SteamOS Has Its Own Graphics Compositor

[cynical]

Not always. In fact, I recall someone checked the ld output on Steam itself, and it is directly linked to X.org. I don't know about Valve's people, but if I don't call X specific code, I avoid linking directly to it.
AFAIK, SDL provides abstractions for all of the direct X.org use, so rewriting those pieces shouldn't be hard. But if I have to guess, they ARE there.


I don't know about you, but I get concerned if targeting Ubuntu becomes different than targeting another distribution, as this makes the already slight chance of having support on Linux, even slighter to touch my distro of choice.

Having said this, I think all of those concerns are overblown. This doesn't make them invalid, so I can understand some people bashing Canonical for the choice of making Mir. Of course, there are ALSO zealots, and those will bash anything but their distro of choice. But I see them as pretty much negligible.

Well that's my point though, it doesn't make targeting Ubuntu any different for high level software developers, so why should I care as a user? Maybe Steam links to X.org now, (if true that is weird imo) but they would only do that because all distros use it, it's not like using Mir instead is going to make it more complicated for games to be released because a simple abstraction layer like SDL could be targeted instead. Of course that isn't the case for low level software that involves drawing to the display, so it is a valid concern for them when multiple display servers are being proposed. So for those developers I get the agitation, but when I see complaints from normal users (unless they provide good reason) my first thought is that they don't like something about Ubuntu or Canonical and this new display server just acts as another avenue of attack for them. This irks me, because it amounts to attacking them for straying from the herd, which ignores a lot of the positive attention that Ubuntu has brought to linux and open-source projects in general.

Honestly I'm ambivalent about Mir. It's preferable imo to use and contribute to community projects over developing your own in house stuff when possible. It's the spirit of collaboration that makes open-source interesting for me. On the other hand, I also support competition when goals diverge and you think you can do better. So I'm cautiously optimistic overall, but I wish more people would sit back and watch how things play out rather than jump into camps of support or against. Ubuntu is still a part of the community as long as they continue to make free and open-source software and try to make the experience of Linux better for their users.

Canonical attempted to forcefully direct the development of desktop Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. They introduced Mir, which was the stupidest, most nonsensical move ever made. It was an attempted powergrab, but it failed, because they failed to get anyone else's support for the project. So if they're smart, they'll probably just fold and go with Wayland in the future. If not, they're just isolating themselves into an island, and wither away due to increasing incompatibility with the rest of the Linux ecosystem.

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Forcefully direct? Attempted powergrab? What is this sensationalist nonsense? What about ALSA, Enlightenment, GTK, or systemd? They are all alternatives to what already existed, which some argue are better and others argue are worse. Their authors were also trying to direct the development of Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. In fact, so is everyone who writes software for Linux! But somehow it is bad because it's Canonical doing it. It's not like they are writing proprietary software or forcing anyone to do anything. I just don't understand this kind of negativity, this need to attack and belittle over nothing.

[mrugiero]

Well that's my point though, it doesn't make targeting Ubuntu any different for high level software developers, so why should I care as a user? Maybe Steam links to X.org now, (if true that is weird imo) but they would only do that because all distros use it, it's not like using Mir instead is going to make it more complicated for games to be released because a simple abstraction layer like SDL could be targeted instead. Of course that isn't the case for low level software that involves drawing to the display, so it is a valid concern for them when multiple display servers are being proposed. So for those developers I get the agitation, but when I see complaints from normal users (unless they provide good reason) my first thought is that they don't like something about Ubuntu or Canonical and this new display server just acts as another avenue of attack for them. This irks me, because it amounts to attacking them for straying from the herd, which ignores a lot of the positive attention that Ubuntu has brought to linux and open-source projects in general.

Honestly I'm ambivalent about Mir. It's preferable imo to use and contribute to community projects over developing your own in house stuff when possible. It's the spirit of collaboration that makes open-source interesting for me. On the other hand, I also support competition when goals diverge and you think you can do better. So I'm cautiously optimistic overall, but I wish more people would sit back and watch how things play out rather than jump into camps of support or against. Ubuntu is still a part of the community as long as they continue to make free and open-source software and try to make the experience of Linux better for their users.

I pretty much agree with you, except for the goals differing. I haven't seen yet where the goals between Mir and Wayland really differ. But, yeah, if they do differ, I agree with you.

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Forcefully direct? Attempted powergrab? What is this sensationalist nonsense? What about ALSA, Enlightenment, GTK, or systemd? They are all alternatives to what already existed, which some argue are better and others argue are worse. Their authors were also trying to direct the development of Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. In fact, so is everyone who writes software for Linux! But somehow it is bad because it's Canonical doing it. It's not like they are writing proprietary software or forcing anyone to do anything. I just don't understand this kind of negativity, this need to attack and belittle over nothing.

