Are You Sure You Want X.Org To Die?

[dstaubsauger]

so this is an article basically explainig why we still need the x.org foundation even if we dont want to continue using the xorg server. and now we have two pages of comments almost exclusively discussing the technical differences between the xorg server and wayland.

seriously?

[Azrael5]

Wayland is going to be implemented in the next forthcoming, after this happen xorg has to be terminated since the first distro implements efficiently Wayland. Linux distros have to be efficient optimizing hardware system taking benefit of maximum adaptability.

[JonathanM]

so this is an article basically explainig why we still need the x.org foundation even if we dont want to continue using the xorg server. and now we have two pages of comments almost exclusively discussing the technical differences between the xorg server and wayland.

seriously?

That is at least somewhat on topic, the comments on an article about the geforce 6 two days back had around a page of discussion about vegans and vegetarians.

[SystemCrasher]

Don't do that.
You throw the old shoes away when you are sure the news ones fit and are in your hands! (Old Italian saying)

That's what exactly going to happen to xorg

[pjezek]

First, no SW project is a dogma regardless its lenght of life. Second, no one would go on with the project lacking permanent design and fuctional analysis and issuing improvements. Third, no one not precisely informed about XOrg and Wayland schemes and the codes can strongly argue voting for the former or the latter. Last but not least, any pure USD funding face severe risk of monetary collapse... Think!

[pgoetz]

What's the state of network transparency with Wayland? Is there a nice solution meanwhile, that's at least as convenient to the user as X11 (meaning: remote windows look exactly like local windows, are managed by the local WM,...)?

There has definitely been some preliminary work on this. Daniel Stone has a video already a couple of years old showing a proof of concept. Note that this will likely work more like VLC/RDP for obvious reasons.

[Uqbar]

First, no SW project is a dogma regardless its lenght of life. Second, no one would go on with the project lacking permanent design and fuctional analysis and issuing improvements. Third, no one not precisely informed about XOrg and Wayland schemes and the codes can strongly argue voting for the former or the latter. Last but not least, any pure USD funding face severe risk of monetary collapse... Think!

So,it's' be better to get GUI nightmares (or going back to text mode) because xorg has poor design or bad functional analysis.
We'd definitely ditch Wndows for the same reasons and enbrace BeOS or GEM.
In the end it's all about pixels and mouse pointers...

[tajjada]

Openbox is a pure X application. Porting it to Wayland would basically amount to a total rewrite.

I would like that to happen though - for someone to create something that's compatible with openbox's configuration files and theme definitions and otherwise behaves just like openbox (pipe menus!! ), but is actually a Wayland compositor instead of an X application.

I don't use Openbox, but I understand how you feel. I use i3 on X, and until a few months ago I was almost hopeless that I'll ever switch to Wayland. But then the glorious http://github.com/SirCmpwn/sway project appeared. Which is exactly what you are describing, but with i3 instead of openbox. It works exactly like i3, behaves exactly like i3, and is compatible with the configuration files, but is a wayland compositor. I am very happy sway exists. I hope that someone makes a similar thing for openbox, so that you and other openbox users can feel the same happiness.

[erendorn]

I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge (not a dev, just an interested user)

a,b,c ) First you have to take into account that today's major X desktops (and toolkits) don't use the X11 protocol, instead they render to a pixmap. Hence network transparency is reduced to sending pixmaps over the network, not draw calls. From what I know, RDP and/or VNC are both better contenders for this usecase.
In a nutshell : single application : as of yet, no. Complete desktop : shouldn't be a problem.

I guess that, for a single application, it would be trivial for the server to start a dedicated compositor with the single application full screen, with the compositor's sole purpose being remote input/output (through RDP seemless or any other relevant protocol).

Regarding f), not sure what the question is, but wayland in Fedora includes (or will include?) support of multiple display with different DPI each.

[hwertz]

I think it's premature for X.Org to die (I have not ever called for it, yet.) Is X.Org a bit messy? Yes. But software tends to get a bit messy as it supports "corner cases", gains portability to odd platforms, and gains flexibility. I like the concept of Wayland, and it may well replace X.Org entirely at some point. But at present? It's Linux-only AFAIK (not very portable), requires X compatibility for both client (most clients use X still) and server (many cards run X.Org and have wayland "talk" to it.) Will it's code stay nice and clean as it has to handle corner cases that it doesn't handle at all now? That I don't know. I do think it'll ultimately get these features. Luckily for everyone involved, the "UNIX culture" tends to be conservative, in that they will not usually let a "newer and better" but feature-incomplete software replace software that is (to put it kindly) "mature" but feature-complete.

For me, the case it doesn't handle is remotely running an app. No, I don't want to view a remote desktop (VNC will work for that.) No, I don't want an app to composite (on-screen) onto screen B, then remote-desktop that individual window onto screen A. I use computer A to login to computer B and run a few applications for display on computer A on a regular basis. This would be doable (under the Wayland model) by having the apps composite off-screen, then use vnc or whatever into a window on A. But until Wayland actually spports this, it's not feature-complete compared to X.