7 ms·

Newer isn't better-designed. Unix was really well-designed, compared to so much of the modern stuff, and it does everything I need. Nineties Linux was a nice Un

by wegs 6y ago

Newer isn't better-designed. Unix was really well-designed, compared to so much of the modern stuff, and it does everything I need. Nineties Linux was a nice Unix. I wish we hadn't spent the past quarter-century turning it into nineties Windows, with layers upon layers upon layers of cruft. I don't get why Wayland is slow, when Enlightenment was fast on machines with 32MB of RAM, a 3dfx Voodoo, a spinning HDD, and a 66MHz CPU...

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
I've heard enlightenment can be a Wayland compositor now, could you try it? Also I think 3dfx Voodoo was the magic pixie dust, once you ever go OpenGL, you're not going back.
- modified001 6y ago
  https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened
- modified001 6y ago
  A developer sharing is experience working with EFL: https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    It sounds like the guy is way overexaggerating and basically didn't understand the library he was working with. What he describes isn't anything special - the "Evas_Object" (aside of the weird name) sounds like a HWND in Windows or Window in X. The part about layouts sounds like similar to sizers in wxWidgets which are used so that you can avoid using heavyweight native widgets just for layout that some other toolkits do. The event callback sounds like it uses a generic messaging system - again not much different than something like WndProc in Windows. EFL is written in C so it does have to work within the limitations of C but -non-toy- GUIs are inherently object oriented so things will be a bit more complicated than Qt that can lean on C++'s support for object oriented programming. Especially since apparently EFL also supports bindings to other languages which may also make things a bit more complicated.
    - modified001 6y ago
      It definitely struck a cord when I had have to use it in a project around five years ago. Luckily I got an opportunity to a new project. And the company in question (Samsung) ultimately dropped it IIRC.
- wegs 6y ago
  I ran Enlightement for maybe a month or two to try it. I mostly ran twm, fvwm, and similar at the time. Those are obviously not satisfactory for a typical user. I gave it as an example of something which ran rather sophisticated theming/compositing/effects on hardware at least 2 orders of magnitude slower than today, and something which modern Ubuntu/Fedora struggle with. I'd encourage you to compare the specs of the 3dfx Voodoo (the "magic dust") to even bottom-barrel integrated graphics of 2020.
moomin 6y ago
One of these days you should read the X section of the Unix Haters Handbook. Wayland is being built for the world as it is, X was built for a world that never was. In this case, it’s quite hard to not be better designed.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  And yet it suffices to have two GPU in your system (both driven by OSS drivers) that the option of running Wayland disappears from GDM on Fedoras up to 32 at least. The laptop in question is from the late 2016. So much for "the world that is". My machine must be very, very otherworldly.
- msla 6y ago
  > X was built for a world that never was. No. This is the thinking of people who can't see the utility of a use case they never personally use. It's the thinking of people who believe that "ssh -X" is "obsolete" because RDP exists, or that window managers can become obsolete because the fashion has moved on. X works, it's worked for decades, and saying that it's never worked doesn't negate that.
- mcguire 6y ago
  "One of these days you should read the X section of the Unix Haters Handbook." I have. It was written by someone who doesn't know the difference between a "client" and a "server".
  - mcguire 6y ago
    No, really. The author, whose name I can't remember at the moment, complains that X has the server/client roles reversed; that xcalc is a server and the display is a client. The usual defense is that it's "tongue in cheek", but from a networking standpoint it is simply wrong.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      You login to the server and run application, that application connects to the X Server on your client. +----------------+ +----------------+ | Client +---->+ Server | | | | | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | | |X Server +<---------+Application| | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | | | | | +----------------+ +----------------+ I can see how confusion may arise.
nialv7 6y ago
I find it really arrogant to claim "this software does everything I need, so it should never change", while in reality you are but an infinitesimally small part of the user base said software has to support. Sure, all the software can stay where they are if all the developers had to serve is you. But that is just not the reality.
- 1_player 6y ago
  Especially in the Linux world where not asking too much of their own PC is seen as a virtue, so people are running tiling WMs from the nineties, spend their time in Emacs and say everything is fine. Meanwhile I want my Linux system to run VR, multiple 4K displays, very demanding games and bluetooth headphones. And Linux is the worst for it, because everything feels laggy and half polished there and on the proprietary OS my setup feels MUCH faster. Sure, it's not Linux's fault, but let's stop saying everything is fine and dandy because Emacs is still running.
  - wegs 6y ago
    No one is saying everything is fine. It's not. What we're arguing is why everything is not fine. SGIs ran VR, multiple displays, and very demanding apps in the nineties too. They did all sorts of wonky, complex, 3d input devices too. So did DEC Alphas. This is the stuff Unix was built for. My claim is that nineties Linux was much closer to having the right architecture for it than 2020 Linux for this sort of stuff. The reinventions and onion layers didn't help; they hurt. I think the only piece nineties Linux didn't anticipate was the level of hot-swapping hardware (USB, Bluetooth, displays, etc.), and the level of power management. Modern Linux never got that architected or integrated quite right, because it was built with hack upon hack upon kludge. It's split up in bizarre ways between kernel and user space which would be really tough to clean up right now.
    - anthk 6y ago
      > think the only piece nineties Linux didn't anticipate was the level of hot-swapping hardware They did, modular kernels date back as 2.2 at least. And USB was born in that era.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
I don't know that Wayland is slow, but Gnome was. They fixed several big performance problems recently.
pjmlp 6y ago
> Unix was really well-designed, Not really, it is just a pile of hacks on top of hacks, starting by everything is a file until one needs to use sockets.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  Unix is what you get by usually applying the "worse is better" philosophy.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    And having free source code available on tapes for universities, without which would never taken off.
- utxaa 6y ago
  what isn't a pile of hacks?
- jacob019 6y ago
  unix sockets are files
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Try to open() a socket.
utxaa 6y ago
the buck is passed onto the compositor. so sway is fast, kde might be slow (or janky). it's not as uniform as with X/window manager.

