3 ms·

I think Wayland, and the modern desktop in general too, has forgot about a few good ideas that the original X system had. I will miss them once Wayland has take

I think Wayland, and the modern desktop in general too, has forgot about a few good ideas that the original X system had. I will miss them once Wayland has taken over: - A unified way to change applications settings. All old X apps used to read the X resources database (xrdb): you could set a global color scheme, fonts, window geometry and what not, all in one place using a simple but powerful text format. - The simplicity of the window managers, hotkey daemons and other X clients. You can implement a functional wm in a few hundred lines of C[1] because the X server takes care of most of the stuff. In comparison a compositor has much more work to do and it's difficult to implement one, unless using a big library like wl_roots. - A base graphics API based on drawing primitives like the original X, SVG or Cairo, rather than just bitmaps. This would make writing a simple application without importing huge frameworks feasible again. Also sending the drawing calls over the network would probably be less bandwidth intensive. [1]: https://github.com/vardy/aphelia https://github.com/vardy/aphelia

forgotmypw17 6y ago
The beauty of free software is that X will always be there for anyone who wants it, just like you can still get great distros without systemd.
addicted 6y ago
> The simplicity of the window managers, hotkey daemons and other X clients. You can implement a functional wm in a few hundred lines of C[1] because the X server takes care of most of the stuff. In comparison a compositor has much more work to do and it's difficult to implement one, unless using a big library like wl_roots. This sounds like they simply extracted some of the work X used to do into an external library. That sounds like an excellent choice with no particular downside IMO?
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Why is a library any better? Not even disagreeing; I can't see why to prefer either approach.
nialv7 6y ago
> A unified way to change applications settings. This is not true anymore even on X. Also, if you use GNOME or KDE, both of them has unified settings > because the X server takes care of most of the stuff. ... , unless using a big library like wl_roots. So you are fine with X server takes care of most of the stuff, but not fine with wl_roots do the same thing? > A base graphics API based on drawing primitives like the original X, SVG or Cairo, rather than just bitmaps. I don't get this point. You can still use Cairo or similar graphic libraries on wayland too.
- rnhmjoj 6y ago
  > This is not true anymore even on X. Also, if you use GNOME or KDE, both of them has unified settings That's why I said Wayland and the modern desktop in general. > So you are fine with X server takes care of most of the stuff, but not fine with wl_roots do the same thing? You're kind of right: conceptually it's not much different, except that a wm is not a full-fledged server, but simply a client talking to the X server. If I'm sloppy and my wm dies, it's not going to take down the whole desktop with it, contrary to a Wayland compositor. > A base graphics API based on drawing primitives like the original X, SVG or Cairo, rather than just bitmaps. Of course, but the rendering happens on the client (with client-side fonts, images, etc.) instead of the server, which makes the protocol use a lot of bandwidth.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Just think for a minute, entire industry abandoned xrdb and drawing primitives in X11 applications, even XOrg developers decided to ditch these features, they've started Wayland because they could not fix X11. Either you are unbelievably smarter or you know nothing.
    - rnhmjoj 6y ago
      Maybe I know nothing, but it quite common that the technically superior solution don't get a lot of adoption and eventually dies.
  - nialv7 6y ago
sergeykish 6y ago
- I've never seen xrdb used outside of terminal configuration - You have to link against X11, dwl (dwm for Wayland) implemented in 2500 LOC [1] Plan 9 /dev/draw is simpler yet, somehow it was not reason against X11. [1] https://github.com/djpohly/dwl https://github.com/djpohly/dwl
- TacticalCoder 6y ago
  > - I've never seen xrdb used outside of terminal configuration Terminal and Emacs are the two I'm using it for.
- rnhmjoj 6y ago
  All the old X apps used xrdb, to some degree. I think of xclock, xbiff, xditview, xcalc, bitmap, etc.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    Everyone stopped using xrdb more than twenty years ago, same things for drawing primitives. I understand the wish some seems to have for things to never change. It's probably very comforting but things have to move with their time or they will be left behind.
    - rnhmjoj 6y ago
      I'm not saying applications should continue to use or go back to xrdb. I'm pointing out the fact that having unified configuration system is very useful and I'm disappointed Wayland didn't pick up this idea.
      - sergeykish 6y ago
        Wayland reflects status quo. Truly desired missing features are reimplemented — screenshots, screensharing, networking. Try to make a change, maybe you'd find out this feature is not that useful. I'd better think why .Xresources never catched up. For example, I've downloaded Gnome theme. It contains some CSS files, a lot of images and some rc files. Or check about:config, chrome://flags/ — no images there, but interface is so much nicer than a list in man pages and plain text editing.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

