5 ms·

Better to say both X11, and Wayland are now two pieces of abandonware.

LockAndLol 6y ago
> This should hardly be surprising but a prominent Intel open-source developer has conceded that the X.Org Server is pretty much "abandonware" with Wayland being the future. Why do you say Wayland is abandonware? The last activity in the repo is from a week ago https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland
- kbumsik 6y ago
  > The last activity in the repo is from a week ago Actually most of repos you linked have the last activity of months ago. It's pretty worrying though.
  - boudin 6y ago
    Wayland is just a protocol. Look at the work on actual compositors, like mutter and wlroots to see some activity https://github.com/GNOME/mutter https://github.com/GNOME/mutter https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots
einpoklum 6y ago
So what do my Linux machines run desktop sessions on?
- agumonkey 6y ago
  webvnc -- whatwg
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Windows?
Rochus 6y ago
What's the alternative then?
- corty 6y ago
  Lack of an alternative does not make Wayland any better unfortunately.
corty 6y ago
I fear you are right. While there might be commits in the Wayland repos, featurewise progress has ceased. Waylands broken architecture has made progress hard to impossible. Porting of popular window managers is extremely slow since there is just no thought given to X compatibility. Input handling by each application on its own is insane and broken. Feature-consistency across compositors on things like screenshots is a pipe-dream. A promised easy ssh -X replacement doesn't work right after a decade. Waylands broken architecture makes progress slow through unnecessary duplication, incompatibility and the lack of a smooth migration for many software packages (usually it's rewrite-time). Wayland should be abandoned and the design redone.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  In what way is Wayland's architecture broken? Is there a critique floating around I could look at?
  - corty 6y ago
    The design overview slides are their own critique: Wayland does almost nothing besides render buffer handling. Input? Applications job. Window decorations? Compositors job. Application talking to the Compositor? Somebody elses job. Clipboard? Maybe compositor or toolkit. Screenshots and remoting? Somebody elses job, but only after Wayland has bored the appropriate holes in its security model. This all leads to a ton of incompatibilities between compositors, toolkits and applications. And beyond Gnome, the full "featureset" is still not implemented, where "featureset" is barely adequate as an X11 replacement. But the buffer handling is great, no more flickering...
    - nullc 6y ago
      > But the buffer handling is great, ... so long as you don't care about latency and don't mind a $3000 top of the line 64 core desktop feeling slightly slower than a machine from 20 years ago. :(
      - heeen2 6y ago
pjmlp 6y ago
ChromeOS runs on Wayland, and it is used by WSL as well.
- tbr1 6y ago
  > ChromeOS runs on Wayland Kind of. The Chrome browser itself doesn't run on Wayland, it runs on a custom compositor (I believe Aura?). Sommelier[1] is a Wayland compositor used for Linux apps on CrOS (Crostini), but Chrome doesn't use it. There is an ongoing effort (Lacros) to make the Chrome browser itself run under Wayland on CrOS, but it's not public outside of development builds (and not yet on par with the "native" version). [1]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEAD/vm_tools/sommelier/README.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...
Avamander 6y ago
I really hate to say it, but Canonical was and still is correct with starting Mir.
- lmedinas 6y ago
  the problem was that the "whole" open source community sponsored by RedHat, Intel etc... bashed the project to oblivion and left Canonical as the only contributor and put all the efforts on Wayland. This is just one of the reasons why Linux never reaches highs as a Desktop OS.
- acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago
  Canonical announced Mir out of nowhere in an attempt to gain control just like they are trying now with Snap. After the announcement of Mir their developers went to IRC and made abundantly clear they had no idea how Wayland works and that Mir was useless. Where is Mir now? Using Wayland. People who were in the fence about supporting Wayland were now even more convinced they should ignore it. That's one of the reasons a decade later you still have this much FUD.
  - Avamander 6y ago
    > Where is Mir now? Using Wayland. It could have not gone that way. Now we've got two equally bad alternatives out there. > That's one of the reasons a decade later you still have this much FUD. I don't think you know what FUD means.
    - acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago
      Nice ignore the part where they realized Mir was useless. They even went on an edit spree in their wiki page. If Mir was so good and superior they would just keep developing it. Isn't that obvious? If the company who already spent all this dev time aka money on Mir doesn't believe in it, why would anybody else? They were even eating their own dog food and had some major industry pull at their disposal. The answer is they fucked it up.

