Mark's Announcement Sparks New Wayland Activity

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mark's Announcement Sparks New Wayland Activity

Mark Shuttleworth's announcement this week that Ubuntu will eventually dump the X.Org Server for Wayland has resulted in a great deal of media coverage for this emerging display server project that up until now was really only talked about and covered by Phoronix from the point in 2008 when we introduced the world to Wayland. While there's still many months of work ahead before all of the pieces of the Linux desktop stack will be ready for a Wayland Display Server by default, it seems many people are already taking a look at Wayland...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODc1OA

[mirv]

Seeing as some of that activity was before the announcement, the recent kernel summit & plumbing conference may have sparked more interest as well - particularly Keith Packard's presentation.

[89c51]

Seeing as some of that activity was before the announcement, the recent kernel summit & plumbing conference may have sparked more interest as well - particularly Keith Packard's presentation.

i read that keith packards presentation was about the future of graphics in linux but does anyone has more details about it???

[mirza]

Usually, network transparency is considered as major X.org advantage over Wayland. In Wayland however, each app is required to paint shared image buffer which is later composed to screen. Why is it problem to use some userspace program with assistence of Wayland and forward individual clients over tcp/ip? Is it because buffers are usually on the graphic card and reading of it is too slow?

[Yfrwlf]

Usually, network transparency is considered as major X.org advantage over Wayland. In Wayland however, each app is required to paint shared image buffer which is later composed to screen. Why is it problem to use some userspace program with assistence of Wayland and forward individual clients over tcp/ip? Is it because buffers are usually on the graphic card and reading of it is too slow?

I hope it's possible to do it quickly, because all I know is RDP on Windows is so much faster than VNC, or at least the default VNC clients/servers which are common today, that SOMETHING needs to outdo it and soon.

I know that Linux servers don't typically use GUIs, or they use web interfaces instead, but GUIs ARE something that will eventually come to server environments for non-CLI administration. Even if you use a web interface, there will always be various reasons for logging into a specific server, and quite simply non-CLI-inclined users are going to want access eventually, so Linux can't keep holding onto CLI-only server interfaces forever. Wayland being lightweight will further encourage eventual use in server environments.

[RoboJ1M]

I hope it's possible to do it quickly, because all I know is RDP on Windows is so much faster than VNC, or at least the default VNC clients/servers which are common today, that SOMETHING needs to outdo it and soon.

I know that Linux servers don't typically use GUIs, or they use web interfaces instead, but GUIs ARE something that will eventually come to server environments for non-CLI administration. Even if you use a web interface, there will always be various reasons for logging into a specific server, and quite simply non-CLI-inclined users are going to want access eventually, so Linux can't keep holding onto CLI-only server interfaces forever. Wayland being lightweight will further encourage eventual use in server environments.

I had this problem setting up MythTV backed on a CLI only server.
The answer was tunnling X over SSH. After finding that solution, I see why there is no "RDP" on Linux.

[garytr24]

If wayland can do software rendering onto a remote X backend, acting as an X client, then the problem's solved, no? Also, most apps will use an abstraction like QT or GTK, so will work with any backends supported by those.

[movieman]

If wayland can do software rendering onto a remote X backend, acting as an X client, then the problem's solved, no?

From what I've seen on their mailing list, Wayland has no intention of supporting remote rendering, _AND_ they plan to have the applications do their own window decoration, which makes it fundamentally incompatible with X. They seem to want to take all the worst mistakes from Windows and repeat them.

Also, most apps will use an abstraction like QT or GTK, so will work with any backends supported by those.

a) that's a QA nightmare if you have to test every application with both X and Wayland backends.
b) having to tell every application whether to use X or Wayland would be a pain.
c) numerous applications simply won't work on X unless they're written to use it; most obviously anything that performs video playback. Not that video playback to a remote X server makes much sense of course .

To me, when the IT hype is heading back to the centralised server, thin client idea, throwing away all the features that were designed into X precisely in order to support that concept the last time it was going to be the future seems freaking insane.

[Delgarde]

Usually, network transparency is considered as major X.org advantage over Wayland. In Wayland however, each app is required to paint shared image buffer which is later composed to screen. Why is it problem to use some userspace program with assistence of Wayland and forward individual clients over tcp/ip? Is it because buffers are usually on the graphic card and reading of it is too slow?

Don't forget that it needs to be interoperable - X is how remoting is done on the Unix world, and if I can't remote-display apps from a Ubuntu machine on a local Fedora / SuSE / Debian machine, it's a problem. In fact, for some of us, it's more than a problem - it's an outright showstopper that would rule Ubuntu out of my workplace.

[movieman]

Don't forget that it needs to be interoperable - X is how remoting is done on the Unix world, and if I can't remote-display apps from a Ubuntu machine on a local Fedora / SuSE / Debian machine, it's a problem. In fact, for some of us, it's more than a problem - it's an outright showstopper that would rule Ubuntu out of my workplace.

Ditto. If I can't remotely display Ubuntu apps on a non-Ubuntu box without using a monstrous hack like VNC then it's bye-bye Ubuntu.