GNOME's Mutter 40 Alpha Released With Big Improvements

[JackLilhammers]

Except for the name. We're gonna give 'em hell for skipping 38 versions

But it is looking to be a nice release.

That's not true.
They skipped just 36

[skeevy420]

This log is mainly the same as the one for gnome-shell && mutter 3.38.2
But there are some really interesting things in development, especially on the gnome userland side.

I think people will love Gnome 40.

Except for the name. We're gonna give 'em hell for skipping 38 versions

But it is looking to be a nice release.

[skeevy420]

👏stop👏reading👏obsolete👏wikis👏

Development and decisions happen on Gitlab.

Conversely:

👏stop👏hosting👏obsolete👏wikis👏

🦌 GNOME, ⬆️ 🗓️ your 💩

[JonathanM]

👏stop👏reading👏obsolete👏wikis👏

Development and decisions happen on Gitlab.

👏 Stop 👏 spouting 👏 nonsense. 👏
Yes, very obsolete, its only updated multiple times a week: https://wiki.gnome.org/RecentChanges. It is used as part of the decision making process, for example, see: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK/Meetings/PostGTK4.
Some pages like the page mentioned by zxy_thf may be out of date (last updated 3 years ago), but you can figure that out by looking at the modification date. Even if pages are years old the direction the project is moving is likely still similar, so these pages are not useless (but do not track progress and new insights). From what I gather from the news here on GNOME shell progress the GNOME team seems to be slowly transitioning to option A from the GnomeShell4 page as You- already mentioned.

[Alexmitter]

This log is mainly the same as the one for gnome-shell && mutter 3.38.2
But there are some really interesting things in development, especially on the gnome userland side.

I think people will love Gnome 40.

[leio]

Now the only major feature that's still missing would be HDR support for 10 or 12bit panels.
That would make gnome at least on par with Windows/MacOS..

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2020/11/19/developing-wayland-color-management-and-high-dynamic-range/

[wizard69]

Maybe off topic, anyone know the latest progress of https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/W...ll/GnomeShell4 ?

Furthermore I'm wondering when our GUI applications may survive after the compositor crashed.

Interesting read there. Personally I'd prefer a piece by piece approach enhancing the existing compositor and limiting breakage, just running Fedora and keeping it updated I can see the system getting better. As for the app tool kits like GTK and other tool kits, we need to keep as much as possible compatible until there is demand for a far better app development solution. That solution doesn't exist right now but that would be the best time to start breaking things in the compositor.

Actually right at the moment I see GTK as a limiting factor in getting Linux accepted. There are much better tool kits for app development on Android and IOS/MacOS and that does impact Linux. Developers will often take the easy route to the money, maybe that isn't ideal but people need to eat. In any event I'd prefer that Mutter just be enhanced with the goal of minimal breakage until there is a well accepted initiative to go with a new tool kit and programming language. to put it another way don't break what is currently working until there is a infrastructure in place to do something dramatically different and arguably better.

[ssokolow]

As for why the X Security extension was disabled by default in the first place for Mutter with XWayland, the developers don't seem to be sure.

Probably because a lot of applications never get tested with it and it breaks them as a result. (Source: Firejail's documentation. Apparently Chrome is a well-known example.)

[MastaG]

Now the only major feature that's still missing would be HDR support for 10 or 12bit panels.
That would make gnome at least on par with Windows/MacOS..

[You-]

Maybe off topic, anyone know the latest progress of https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/W...ll/GnomeShell4 ?

Furthermore I'm wondering when our GUI applications may survive after the compositor crashed.

That wiki is more of a wish list than an aim. (4.0 has also been skipped). They are working under the hood to improve the internals every release. I suspect that at some point all of the useful features from that page will be implemented, but they dont plan to make it a bigger release breaking than we currently get. They will plug away at the features and impement them over time.

The input thread has been merged into the Mutter 40 branch already. The UI thread may be something they do later. So far I think they have been working towards atomic updates. I am not sure if tht is complete yet.