4 ms·

I am the only one to think that X network transparency is a great and very useful feature ? I don't see the point, if I ever need a Windows like operating syst

I am the only one to think that X network transparency is a great and very useful feature ? I don't see the point, if I ever need a Windows like operating system, I can just use Windows.

jdub 16y ago
Sure, it's awesome (and has served us well for a very long time), but as hardware and software change, it has placed limitations on how we can compose the logical components of the display server, and can be done separately anyway. Much like X servers on platforms that don't use X as their display server (and available for practically every OS), you will be able to run an X server alongside Wayland, and run X clients against it from anywhere. (Plus you can always run rootless remote clients with other protocols such as RDP.) Wayland may replace the X server that talks directly to your hardware, but it won't replace or discard the utility of network display protocols (X or otherwise).
Derbasti 16y ago
Well, at least there are people who could not care less for network transparency. Me, for example. Laptops are so small and powerful these days, why would I not run X locally?
- drdaeman 16y ago
  Because current X implementation is completely screwed up. Instead of rendering on server and sending only high-level messages like "here be buttons", X's rendering everything on client — even rasterizing fonts, then sending bitmaps over network. Obviously, volumes are huge so is latency. And there isn't even a slight hope of look-and-feel consistency, too (how client on remote machine is supposed to know your GTK theme?) Wayland may seem weird, but it could be a step in a right direction. Just throw in network transparency at widget toolkit level.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  The typical thing is to run the X server locally and the client remotely. There are lots of reasons to do this such as the server possessing special hardware, license managers, fast disks with the data you care about, more memory, more cores.
  - Derbasti 16y ago
    For my usual desktop tasks, all the 'data I care about' is on my very own hard drive. Also, processing power of my laptop is good enough to not need any 'special hardware' or 'more memory' than I have. That is why I asked why Mr. John Desktoe Ubuntu-user would want to have network transparency. (I realize that this might be different for some bigger installation, but most (Linux-) people just run Ubuntu locally on their Laptops)
    - jedbrown 16y ago
      Sounds like your example user never runs anything on a remote machine except through the browser. Why bother with any other protocols?
      - Derbasti 16y ago
        The example user might like to use some word processing software, some native email client with big storage, some graphic editing and maybe even some Twitter app. Some people prefer native, installed applications to doing everything in a browser. What do you know, she might even want to do some programming!
modeless 16y ago
X sucks at network transparency, supposedly its one redeeming feature. RDP is better. X is slow (xlib requires too many round trips) and doesn't forward things users care about like sound and local devices like printers, USB sticks, cameras, etc. But worst of all, it's simply ridiculous that you still can't move an X client between servers without terrible hacks.
- dexen 16y ago
  You are mistaking idea with implementation. RDP is, ultimately, a bitmap transfer protocol, with some goodies like compression and transfer of only the changed parts. X11, on the other hand, provides both bitmap and raster transfer. It's up to the application to decide which parts of widgets are drawn pixel by pixel and which are drawn as shapes. With raster transfer, you can get the smallest possible footprint. Also, X11 is asynchronous in default configuration, so round-trip times is not the problem in general case. As far as anecdotal evidence is valid, I've been using X11 version of Acme [1] over Ethernet for about two years. It was pretty much undistinguishable from running it locally -- virtually no latencies. Granted, the server was just a few switches (perhaps also a router) away, but that's the business case for X11 use. As for USB, sound etc. transport -- not in X11 itself. But it's available in NX [2], which is X11 with some extensions. I'm worried X11 protocol could become a `second-class citizen' in POSIX GUI stack. As soon as just one serious application starts depending on screen being on the same machine as the process, others will follow soon and we'll be screwed. EDIT: you may also want to have a look at DXPC [3] -- it works surprisingly well over medium-latency, low-bandwidth links like ADSL (with <50kbps upstream). NX is said to be built on top of that. ---- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) [2] http://www.nomachine.com/ http://www.nomachine.com/ [3] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/ http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/
  - albertzeyer 16y ago
    Afaik, both GTK and Qt (and probably most others) are drawing anyway pixel by pixel.
    - 16y ago
sandGorgon 16y ago
question - does stuff like VNC (which also works on windows) not suffice ?
- BCM43 16y ago
  VNC is much slower, and has many disadvantages because it works at the level of the entire desktop rather than just an application.
  - sandGorgon 16y ago
    hmm.. but what about Xzibit - a per window VNC app (https://github.com/tthurman/xzibit https://github.com/tthurman/xzibit , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyjz2BuoEg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyjz2BuoEg ) I think it is basically sponsored by Collabora
  - sciurus 16y ago
    X11 is snappy when both computers are on the local network, but as soon as the traffic has to travel over the internet X11 is unusably slow. VNC feels sluggish in that situation but it's still usable. xpra or nx can make X11 usable over the internet. I suspect something like xpra will be created for wayland.
    - wladimir 16y ago
      In my experience, even on a local network X11 can be nearly unusably slow, especially over WIFI. The protocol has too many roundtrips.
      - dexen 16y ago
        Choppy network on WiFi? Read up on Bufferbloat: https://gettys.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/introducing-the-criminal-mastermind-bufferbloat/ https://gettys.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/introducing-the-crim... http://www.bufferbloat.net/ http://www.bufferbloat.net/
Symmetry 16y ago
No, which is why Wayland is going to have network transparency. Don't rely on second-hand sources, go reading the development mailing list.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- danssig 16y ago
  No it isn't, did you read the mailing list? The closest thing to in the list was one of the devs responding to a troll saying "if you really want that, here is how you can implement it".
e1ven 16y ago
I don't like it, even a little, and I'm a Linux guy in shells 10 hours a day. The biggest problem is that X is at too low a level to be useful for primitives, and too high a level to be fast. If the network transparency were written at the GTK/QT level, and said "draw this widget here", it'd be super-speedy, and it'd be kinda kickass. NXservers do this better. If it were lower-level, like VNC, it could also be pretty sweet. Because VNC is low-level, you can run it FAST, and get usuable results. Remote X is in a no-mans-land. It uses primitives that were relavent in 1985, but not today, which means It's FAR slower than VNC. If sending the bitmaps over the wire is dramatically faster, you're doing something fundamentally wrong. I like the featureset that X provides, but remote forwarding X today just does NOT work well.

