John Carmack Is Interested In Wayland On Ubuntu

[hiryu]

What ABI do you want to be compatible?

X is complicated

X Clients = Your applications
X Server = Your renderer/display manager
X Windows = Networking protocol
X DDX = Device Dependent X. Your '2-D driver'
X DIX = Application libraries and network API


Which part do you want to keep?

The applications, this requires some of the other points as well.

[drag]

Well, who the hell wants to run a remote application and have it's interface rendered in local machine nowadays?

Any large corporation with half a brain already makes extensive use of remote applications. Especially in conjunction with virtualized desktops and things like Wyse Terminals.

They just don't use X Windows. They use things like ICA.

The latency spent transmitting rendering commands and bitmaps are far higher than just running it locally. This design is so 1950's.

Fuck all it is.

X11 is, very literally, 1986 technology. Think 1986. Like really swear-to-god 1986. Like Micheal Jackson 'Beat It' 1986. That was when X11 networking was designed and implemented. It's been pretty much set in stone since then.

It's a good wish but in the real world, it doesn't really work. It never worked for me.

Yeah. Have fun in your 'real world' mom's basement.

Those of us that actually implement and support large scale systems know that X11 is fine, but it's hardly the only game in town and it's far from the most practical and most efficient anymore.


You want to see what the real world looks like outside your Linux desktop?

http://www.gotomypc.com/remote_access/remote_access

"Now with iPhone client support!"

Take a careful look at company's name at the bottom of the website. They make a shitload of money because X11 networking is simply not good enough. They are used in literally thousands of huge companies world wide. Remote desktop, remote applications is big business for them.

I like X Window networking. OpenSSH integration makes it deadly simple and relatively secure were otherwise it's a total nightmare to use and has just about the worst network security you could possibly imagine. But the world has moved on. Sad to say.

You don't need X to do remote applications or have remote desktops. You don't need Xorg X server running your video card to display, render, or be backwards compatible with X applications either.

I can take any Windows desktop and in about 20 minutes of work get very good X11 compatibility with SSH integration. With OS X X windows is even more trivial to use. It's practically built-in.

You can also run X Windows applications FROM your Windows or OS X desktops. People don't do it, but it's possible. Now think very carefully why people don't do it...

If VNC was the only alternative to X then we'd all be f*king stupid to move away from X. But it's not.


Seriously. Check this shit out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvfkj8V6ylM

[drag]

The applications, this requires some of the other points as well.

Then you have a DDX specifically for Wayland. Call it 'Wayland DDX'.

Leave the rest the same. 100% ABI compatible with your X applications.

Xorg XServer is not the only DDX. You have a few different Windows DDX for running X on Windows. XQuartz for running X applications on OS X. You even have Xephyr for running a X Server on your X Server. You don't need your X Server running on your hardware to be compatible with software, hell you can even get hardware acceleration if the implementation is good enough (think: AIGLX).


Skip down to the part were it says "X as a Wayland client"
http://wayland.freedesktop.org/architecture.html

[drag]

Even Xephyr has XRender acceleration support:
http://www.advogato.org/person/sdodj...html?start=112

[hiryu]

Then you have a DDX specifically for Wayland. Call it 'Wayland DDX'.

Leave the rest the same. 100% ABI compatible with your X applications.

Xorg XServer is not the only DDX. You have a few different Windows DDX for running X on Windows. XQuartz for running X applications on OS X. You even have Xephyr for running a X Server on your X Server. You don't need your X Server running on your hardware to be compatible with software, hell you can even get hardware acceleration if the implementation is good enough (think: AIGLX).


Skip down to the part were it says "X as a Wayland client"
http://wayland.freedesktop.org/architecture.html

I misunderstood you, yes, this was the solution I was looking for.

[unimatrix]

Why are lots of people whining about Wayland not being network transparent? Seriously, who cares. You can always add a module to make it network transparent (the devs even said they would one time). In reality desktop users do not need network transparency. It is just a waste of resources, even if very slight. What the hell is with these pointless features that trade-off performance.

[hiryu]

Why are lots of people whining about Wayland not being network transparent? Seriously, who cares. You can always add a module to make it network transparent (the devs even said they would one time). In reality desktop users do not need network transparency. It is just a waste of resources, even if very slight. What the hell is with these pointless features that trade-off performance.

I think the concern isn't over if it can happen, but over whether it will happen.

[deanjo]

I believe that John, having as much clout as he does in the gaming industry, has just done something marvelous for Wayland.

Sure, he didn't give any specifics other than he wishes he had time to contribute, but that shout-out alone will generate further interest for it.

Meh, that's overrated. We once had a glowing testimonial from Nick Shaffner of Duke Nukem Forever fame for one of our open source projects and it made no discernible change in the products acceptance or contributions.

[FunkyRider]

Any large corporation with half a brain already makes extensive use of remote applications. Especially in conjunction with virtualized desktops and things like Wyse Terminals.

You have half an idea knowing that those remote desktop "technology" you listed about does not do client-server window drawing over the network?

It is different between 'take a screen shot and transmit it to another pc' and 'tunnel my all GUI commands and pixmaps to another pc to let it assemble and render the window for me'

The first one is your acclaimed large corporation remote desktop and multi million dollar industry blah blah, and the latter is X. This rendering window in 'X server' which is actually a client pc and run program as 'X client' which actually run on a server is utterly stupid at best.

[Ex-Cyber]

You have half an idea knowing that those remote desktop "technology" you listed about does not do client-server window drawing over the network?

It is different between 'take a screen shot and transmit it to another pc' and 'tunnel my all GUI commands and pixmaps to another pc to let it assemble and render the window for me'

Either way, the important part is that the application code shouldn't need to care about any of this. It should be dealing with a model abstract enough that a screen being behind an Ethernet MAC instead of just a PCIe bridge doesn't break the whole concept.