Ubuntu Touch/Tablet Is Using SurfaceFlinger

[nej_simon]

X11 has had how long to be lean mean graphics machine? SurfaceFlinger and QT's mobile graphics server have little amount of time out there and are on many phones and set top boxes. X11? nothing, it's developers missed to the train a long time ago to make a friendly graphics layer. I cringe everytime I have to delve into the X11 config directories and swim past prehistoric files for xcalc or something. Give us blob and OSS drivers to throw at the kernel, and load <your favorite graphics server here> that writes to it, whether on my phone, laptop, server, or SoC.

Are you running a prehistoric version of X11 too? Xorg has been autoconfiguring for some time so there is usually no need to edit config-files. Unless you manually have to apply some quirks to get things working, but another graphics system could have such issues too.

Btw, meego used X11 and the Nokia N9 is very smooth and responsive. Tizen 1.0 uses X11 (I don't know about later versions) and so does Sailfish OS.

[devius]

It's funny how people in these forums start to moan and complain about things that are only in their own heads.

That's what these forums are for

[shmerl]

The problem is Linux was getting no where on mobile device due to the lack of driver support. Most support Android and are restrictive if approached for datasheets or what ever. Canonical had to bite a bullet and adopt some of Android's core so as to access the drivers and support chain. These areas will continue to be improved and updated.

Consider the amount of different devices out there from China and mainstream that would need dedicated works just to get ported. Canonical wants success now. The problem is how to get existing software to work that maybe looking for a different windowing method. Solutions...Containers? Library distinctions?

Comparing this to work that Mer/Jolla-Sailfish/PlasmaActive folks do, I'd say that Canonical deserted the fight to gain short term benefits. Mer/Jolla-Sailfish/PA however go along the way that desktop Linux is going - i.e. X.org -> Wayland shift. And they are working with hardware vendors. Not easy - but they are doing it instead of chickening out to grab some market. Canonical just decided to take a shortcut, but a bad one. By the way, libhybris which is apparently used by Canonical now was created by the Mer architect who also works in Jolla. For me all this is a good reason to stick with Sailfish and PA, rather than jumping to Ubuntu's train.

[yourfriendarmando]

When I came to Linux, I was birthed into the notion that X was "it" and nothing more, everything graphics will use it, and you're stuck with it's huge install base and memory footprint (80MB to my phone's 8MB Resident Set Size). Then you see Mac OS X using something different, as well as Linux-based phones (surfaceflinger) and tv set tops (Roku using some qt-based server) using something lean developed just recently. Are graphics servers not that that hard to make as the X folks made it out to be? I'll avoid further complaining, but us Linux desktop users deserve something better!

[Akka]

X11 has had how long to be lean mean graphics machine? SurfaceFlinger and QT's mobile graphics server have little amount of time out there and are on many phones and set top boxes.

Yes you can but you don't need Canonical for that. You can use Qt for android without Canonicals contribution.

Do anyone know which sound daemon Canonical plan to use, is it audioflinger?

[chenxiaolong]

Yes you can but you don't need Canonical for that. You can use Qt for android without Canonicals contribution.

Do anyone know which sound daemon Canonical plan to use, is it audioflinger?

PulseAudio

[Figueiredo]

Comparing this to work that Mer/Jolla-Sailfish/PlasmaActive folks do, I'd say that Canonical deserted the fight to gain short term benefits. Mer/Jolla-Sailfish/PA however go along the way that desktop Linux is going - i.e. X.org -> Wayland shift. And they are working with hardware vendors. Not easy - but they are doing it instead of chickening out to grab some market. Canonical just decided to take a shortcut, but a bad one. By the way, libhybris which is apparently used by Canonical now was created by the Mer architect who also works in Jolla. For me all this is a good reason to stick with Sailfish and PA, rather than jumping to Ubuntu's train.

You make it sound like there is this honorable GNU path to follow and canonical lost this honor to follow evil guy google and its gang. if there is any thecnichal merit to wayland vs. SF, I would very much like to hear, otherwise, you do not provide any support for you claim that the shortcut canonical took is "bad".

The strategy seems to be working. One day after the release ubuntu touch has already been ported to the galaxy S III...

[gururise]

Michael,

Can you please include Nexus 4 in your upcoming Linux benchmarks of Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

[shmerl]

Honorable path is simple - collaboration and sharing of effort. Surface Flinger doesn't serve this purpose.

[johnc]

Android is preferable IMO. This thing is going to be niche market at best. I'd be surprised if they even line up any hardware partners.

Then again it's hard to get excited about Ubuntu now that Canonical has gone deep into the crazy.

It went from, "Oh cool, a new version of Ubuntu!" to "Dear God a new version of Ubuntu already? How long can I hold off an upgrade?"

Nobody will want this thing other than geeks who don't know better.