I am the only one to think that X network transparency is a great and very useful feature ? I don't see the point, if I ever need a Windows like operating system, I can just use Windows.

jdub 16y ago

Sure, it's awesome (and has served us well for a very long time), but as hardware and software change, it has placed limitations on how we can compose the logical components of the display server, and can be done separately anyway. Much like X servers on platforms that don't use X as their display server (and available for practically every OS), you will be able to run an X server alongside Wayland, and run X clients against it from anywhere. (Plus you can always run rootless remote clients with other protocols such as RDP.) Wayland may replace the X server that talks directly to your hardware, but it won't replace or discard the utility of network display protocols (X or otherwise).

Derbasti 16y ago

Well, at least there are people who could not care less for network transparency. Me, for example. Laptops are so small and powerful these days, why would I not run X locally?

drdaeman 16y ago
Because current X implementation is completely screwed up. Instead of rendering on server and sending only high-level messages like "here be buttons", X's rendering everything on client — even rasterizing fonts, then sending bitmaps over network. Obviously, volumes are huge so is latency. And there isn't even a slight hope of look-and-feel consistency, too (how client on remote machine is supposed to know your GTK theme?) Wayland may seem weird, but it could be a step in a right direction. Just throw in network transparency at widget toolkit level.
jedbrown 16y ago
The typical thing is to run the X server locally and the client remotely. There are lots of reasons to do this such as the server possessing special hardware, license managers, fast disks with the data you care about, more memory, more cores.
- Derbasti 16y ago
  For my usual desktop tasks, all the 'data I care about' is on my very own hard drive. Also, processing power of my laptop is good enough to not need any 'special hardware' or 'more memory' than I have. That is why I asked why Mr. John Desktoe Ubuntu-user would want to have network transparency. (I realize that this might be different for some bigger installation, but most (Linux-) people just run Ubuntu locally on their Laptops)
  - jedbrown 16y ago
    Sounds like your example user never runs anything on a remote machine except through the browser. Why bother with any other protocols?
    - Derbasti 16y ago
      The example user might like to use some word processing software, some native email client with big storage, some graphic editing and maybe even some Twitter app. Some people prefer native, installed applications to doing everything in a browser. What do you know, she might even want to do some programming!

