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As a part outsider/part insider (long time Linux user, not much of a programmer) let me see if I can try to summarize my frustration with this transition proces

by jrm4 6y ago

As a part outsider/part insider (long time Linux user, not much of a programmer) let me see if I can try to summarize my frustration with this transition process -- it simply seems to be a much different methodology than the one that got Linux to where it is. As I understand it, Linus' number one deal is "don't break backward compatibility." The Unix Way is "Write programs that talk to one another..." etc. This is the foundation that I believe put Linux where it is today, this is why I love it and use it so much. Which is why I'm dismayed to see so much comfort with what feels in line with a proprietary top-down control attitude, the thing that Microsoft and Apple et al do, i.e. "This thing is going to change, so get over it." I appreciate that there is work being done. I'm willing to trust that there is a point to Wayland (I literally don't get it at this stage; trying to use it presently creates FAR more problems than it solves) -- but it seems like it should be axiomatic that the project works harder to preserve the space than it appears to now.

wmf 6y ago
For whatever reason, people who follow the classic Unix/Linux philosophy no longer write much code. The people who are coding the desktop are all using a more Mac-like philosophy.
- jrm4 6y ago
  Right, though I don't think that's quite it -- I think that the "Mac-like" projects/philosophies are more visible because of spaces like Hacker News and Reddit et al, plus perhaps the greater level of PR that bigger projects like Gnome and KDE (and Ubuntu, Mint, PopOs, etc) get. I have to remind myself to try to dig a bit deeper around to find out about the things I'm more into; what matters more to me than "the desktop" is "applications/programs" -- and that seems to be harder to seek out these days.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  It never was true, UNIX is bloated, hence Plan 9, `cat -v`.
kllrnohj 6y ago
On the contrary, Wayland is very much in the spirit of Unix & Linux philosophy, while X11 isn't. Wayland is an attempt to do one thing and do it well, hence why it doesn't have solutions for things like clipboard management. Because that's not part of display management & composition. Wayland only does that one thing. By contrast the common complaint about Wayland is that it doesn't have the vast variety of unrelated features rammed into it like X does. Part of the problem here then is that there's A) no big pushes for 'does one thing & does it well' for all the other X features (like clipboard or global keyboard shortcuts), and B) fragmented implementations of the wayland protocol. There really should have been a much better, and more singular, reference implementation that Gnome, KDE, etc... all just embedded instead. Which means the "does it well" part is taking a really long time, as developer communities are split up.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  > On the contrary, Wayland is very much in the spirit of Unix & Linux philosophy, while X11 isn't. I have an opposite view. X11 has two key aspects separated to two independent entities: mechanism (in Xserver) and policy (in window manager). This has and advantage as neutral mechanism can be shared by everybody (Xorg), while everyone has different opinion about policies (many WMs). Wayland assumes integration of compositor (mechanism) and WM (policy) to one entity.
  - dralley 6y ago
    > I have an opposite view. All I can say is that nearly every single one of the former core Xorg developers has said precisely the opposite (sometimes in literal terms [0] [1]), and has switched to developing Wayland. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ&t=27m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ&t=27m44s [1] https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland > In Plasma we need Wayland support as we are hitting the limitations of X all the time. Wayland will simplify our architecture and allow us to composite the screen in the way we consider as most useful.
sergeykish 6y ago
You see, we have a lot of interchangeable parts. We have bash/zsh/sh, glibc/musl, apt/pacman/yum, systemd/runit/OpenRC, GNOME/KDE/XFCE, i3/wmii/xmonad, chromium/firefox etc etc. Even kernel is interchangeable - HURD [1], kFreeBSD [2]. Distribution is a collection of such parts, you may think of it as "proprietary top-down control attitude" but it is just a collection that suits someone needs. It may not suit you, you may replace parts, you may create another distribution. For example as Arch Linux user my install does not include graphical system, no one forces me. The point I see is that Wayland got something useful. So useful that distributions started to switch their default. If anything it conforms that X11 has some problems, that it was harder to achieve same result there. Maybe it does not cover your needs but it covers someone needs better. [1] https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/ https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/ [1] https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/

by jrm4 6y ago

wmf 6y ago

For whatever reason, people who follow the classic Unix/Linux philosophy no longer write much code. The people who are coding the desktop are all using a more Mac-like philosophy.

jrm4 6y ago
Right, though I don't think that's quite it -- I think that the "Mac-like" projects/philosophies are more visible because of spaces like Hacker News and Reddit et al, plus perhaps the greater level of PR that bigger projects like Gnome and KDE (and Ubuntu, Mint, PopOs, etc) get. I have to remind myself to try to dig a bit deeper around to find out about the things I'm more into; what matters more to me than "the desktop" is "applications/programs" -- and that seems to be harder to seek out these days.
sergeykish 6y ago
It never was true, UNIX is bloated, hence Plan 9, `cat -v`.

kllrnohj 6y ago

On the contrary, Wayland is very much in the spirit of Unix & Linux philosophy, while X11 isn't. Wayland is an attempt to do one thing and do it well, hence why it doesn't have solutions for things like clipboard management. Because that's not part of display management & composition. Wayland only does that one thing. By contrast the common complaint about Wayland is that it doesn't have the vast variety of unrelated features rammed into it like X does. Part of the problem here then is that there's A) no big pushes for 'does one thing & does it well' for all the other X features (like clipboard or global keyboard shortcuts), and B) fragmented implementations of the wayland protocol. There really should have been a much better, and more singular, reference implementation that Gnome, KDE, etc... all just embedded instead. Which means the "does it well" part is taking a really long time, as developer communities are split up.

zajio1am 6y ago
> On the contrary, Wayland is very much in the spirit of Unix & Linux philosophy, while X11 isn't. I have an opposite view. X11 has two key aspects separated to two independent entities: mechanism (in Xserver) and policy (in window manager). This has and advantage as neutral mechanism can be shared by everybody (Xorg), while everyone has different opinion about policies (many WMs). Wayland assumes integration of compositor (mechanism) and WM (policy) to one entity.
- dralley 6y ago
  > I have an opposite view. All I can say is that nearly every single one of the former core Xorg developers has said precisely the opposite (sometimes in literal terms [0] [1]), and has switched to developing Wayland. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ&t=27m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQh_DmDLKQ&t=27m44s [1] https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland > In Plasma we need Wayland support as we are hitting the limitations of X all the time. Wayland will simplify our architecture and allow us to composite the screen in the way we consider as most useful.

sergeykish 6y ago

You see, we have a lot of interchangeable parts. We have bash/zsh/sh, glibc/musl, apt/pacman/yum, systemd/runit/OpenRC, GNOME/KDE/XFCE, i3/wmii/xmonad, chromium/firefox etc etc. Even kernel is interchangeable - HURD [1], kFreeBSD [2]. Distribution is a collection of such parts, you may think of it as "proprietary top-down control attitude" but it is just a collection that suits someone needs. It may not suit you, you may replace parts, you may create another distribution. For example as Arch Linux user my install does not include graphical system, no one forces me. The point I see is that Wayland got something useful. So useful that distributions started to switch their default. If anything it conforms that X11 has some problems, that it was harder to achieve same result there. Maybe it does not cover your needs but it covers someone needs better. [1] https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/ https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/ [1] https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/