> This should hardly be surprising but a prominent Intel open-source developer has conceded that the X.Org Server is pretty much "abandonware" with Wayland being the future. Why do you say Wayland is abandonware? The last activity in the repo is from a week ago https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland

kbumsik 6y ago
> The last activity in the repo is from a week ago Actually most of repos you linked have the last activity of months ago. It's pretty worrying though.
- boudin 6y ago
  Wayland is just a protocol. Look at the work on actual compositors, like mutter and wlroots to see some activity https://github.com/GNOME/mutter https://github.com/GNOME/mutter https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots

einpoklum 6y ago

So what do my Linux machines run desktop sessions on?

agumonkey 6y ago
webvnc -- whatwg
speedgoose 6y ago
Windows?

Rochus 6y ago

What's the alternative then?

corty 6y ago
Lack of an alternative does not make Wayland any better unfortunately.

corty 6y ago

I fear you are right. While there might be commits in the Wayland repos, featurewise progress has ceased. Waylands broken architecture has made progress hard to impossible. Porting of popular window managers is extremely slow since there is just no thought given to X compatibility. Input handling by each application on its own is insane and broken. Feature-consistency across compositors on things like screenshots is a pipe-dream. A promised easy ssh -X replacement doesn't work right after a decade. Waylands broken architecture makes progress slow through unnecessary duplication, incompatibility and the lack of a smooth migration for many software packages (usually it's rewrite-time). Wayland should be abandoned and the design redone.

QuesnayJr 6y ago
In what way is Wayland's architecture broken? Is there a critique floating around I could look at?
- corty 6y ago
  The design overview slides are their own critique: Wayland does almost nothing besides render buffer handling. Input? Applications job. Window decorations? Compositors job. Application talking to the Compositor? Somebody elses job. Clipboard? Maybe compositor or toolkit. Screenshots and remoting? Somebody elses job, but only after Wayland has bored the appropriate holes in its security model. This all leads to a ton of incompatibilities between compositors, toolkits and applications. And beyond Gnome, the full "featureset" is still not implemented, where "featureset" is barely adequate as an X11 replacement. But the buffer handling is great, no more flickering...
  - nullc 6y ago
    > But the buffer handling is great, ... so long as you don't care about latency and don't mind a $3000 top of the line 64 core desktop feeling slightly slower than a machine from 20 years ago. :(
    - heeen2 6y ago

pjmlp 6y ago

ChromeOS runs on Wayland, and it is used by WSL as well.

tbr1 6y ago
> ChromeOS runs on Wayland Kind of. The Chrome browser itself doesn't run on Wayland, it runs on a custom compositor (I believe Aura?). Sommelier[1] is a Wayland compositor used for Linux apps on CrOS (Crostini), but Chrome doesn't use it. There is an ongoing effort (Lacros) to make the Chrome browser itself run under Wayland on CrOS, but it's not public outside of development builds (and not yet on par with the "native" version). [1]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEAD/vm_tools/sommelier/README.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...

Avamander 6y ago

I really hate to say it, but Canonical was and still is correct with starting Mir.

lmedinas 6y ago
the problem was that the "whole" open source community sponsored by RedHat, Intel etc... bashed the project to oblivion and left Canonical as the only contributor and put all the efforts on Wayland. This is just one of the reasons why Linux never reaches highs as a Desktop OS.
acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago
Canonical announced Mir out of nowhere in an attempt to gain control just like they are trying now with Snap. After the announcement of Mir their developers went to IRC and made abundantly clear they had no idea how Wayland works and that Mir was useless. Where is Mir now? Using Wayland. People who were in the fence about supporting Wayland were now even more convinced they should ignore it. That's one of the reasons a decade later you still have this much FUD.
- Avamander 6y ago
  > Where is Mir now? Using Wayland. It could have not gone that way. Now we've got two equally bad alternatives out there. > That's one of the reasons a decade later you still have this much FUD. I don't think you know what FUD means.
  - acgkmopvvgvmgv 6y ago
    Nice ignore the part where they realized Mir was useless. They even went on an edit spree in their wiki page. If Mir was so good and superior they would just keep developing it. Isn't that obvious? If the company who already spent all this dev time aka money on Mir doesn't believe in it, why would anybody else? They were even eating their own dog food and had some major industry pull at their disposal. The answer is they fucked it up.