modeless 16y ago

X sucks at network transparency, supposedly its one redeeming feature. RDP is better. X is slow (xlib requires too many round trips) and doesn't forward things users care about like sound and local devices like printers, USB sticks, cameras, etc. But worst of all, it's simply ridiculous that you still can't move an X client between servers without terrible hacks.

dexen 16y ago
You are mistaking idea with implementation. RDP is, ultimately, a bitmap transfer protocol, with some goodies like compression and transfer of only the changed parts. X11, on the other hand, provides both bitmap and raster transfer. It's up to the application to decide which parts of widgets are drawn pixel by pixel and which are drawn as shapes. With raster transfer, you can get the smallest possible footprint. Also, X11 is asynchronous in default configuration, so round-trip times is not the problem in general case. As far as anecdotal evidence is valid, I've been using X11 version of Acme [1] over Ethernet for about two years. It was pretty much undistinguishable from running it locally -- virtually no latencies. Granted, the server was just a few switches (perhaps also a router) away, but that's the business case for X11 use. As for USB, sound etc. transport -- not in X11 itself. But it's available in NX [2], which is X11 with some extensions. I'm worried X11 protocol could become a `second-class citizen' in POSIX GUI stack. As soon as just one serious application starts depending on screen being on the same machine as the process, others will follow soon and we'll be screwed. EDIT: you may also want to have a look at DXPC [3] -- it works surprisingly well over medium-latency, low-bandwidth links like ADSL (with <50kbps upstream). NX is said to be built on top of that. ---- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) [2] http://www.nomachine.com/ http://www.nomachine.com/ [3] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/ http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/
- albertzeyer 16y ago
  Afaik, both GTK and Qt (and probably most others) are drawing anyway pixel by pixel.
  - 16y ago

sandGorgon 16y ago

question - does stuff like VNC (which also works on windows) not suffice ?

BCM43 16y ago
VNC is much slower, and has many disadvantages because it works at the level of the entire desktop rather than just an application.
- sandGorgon 16y ago
  hmm.. but what about Xzibit - a per window VNC app (https://github.com/tthurman/xzibit https://github.com/tthurman/xzibit , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyjz2BuoEg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyjz2BuoEg ) I think it is basically sponsored by Collabora
- sciurus 16y ago
  X11 is snappy when both computers are on the local network, but as soon as the traffic has to travel over the internet X11 is unusably slow. VNC feels sluggish in that situation but it's still usable. xpra or nx can make X11 usable over the internet. I suspect something like xpra will be created for wayland.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    In my experience, even on a local network X11 can be nearly unusably slow, especially over WIFI. The protocol has too many roundtrips.
    - dexen 16y ago
      Choppy network on WiFi? Read up on Bufferbloat: https://gettys.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/introducing-the-criminal-mastermind-bufferbloat/ https://gettys.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/introducing-the-crim... http://www.bufferbloat.net/ http://www.bufferbloat.net/

Symmetry 16y ago

No, which is why Wayland is going to have network transparency. Don't rely on second-hand sources, go reading the development mailing list.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
danssig 16y ago
No it isn't, did you read the mailing list? The closest thing to in the list was one of the devs responding to a troll saying "if you really want that, here is how you can implement it".

e1ven 16y ago

I don't like it, even a little, and I'm a Linux guy in shells 10 hours a day. The biggest problem is that X is at too low a level to be useful for primitives, and too high a level to be fast. If the network transparency were written at the GTK/QT level, and said "draw this widget here", it'd be super-speedy, and it'd be kinda kickass. NXservers do this better. If it were lower-level, like VNC, it could also be pretty sweet. Because VNC is low-level, you can run it FAST, and get usuable results. Remote X is in a no-mans-land. It uses primitives that were relavent in 1985, but not today, which means It's FAR slower than VNC. If sending the bitmaps over the wire is dramatically faster, you're doing something fundamentally wrong. I like the featureset that X provides, but remote forwarding X today just does NOT work well.