3 have extra crashes and instability. The odds of running a X11 applications these days across networking using X11 protocol network stuff and not having problems is insanely rare.



The reality is you created a list where the majority of the applications that in fact don't work correctly when you ssh -X with a normal X11 server. The list of applications that in fact work over X11 protocol networking correctly these days is insanely small.

Yes I have had people complain because they have been attempting to use some of the applicaitons you named over ssh -X and were complain that there had to be network issues when the applications themselves were crashing out because they are no longer fully compatible with X11 protocol over network.

Most people doesn't realise most X11 apps that work via "ssh -x" are old school tools like "xterm" and frens, most modern apps just burn or work terribly via plain "ssh -x"

I use xpra every day all day for work, and even xpra which does a great job has small issues every now and then with things like drag and drop or clipboard management, using flat "ssh -x" is a non-starter for modern apps.

I recommend xpra over ssh -x any day of the week.

Glad to learn that waypipe offers similar functionality to xpra.

[ferry]

Waypipe and xpra does kind of solve it. Something to be aware of all the wayland implementations use xwayland and xwayland combind with any of them doing network provide at least software level opengl support to X11 application and with amd/intel gpus accelerated. So this is not potentially one of the implementations may solve that the answer is in fact all of them with a network protocol solve it.

OK so lets say I want to start partitionmanager (KDE's version of gparted) on a remote server. Both are running KDE. I can do that now over X as ordinary user, but as root there is an error loading an xcb plugin (sadly for a KDE user, gparted works fine).

So, surprise me, how do I get partitionmanager to run across waypipe? Note, I now used sddm to login using plasma (wayland).

[oiaohm]

OK so lets say I want to start partitionmanager (KDE's version of gparted) on a remote server. Both are running KDE. I can do that now over X as ordinary user, but as root there is an error loading an xcb plugin (sadly for a KDE user, gparted works fine).

There is no much you can do about problem exists between keyboard and chair. KDE partitionmanager is strictly designed that GUI parts be it X11 or not don't run as root. So asking it to run as root is you being PEBKAC.

So, surprise me, how do I get partitionmanager to run across waypipe? Note, I now used sddm to login using plasma (wayland).

That simple
1) don't do PEBKAC so don't use root user remote as KDE partitionmanager is particular designed to refuse that this limitation is the same if you are X11 or Wayland..
2) have waypipe installed both ends that can be a little hard as not all distributions have it so you may need to build it from source.
3) follow the instructions to use waypipe https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe/

waypipe ssh user@theserver partitionmanager

This will work but I would be recommend using the spin up on socket and forward socket route.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe/-/issues/6#note_193622

As covered here to deal with connection drop out.

Using sddm and plasma wayland or any other wayland as the desktop makes absolutely no difference to these instructions.

To be correct you can get gparted working by exploiting waypipe. Waypipe connects by sockets so you can run it locally without a network connection.

Why gparted normally will not work with a normal wayland desktop of any kind is Xwayland only accepts connections from the user its running as. Of course using waypipe server you can spin up Xwayland as root and have gparted connect to that with the output going to a socket and then run the user part of waypipe as your normal user connect to that socket and show gparted running as root on a non root wayland desktop. Of course these kind of stunts work over network and locally.

The reality I would not be recommending partition alteration tools being run by general ssh -X forward because the results can be horrible bad. You want to use xpra or waypipe(in reconnect setup) for this stuff so that network connection can disappear mid partition alteration and the partition alteration process continues while you reconnect.

Basically this is not that you cannot run root applications on wayland desktops running as a normal user its that you need something like waypipe todo it and extra steps.

The extra steps keep root user applications memory more away from your general user applications memory.

[ferry]

There is no much you can do about problem exists between keyboard and chair. KDE partitionmanager is strictly designed that GUI parts be it X11 or not don't run as root. So asking it to run as root is you being PEBKAC.

No that is synaptic:
~$ sudo synaptic
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
Unable to init server: Kon niet verbinden: Verbinding is geweigerd
Kon GTK niet starten.

Waarschijnlijk draait u Synaptic in Wayland met rootrechten.
Herstart a.u.b. uw sessie zonder Wayland, of draai Synaptic zonder rootrechten

With partitionmanager:
in one window: pkttyagent --process 2576936
in the other:
~$ pkexec partitionmanager
qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, wayland-egl, wayland, wayland-xcomposite-egl, wayland-xcomposite-glx, xcb.

