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Wayland 1.4 Released With Many New Features

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  • Wayland 1.4 Released With Many New Features

    Phoronix: Wayland 1.4 Released With Many New Features

    Wayland 1.4 has been released today along with the updated Weston reference compositor. The release is arriving a few days late but overall there are a lot of exciting improvements and new features to find with this major update that competes with the X.Org Server and Mir...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Wayland and Mir certainly "compete" with each other to some extent, but aren't both solutions meant to be successors to X.org rather than compete with it?

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    • #3
      Wayland and Mir don't compete with each other as Mir only target Ubuntu and Wayland everything else. There has to be something to compete over first.

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      • #4
        The issues I see with Wayland is
        A) the compatibility with X as well as speed, as many of the graphical software are/were written with X's limitations in mind.
        B) the relatively new nature of it, scaring potential developers off.
        C) X has worked for (almost) 30 years now (it turns 30 in June this year), although aged, it still works fine, however, I don't think many are ready to switch from something which still works so well for so long.
        D) Potential increase in resources required compared to X.
        E) Lack of native support by applications, which is related to B.

        If Wayland would be able to bypass these issues, then I would start using it, until then, I'm sticking with X.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Cann View Post
          A) the compatibility with X as well as speed, as many of the graphical software are/were written with X's limitations in mind.
          I fail to see how having X's limitations in mind is an issue. As for compatibility with X, there is XWayland. As for speed, I fail to see either if you say it is slow or what, or even what are you basing this on.

          B) the relatively new nature of it, scaring potential developers off.
          I can't argue the new nature could scare developers, but X's complexity does pretty much the same. It is not for fun that toolkits were needed. And thanks to them, you could avoid talking with Wayland directly, too.

          C) X has worked for (almost) 30 years now (it turns 30 in June this year), although aged, it still works fine, however, I don't think many are ready to switch from something which still works so well for so long.
          That's true. And that's why X11 isn't going to disappear anytime soon, and even Wayland's FAQ states so.

          D) Potential increase in resources required compared to X.
          That assertion seriously depends A LOT on the context. If you use X without composition, then yes, you are probably going to use more memory with Wayland, as Wayland works with compositors, meaning every surface has its own buffer; this is true for all composition, even with X. Most programmers will also assume they can use OpenGL while programming for Wayland, although it's not a hard requirement. If you use composition, X already wastes more resources. It also comes with a lot of cruft, due to the kitchen sink approach. My guess, although it should be tested as everything, is that Wayland will be leaner than X, using less resources, at least compared to X with a compositing window manager.

          E) Lack of native support by applications, which is related to B.
          Yes, currently this is an issue. But for most maintained applications, this will change in the near future, as they use up-to-date toolkits and those implement native support for Wayland.

          If Wayland would be able to bypass these issues, then I would start using it, until then, I'm sticking with X.
          Well, you should probably wait at the very least until the second half of the year, maybe next year. I think by then we'll have:
          A) A more tested (in real world usage) code base, for both XWayland and Wayland, which should address A and B.
          B) Something to benchmark and measure, addressing (or at least confirming or refuting) D.
          C) Proper toolkits' support, alongside with the apps using them, addressing E.

          Your point C will not be quite addressed in the near future, but I don't see why should you care about those cases. The fact you migrate won't change how maintained or unmaintained what they need keeps. And AFAIK, it will still be maintained for them, because those people actually tend to keep a cash flow to the open source projects they use, as they are mostly in the professional areas.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by DanL View Post
            Wayland and Mir certainly "compete" with each other to some extent, but aren't both solutions meant to be successors to X.org rather than compete with it?
            Well, to actually succeed X.org they have to prove they are better suited than X.org for whatever uses they share, thus, compete with it.

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