by wegs 6y ago

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago

I've heard enlightenment can be a Wayland compositor now, could you try it? Also I think 3dfx Voodoo was the magic pixie dust, once you ever go OpenGL, you're not going back.

modified001 6y ago
https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened
modified001 6y ago
A developer sharing is experience working with EFL: https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  It sounds like the guy is way overexaggerating and basically didn't understand the library he was working with. What he describes isn't anything special - the "Evas_Object" (aside of the weird name) sounds like a HWND in Windows or Window in X. The part about layouts sounds like similar to sizers in wxWidgets which are used so that you can avoid using heavyweight native widgets just for layout that some other toolkits do. The event callback sounds like it uses a generic messaging system - again not much different than something like WndProc in Windows. EFL is written in C so it does have to work within the limitations of C but -non-toy- GUIs are inherently object oriented so things will be a bit more complicated than Qt that can lean on C++'s support for object oriented programming. Especially since apparently EFL also supports bindings to other languages which may also make things a bit more complicated.
  - modified001 6y ago
    It definitely struck a cord when I had have to use it in a project around five years ago. Luckily I got an opportunity to a new project. And the company in question (Samsung) ultimately dropped it IIRC.
wegs 6y ago
I ran Enlightement for maybe a month or two to try it. I mostly ran twm, fvwm, and similar at the time. Those are obviously not satisfactory for a typical user. I gave it as an example of something which ran rather sophisticated theming/compositing/effects on hardware at least 2 orders of magnitude slower than today, and something which modern Ubuntu/Fedora struggle with. I'd encourage you to compare the specs of the 3dfx Voodoo (the "magic dust") to even bottom-barrel integrated graphics of 2020.

moomin 6y ago

One of these days you should read the X section of the Unix Haters Handbook. Wayland is being built for the world as it is, X was built for a world that never was. In this case, it’s quite hard to not be better designed.

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
And yet it suffices to have two GPU in your system (both driven by OSS drivers) that the option of running Wayland disappears from GDM on Fedoras up to 32 at least. The laptop in question is from the late 2016. So much for "the world that is". My machine must be very, very otherworldly.
msla 6y ago
> X was built for a world that never was. No. This is the thinking of people who can't see the utility of a use case they never personally use. It's the thinking of people who believe that "ssh -X" is "obsolete" because RDP exists, or that window managers can become obsolete because the fashion has moved on. X works, it's worked for decades, and saying that it's never worked doesn't negate that.
mcguire 6y ago
"One of these days you should read the X section of the Unix Haters Handbook." I have. It was written by someone who doesn't know the difference between a "client" and a "server".
- mcguire 6y ago
  No, really. The author, whose name I can't remember at the moment, complains that X has the server/client roles reversed; that xcalc is a server and the display is a client. The usual defense is that it's "tongue in cheek", but from a networking standpoint it is simply wrong.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    You login to the server and run application, that application connects to the X Server on your client. +----------------+ +----------------+ | Client +---->+ Server | | | | | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | | |X Server +<---------+Application| | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | | | | | +----------------+ +----------------+ I can see how confusion may arise.

nialv7 6y ago

I find it really arrogant to claim "this software does everything I need, so it should never change", while in reality you are but an infinitesimally small part of the user base said software has to support. Sure, all the software can stay where they are if all the developers had to serve is you. But that is just not the reality.

1_player 6y ago
Especially in the Linux world where not asking too much of their own PC is seen as a virtue, so people are running tiling WMs from the nineties, spend their time in Emacs and say everything is fine. Meanwhile I want my Linux system to run VR, multiple 4K displays, very demanding games and bluetooth headphones. And Linux is the worst for it, because everything feels laggy and half polished there and on the proprietary OS my setup feels MUCH faster. Sure, it's not Linux's fault, but let's stop saying everything is fine and dandy because Emacs is still running.
- wegs 6y ago
  No one is saying everything is fine. It's not. What we're arguing is why everything is not fine. SGIs ran VR, multiple displays, and very demanding apps in the nineties too. They did all sorts of wonky, complex, 3d input devices too. So did DEC Alphas. This is the stuff Unix was built for. My claim is that nineties Linux was much closer to having the right architecture for it than 2020 Linux for this sort of stuff. The reinventions and onion layers didn't help; they hurt. I think the only piece nineties Linux didn't anticipate was the level of hot-swapping hardware (USB, Bluetooth, displays, etc.), and the level of power management. Modern Linux never got that architected or integrated quite right, because it was built with hack upon hack upon kludge. It's split up in bizarre ways between kernel and user space which would be really tough to clean up right now.
  - anthk 6y ago
    > think the only piece nineties Linux didn't anticipate was the level of hot-swapping hardware They did, modular kernels date back as 2.2 at least. And USB was born in that era.

mixmastamyk 6y ago

I don't know that Wayland is slow, but Gnome was. They fixed several big performance problems recently.

pjmlp 6y ago

> Unix was really well-designed, Not really, it is just a pile of hacks on top of hacks, starting by everything is a file until one needs to use sockets.

akvadrako 6y ago
Unix is what you get by usually applying the "worse is better" philosophy.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  And having free source code available on tapes for universities, without which would never taken off.
utxaa 6y ago
what isn't a pile of hacks?
jacob019 6y ago
unix sockets are files
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Try to open() a socket.

utxaa 6y ago

the buck is passed onto the compositor. so sway is fast, kde might be slow (or janky). it's not as uniform as with X/window manager.