2) have waypipe installed both ends that can be a little hard as not all distributions have it so you may need to build it from source.

According to https://repology.org/project/waypipe/versions almost nobody has it. Not even a PPA. Normally that means: it's still experimental, almost no one is using this (however good it sounds and I may try it if I find a bit of time to build).

[oiaohm]

No that is synaptic:
~$ sudo synaptic
X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
Unable to init server: Kon niet verbinden: Verbinding is geweigerd
Kon GTK niet starten.

Waarschijnlijk draait u Synaptic in Wayland met rootrechten.
Herstart a.u.b. uw sessie zonder Wayland, of draai Synaptic zonder rootrechten

You are using Wayland environment, Synaptic will continue without administrative privileges.
To make Synaptic fully functional, please restart your session without Wayland.

That message is very miss leading. Why it has failed is synaptic has attempted to run as root and connect to a Wayland running as a normal user be that XWayland or Wayland normal this is forbidden by default. Waypipe provides way around this for application. Same as running session really as root that is of course classed as bad.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Running_GUI_applications_as_root#Using_xhost

Xwayland default will refuse any X11 application not running as your user. But you can use
xhost si:localuser:root to tell Xwayland to accept connection from root user. So there is no need to restart session without Wayland to run Synaptic. Yes you have to downgrade your security of your desktop using xhost while forcing Synaptic to use X11 on wayland or use something like waypipe to transfer it output between users.

Basically the error you just showed is you not knowing what the heck you are doing same with those writing those messages. So this is not 100 percent your fault. You did presume that the message was truthful that its not.

Also sudo synaptic does not have to work its possible for your desktop X11 server to be configured not to accept other users applications connect to it. Sudo also does not work on all systems to be used that way. Some systems you have to use special programs so X11 display information gets passed though in normal X11 mode as well. Yes there are systems where you have to use pkexec to start synaptic under X11 instead of sudo because sudo will not give synaptic access to the users X11 server.

Waypipe and xhost both say that wayland desktops could have applications on the desktop that are not running as the desktops user. Yes in theory sudo/pkexec could be extend to take advantage of both. This would not require altering wayland protocol.

Remember if sudo or pkexec works for graphically X11 applications is because they setup environmental things so it could work. Its really simple for people who don't have long term experenice to presume sudo/pkexec always work with graphical X11 applications. sudo and pkexec can be no different to ssh to a remote system without -X if that is the case graphical applications running not as your user are dead be it wayland or X11. So sudo not working here is really sudo not extended so it can work. Distribution makers will not want to extend sudo so this cases straight up work either because it is a security risk and people taking a security risk really should know they are.

With partitionmanager:
in one window: pkttyagent --process 2576936
in the other:
~$ pkexec partitionmanager
qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, wayland-egl, wayland, wayland-xcomposite-egl, wayland-xcomposite-glx, xcb..

You are absolutely not meant to use pkexec with partitionmanager.

https://stikonas.eu/wordpress/2018/03/24/kauth-support-in-kde-partition-manager/

kauth was implemented in KDE partition manager in 2018 This means its user interface is meant to run as a normal user and it uses kauth to run the need parts at higher privilege. This is going to go badly wrong in many ways.

https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/linux-requirements.html

I see no -no-opengl so the xcb module or qt has attempted to start up with opengl. As you said opengl over wire does not work. Opengl by pkexec also commonly does not work. So yes Qt applications presume you have working opengl unless told otherwise and if you don't have working opengl spits out a bog standard message that could be 1000 other things as well. Opengl is one of the most common fail here.

xpra or waypipe can be used to make stuff like this to work because you have more complete support.

Neither of these messages from either application are what you call 100 percent truthful or useful.

According to

*repology edited so I don't go over the URL count*

almost nobody has it. Not even a PPA. Normally that means: it's still experimental, almost no one is using this (however good it sounds and I may try it if I find a bit of time to build).

True limited people are aware of it at this time. But when you go around saying wayland protocol need to be extended you have to be aware of items like waypipe because that was a summer of code project linked to Weston the reference compositor of wayland.

There are sometimes more than 1 way to solve a problem. Its really easy to keep on pushing for the way you know and not look at the others and consider them.