The beauty of free software is that X will always be there for anyone who wants it, just like you can still get great distros without systemd.

addicted 6y ago

> The simplicity of the window managers, hotkey daemons and other X clients. You can implement a functional wm in a few hundred lines of C[1] because the X server takes care of most of the stuff. In comparison a compositor has much more work to do and it's difficult to implement one, unless using a big library like wl_roots. This sounds like they simply extracted some of the work X used to do into an external library. That sounds like an excellent choice with no particular downside IMO?

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Why is a library any better? Not even disagreeing; I can't see why to prefer either approach.

nialv7 6y ago

> A unified way to change applications settings. This is not true anymore even on X. Also, if you use GNOME or KDE, both of them has unified settings > because the X server takes care of most of the stuff. ... , unless using a big library like wl_roots. So you are fine with X server takes care of most of the stuff, but not fine with wl_roots do the same thing? > A base graphics API based on drawing primitives like the original X, SVG or Cairo, rather than just bitmaps. I don't get this point. You can still use Cairo or similar graphic libraries on wayland too.

rnhmjoj 6y ago
> This is not true anymore even on X. Also, if you use GNOME or KDE, both of them has unified settings That's why I said Wayland and the modern desktop in general. > So you are fine with X server takes care of most of the stuff, but not fine with wl_roots do the same thing? You're kind of right: conceptually it's not much different, except that a wm is not a full-fledged server, but simply a client talking to the X server. If I'm sloppy and my wm dies, it's not going to take down the whole desktop with it, contrary to a Wayland compositor. > A base graphics API based on drawing primitives like the original X, SVG or Cairo, rather than just bitmaps. Of course, but the rendering happens on the client (with client-side fonts, images, etc.) instead of the server, which makes the protocol use a lot of bandwidth.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Just think for a minute, entire industry abandoned xrdb and drawing primitives in X11 applications, even XOrg developers decided to ditch these features, they've started Wayland because they could not fix X11. Either you are unbelievably smarter or you know nothing.
  - rnhmjoj 6y ago
    Maybe I know nothing, but it quite common that the technically superior solution don't get a lot of adoption and eventually dies.
- nialv7 6y ago

sergeykish 6y ago

- I've never seen xrdb used outside of terminal configuration - You have to link against X11, dwl (dwm for Wayland) implemented in 2500 LOC [1] Plan 9 /dev/draw is simpler yet, somehow it was not reason against X11. [1] https://github.com/djpohly/dwl https://github.com/djpohly/dwl

TacticalCoder 6y ago
> - I've never seen xrdb used outside of terminal configuration Terminal and Emacs are the two I'm using it for.
rnhmjoj 6y ago
All the old X apps used xrdb, to some degree. I think of xclock, xbiff, xditview, xcalc, bitmap, etc.
- brmgb 6y ago
  Everyone stopped using xrdb more than twenty years ago, same things for drawing primitives. I understand the wish some seems to have for things to never change. It's probably very comforting but things have to move with their time or they will be left behind.
  - rnhmjoj 6y ago
    I'm not saying applications should continue to use or go back to xrdb. I'm pointing out the fact that having unified configuration system is very useful and I'm disappointed Wayland didn't pick up this idea.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      Wayland reflects status quo. Truly desired missing features are reimplemented — screenshots, screensharing, networking. Try to make a change, maybe you'd find out this feature is not that useful. I'd better think why .Xresources never catched up. For example, I've downloaded Gnome theme. It contains some CSS files, a lot of images and some rc files. Or check about:config, chrome://flags/ — no images there, but interface is so much nicer than a list in man pages and plain text editing.