I agree on ALSA and systemd, but GTK, AFAIK, arose when there was no GPL toolkit, as Qt was proprietary at the time (or at least not GPL, I'm not sure if it was before or after they stopped having only the proprietary license), and Enlightenment follows a different approach as to other desktops.

[GreatEmerald]

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Forcefully direct? Attempted powergrab? What is this sensationalist nonsense? What about ALSA, Enlightenment, GTK, or systemd? They are all alternatives to what already existed, which some argue are better and others argue are worse. Their authors were also trying to direct the development of Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. In fact, so is everyone who writes software for Linux! But somehow it is bad because it's Canonical doing it. It's not like they are writing proprietary software or forcing anyone to do anything. I just don't understand this kind of negativity, this need to attack and belittle over nothing.

ALSA ans systemd are clearly better compared to the components they were made to replace (OSS and sysvinit). And Mir isn't. Mir does nothing that Wayland doesn't do. There was never any reason for Mir to exist. And it causes fragmentation problems - mostly for low-level developers, yes, but those are still problems, problems that arise from the biggest distribution adopting an unnecessary graphical server that nobody ever asked for. People don't necessarily bash it because it's Canonical, but rather because it's planned to be set as the default for the largest distribution, which then creates a rift between it and the rest of GNU/Linux. Mind you, this is just one of the flops that Canonical has done recently, so it's not that surprising that some people are disillusioned with Canonical itself, too.

[dee.]

This is the kind of crap I'm talking about. Forcefully direct? Attempted powergrab? What is this sensationalist nonsense? What about ALSA, Enlightenment, GTK, or systemd? They are all alternatives to what already existed, which some argue are better and others argue are worse. Their authors were also trying to direct the development of Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. In fact, so is everyone who writes software for Linux! But somehow it is bad because it's Canonical doing it. It's not like they are writing proprietary software or forcing anyone to do anything. I just don't understand this kind of negativity, this need to attack and belittle over nothing.

I don't really know much about the history of ALSA, but from what I gather, it was made because the only alternative at the time, OSS, sold out and went partially proprietary, so a totally free alternative was needed. The later developments on the sound stack (Jack, Pulseaudio, GStreamer, etc.) all build on ALSA, which is the low-level component of the Linux sound system. It remains in use to this day.

GTK is a toolkit. Toolkits are low-level components and don't conflict with each other. You can have different software on your computer that each uses different toolkits - GTK2, GTK3, Qt, EFL, WxWidgets - and they can all happily coexist together. You can use a desktop that uses GTK and run Qt-based software on it just fine.

Enlightenment is similarly just another desktop environment. You can install several desktop environments on your computer. You can have GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Enlightenment, etc. easily installed on the same OS, and switch between them when you want. They can coexist easily.

systemd is an init system, and again, there isn't many software that depend on the init system. You can run most software just the same, no matter if your OS uses systemd, OpenRC, SysVinit or Upstart.

It's different with toolkits or DE's or window managers - they come and go, but X has been a fundamental cornerstone of desktop Linux, something that everyone has been able to take for granted. The problem is, X has become outdated and suffers from bloat and design flaws. So Wayland was created, and most of the community had agreed on Wayland as the next step ahead. With a compatibility layer, Xwayland, the transition would be made easy - there'd be a transition phase where things would be slightly confusing with two display systems, but Xwayland would solve most issues and allow a smooth transition from X to Wayland. Canonical had also expressed support of Wayland, back in 2010 Mark said Ubuntu would support Wayland and be in the front line of adopters. Things were looking good, we could have a smooth transition to a modern display system, and create a really powerful software ecosystem, making Linux a truly powerful entity in the OS space.

So then, sadly, Canonical dropped the ball and created this mess of confusion, where we can no longer look into a smooth transition from point A to point B - instead we're going from point A to points C, D and maybe E, and that's going to cause some real fragmentation and problems and stomachache for everyone.

[moilami]

About Debian - it was more than expected. Valve had zero reasons to put themselves in position on depending on Canonical's mess with Mir and etc. This way they can depend on rock solid Debian, and switch to Wayland with the rest of the Linux world when that time will come.

I chose Debian GNU/Linux because it is the best when all things are being considered. I am happy Valve think the same.

[Desti]

About Debian - it was more than expected. Valve had zero reasons to put themselves in position on depending on Canonical's mess with Mir and etc. This way they can depend on rock solid Debian, and switch to Wayland with the rest of the Linux world when that time will come.

Valve will never switch to that slow Wayneland crap.