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> Nothing on this list, besides desktop environments, are things the user ever has to think about, unless they go out of their way to. It seems you haven’t tri

by acqq 7y ago

> Nothing on this list, besides desktop environments, are things the user ever has to think about, unless they go out of their way to. It seems you haven’t tried to use Ubuntu as a desktop, especially not outside of command line. I didn’t care about anything on the list but had to make decisions often because, from my point of view, the GUI applications providing basic functionality just didn’t work. The answer was many times “it’s because it’s Wayland” or compositor or whatever. Horrible experience, when I've used (just an example) gpart for years, it worked, then install a new version of Ubuntu and it doesn't. Then I investigate why, because Wayland. And I really never wanted to care about Wayland and compositor. Then I want to record a screen interaction. Should be easy. Again... doesn't work, investigate... "it's because it doesn't on the new compositor whatever"... Etc. I suspect that those who develop GUI on Linux don't use themselves what they produce, as a lot of GUI is often unusable, or, even worse, was usable once and then completely degrades, even with newer... compositors, or even some other kind of "improvement."

vetinari 7y ago
1) There's no Ubuntu LTS release with Wayland as default display server. 2) Gparted doesn't work, because it wants to run as root. You should use an application, that runs only minimal, necessary parts as root, and the UI runs with your user's capabilities. 3) Wayland compositors do not provide unrestricted access to to composed display for very good reasons. They do provide an access through controlled API. That controlled API didn't stabilize into unified one among different compositors yet, so for screen recording you have to use compositor-specific utility for now. In Gnome-Wayland/Ubuntu, you have one available by default. So yes, when you clean up the capabilities over time, the old stuff will break. But without breaking it, you cannot develop your system. Apple also breaks compatibility will old apps, even more than most Linux distros.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  And yet I can still often run GUI programs written in 1995 on Windows 10 without recompilation. Hell, I can usually run GUI programs written for Windows in 1995 on Linux without recompilation. Don't pretend that compatibility is some kind of impossible dream.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    > And yet I can still often run GUI programs written in 1995 on Windows 10 without recompilation. Did you try it? Often, you cannot run even programs built in 2009 on Windows 10. > Well, I can usually run GUI programs written for Windows in 1995 on Linux without recompilation. You can run 1995 Linux binaries in Linux, provided a) you have the libraries they were linked against, b) they don't use direct hardware access ala svgalib c) they are not in a.out format, which was recently removed, due to nobody using it anymore.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > Did you try it? Often, you cannot run even programs built in 2009 on Windows 10. Yeah, I actually do it all the time. There are some programs that don't work, particularly games, but for the most part it works fine. > You can run 1995 Linux binaries in Linux, provided a) you have the libraries they were linked against Including glibc, and take care to jump through the appropriate hoops to ensure the linker can find them because chances are they aren't in your repo.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> I suspect that those who develop GUI on Linux don't use themselves what they produce, as a lot of GUI is often unusable, or, even worse, was usable once and then completely degrades, even with newer... compositors, or even some other kind of "improvement." I'd agree with that. I'd go so far as to say most GUI developers on Linux may never have actually used a GUI in their lives and rely on second-hand descriptions of how they work. Basic drag and drop often doesn't work, clipboards are all over the place, window behavior is super inconsistent... at least PulseAudio, for all its many faults, finally solved the sound server problem.
heavyset_go 7y ago
> It seems you haven’t tried to use Ubuntu as a desktop, especially not outside of command line. I'm typing this on Ubuntu. > The answer was many times “it’s because it’s Wayland” I don't know how that is an answer you've come across as a solution on Ubuntu, because Ubuntu does not use Wayland unless you go out of your way to use Wayland. > Horrible experience, when I've used (just an example) gpart for years, it worked, then install a new version of Ubuntu and it doesn't. Then I investigate why, because Wayland I've used gparted for more than a decade and never ran into an issue with it. Not sure why you have a problem with Wayland when Ubuntu doesn't ship with Wayland support. > And I really never wanted to care about Wayland and compositor. If you were using Ubuntu, you never had to care about Wayland, unless you inflicted that problem upon yourself by going out of your way to use Wayland. > I suspect that those who develop GUI on Linux don't use themselves what they produce, as a lot of GUI is often unusable, or, even worse, was usable once and then completely degrades, even with newer... compositors, or even some other kind of "improvement." I respectfully disagree.

by acqq 7y ago

vetinari 7y ago

1) There's no Ubuntu LTS release with Wayland as default display server. 2) Gparted doesn't work, because it wants to run as root. You should use an application, that runs only minimal, necessary parts as root, and the UI runs with your user's capabilities. 3) Wayland compositors do not provide unrestricted access to to composed display for very good reasons. They do provide an access through controlled API. That controlled API didn't stabilize into unified one among different compositors yet, so for screen recording you have to use compositor-specific utility for now. In Gnome-Wayland/Ubuntu, you have one available by default. So yes, when you clean up the capabilities over time, the old stuff will break. But without breaking it, you cannot develop your system. Apple also breaks compatibility will old apps, even more than most Linux distros.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
And yet I can still often run GUI programs written in 1995 on Windows 10 without recompilation. Hell, I can usually run GUI programs written for Windows in 1995 on Linux without recompilation. Don't pretend that compatibility is some kind of impossible dream.
- vetinari 7y ago
  > And yet I can still often run GUI programs written in 1995 on Windows 10 without recompilation. Did you try it? Often, you cannot run even programs built in 2009 on Windows 10. > Well, I can usually run GUI programs written for Windows in 1995 on Linux without recompilation. You can run 1995 Linux binaries in Linux, provided a) you have the libraries they were linked against, b) they don't use direct hardware access ala svgalib c) they are not in a.out format, which was recently removed, due to nobody using it anymore.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > Did you try it? Often, you cannot run even programs built in 2009 on Windows 10. Yeah, I actually do it all the time. There are some programs that don't work, particularly games, but for the most part it works fine. > You can run 1995 Linux binaries in Linux, provided a) you have the libraries they were linked against Including glibc, and take care to jump through the appropriate hoops to ensure the linker can find them because chances are they aren't in your repo.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

> I suspect that those who develop GUI on Linux don't use themselves what they produce, as a lot of GUI is often unusable, or, even worse, was usable once and then completely degrades, even with newer... compositors, or even some other kind of "improvement." I'd agree with that. I'd go so far as to say most GUI developers on Linux may never have actually used a GUI in their lives and rely on second-hand descriptions of how they work. Basic drag and drop often doesn't work, clipboards are all over the place, window behavior is super inconsistent... at least PulseAudio, for all its many faults, finally solved the sound server problem.

heavyset_go 7y ago

> It seems you haven’t tried to use Ubuntu as a desktop, especially not outside of command line. I'm typing this on Ubuntu. > The answer was many times “it’s because it’s Wayland” I don't know how that is an answer you've come across as a solution on Ubuntu, because Ubuntu does not use Wayland unless you go out of your way to use Wayland. > Horrible experience, when I've used (just an example) gpart for years, it worked, then install a new version of Ubuntu and it doesn't. Then I investigate why, because Wayland I've used gparted for more than a decade and never ran into an issue with it. Not sure why you have a problem with Wayland when Ubuntu doesn't ship with Wayland support. > And I really never wanted to care about Wayland and compositor. If you were using Ubuntu, you never had to care about Wayland, unless you inflicted that problem upon yourself by going out of your way to use Wayland. > I suspect that those who develop GUI on Linux don't use themselves what they produce, as a lot of GUI is often unusable, or, even worse, was usable once and then completely degrades, even with newer... compositors, or even some other kind of "improvement." I respectfully disagree.