X.Org is the new kernel

[avilella]

Hi,

I think now that we have a kernel that is pretty much the most advanced kernel in the world, what the OSS community needs is to make X.Org the best in the world as well.

I think Phoronix understood this, and they are paying a lot of attention to the developments of X.Org. I enjoy reading the X.Org posts on Phoronix, as I enjoyed reading about kernel developments some years ago, when the really exciting things were happening. Luckily, a lot of developers are turning their attention to X.Org-related development. I am sure we will see the same kind of success in X.Org development in the near future as we saw in kernel development in recent years.

I would like to see some more posts in Phoronix about X.Org and the current state of the technology compared to Apple's and Microsoft's graphic libraries. What is X.Org doing better than Apple? What does Apple OSX have that we don't enjoy in X.Org yet? How is Microsoft doing with Aero and future releases?

Cheers,

Albert.

[Huenengrab]

Interesting point. But isn't it quite hard to compare two closed-source developments with a pretty open one?

[avilella]

Originally Posted by Huenengrab

Interesting point. But isn't it quite hard to compare two closed-source developments with a pretty open one?

Yes, I agree. Still, one can compare the final product features, compare the performance, etc. Phoronix has been doing a great job at comparing performance with different versions of a given software, different OSes on the same hardware, etc.

There is also information coming from the experts in the field. I remember watching a seminar given by K. Packard and someone else on the current state of X.Org and the X server (FLOSS conference?), and they mentioned general features where X.Org is doing better than Apple's windowing system and other features where X.Org is doing worse. I found it really interesting and I could see Phoronix publishing more things like that.

[deanjo]

Originally Posted by Huenengrab

Interesting point. But isn't it quite hard to compare two closed-source developments with a pretty open one?

Actually most of OS X is opensource (including the kernel) and very well documented.

http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/index.html

http://developer.apple.com/reference...943-TP40003594

[avilella]

Originally Posted by deanjo

Actually most of OS X is opensource (including the kernel) and very well documented.

http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/index.html

http://developer.apple.com/reference...943-TP40003594

My understanding is that the OSX Window System is NOT opensource or BSD-licenced, but closed-source and kept with secrecy. I may be wrong. But yet, we can compare the features/performance of it to X.Org.

[avilella]

By the way, here is a 5 year old post comparing X and Apple's Quartz:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comme...57&cid=6734612

Things we'd need to add/extend in X Window software (protocol+server+manager+fonts+...):

1) Extend font server and services to vend outlines and antialiased masks, support more font types, handle font subsetting.
2) Extend drawing primitives to include PS-like path operations.
3) Add dithering and phase controls.
4) Add ColorSync support for drawing and imaging operations, display calibration
5) Add broad alpha channel support and Porter-Duff compositing, both for drawing in a window and for interactions between windows.
6) Add support for general affine transforms of windows
7) Add support for mesh-warps of windows
8) Make sure that OpenGL and special video playback hardware support is integrated, and behaves well with all above changes.
9) We find that we typically stream 200 Mb/sec of commands and textures for interactive OpenGL use, so transport efficiency could be an issue.

[hmmm]

perhaps phoronix continue the current x-org articles with topics like:

evolution of x-org over the last 5 years compared top os-x (quartz) n windows (GDI -> WPF )

Short interviews with people like Keith Packard, Adam Jackson, Daniel Stone, Dave Airlie atc. Possibly even a regular column by someone at tungsten?

icc/colour correction/monitor calibration article dealing with little cms or similar techs like gegl.

[deanjo]

Originally Posted by hmmm

evolution of x-org over the last 5 years compared top os-x (quartz)

Any comparison to Quartz right now would be dated. 10.6 has some pretty radical changes coming under the hood.

[Thetargos]

Until it is released, any comparison is still valid. I'm not sure how long away is Snow Leopard (if the name will stick we'll have to see) still, but in the mean time, their current tech is 10.5, I think it would be possible to compare Xorg 7.4 (XServer 1.4) to Leopard.

I agree it would be an interesting comparison how do Quartz and Xorg compare... Without Window Managers (where Compiz is way beyond what both MacOS X and Windows)

[puelocesar]

Hi all, I registered just to ask why we can't have argb things on Xorg without composite, and mac users can have argb and even nice animations with windows with just a basic vga driver..

I think that's sad, because I installed hackintosh some time ago and even when it didn't recognized my video card, I had nice animations like "place", "show desktop", "dashboard", and even shadows, and with linux I need to turn on composite that's very slow on some configurations..