6 ms·
Sure, it has better performance if there is not a networking protocol in the middle. What I like about X, that is missing in Wayland, is that you no longer can
by alerighi 5y ago
Sure, it has better performance if there is not a networking protocol in the middle.
What I like about X, that is missing in Wayland, is that you no longer can run the X server on a machine and connect to clients (application) on another.
And if you think about it... this day with the cloud it could have been the killer feature! Nowadays is normal to have programs that run in VM in the cloud with a sort of remote desktop client. X11 would have been more performant even with not so fast network connection, because you have the rendering done in your local PC and only commands that pass on the network.
And if you think about it for a moment, isn't how web browsers work? Where you have the server that sends some HTML to the browser (nowadays JS and other stuff) and the browser doing the job of rendering? If you compare the X server to a web browser and the X client to a web site, isn't very similar? And this is the model that is winning nowadays.
Meanwhile we think about a new graphical server that cannot be used on a network, in a period where we are returning in the era of mainframes, when X was created (granted, nowadays is not a big PC in a room but a multitude of VM in the cloud).
The problem is not X, the problem is that X was never used at is full potential because we are so used to the (to me not optimal) model that Microsoft/Apple proposed to us.
You could have had monitors with an integrated X server, like in the past you had serial terminals, without fans, cables, and stuff on your desk, just a small ARM processor with a GPU to render things on screen. And a single network cable going to a computer that you had anywhere else in the house/company, or in the cloud.
No need for HDMI or other display interfaces, just run a network cable to each monitor, plug keyboard and mouse on the monitor, you are done. The GPU is in the monitor, doesn't it make more sense? How much money that could have saved to a company? It would have been more efficient than thin clients that connect to an RDP Windows machine that has to have a GPU just to render the remote session? Large installations like displays used for public information? Why use a full screen web browser, it's overkill, when you could have simply launched a X server on the particular display, then launched an application on a server and connected to the IP of that particular monitor to display everything you wanted?
The architecture of X was modern 40 years ago when it was invented. It in some ways predicted the future, and now that we are discarding it for something that tries to imitate Windows/macOS (badly, because these operating systems just works well, Wayland doesn't). Is it worthed?
- bitwize 5y agoThe people who write and maintain X decided that life is too short to write or maintain X. Wayland is their way forward. Web browsers (and Electron) are replacements for NeWS, not X really. That's part of the reason why Electron won't go away, the architecture advantages are too great: have the server push running code to the local display to take advantage of local acceleration. NeWS was awesome in its day, and it kind of lives on in the form of browsers and Electron.
- rbanffy 5y agoAnd none of the original NeWS developers miss writing apps in PostScript.
- alerighi 5y agoBut they are still maintaining it. Also, the improvements that Wayland brings are not really specific to them, because they are mostly due to a new Linux kernel feature that is KMS, and you can use libinput also with X. I don't really see the point of Wayland, to me X was just fine, sure, maybe it was time for X12, but was a completely new display server needed?
- bitwize 5y ago> But they are still maintaining it. Only just barely. And they told us it could stop at any time. All the developer energy and support is behind Wayland, so that's what you should be using. > I don't really see the point of Wayland, to me X was just fine, sure, maybe it was time for X12, but was a completely new display server needed? The developers closest to the graphics stack say yes, so I defer to their expertise. Really, this has been discussed to death many, many times. The arguments for X (or an X-like architecture) invariably come from people who are ignorant of the actual issues involved. Here's a video by Daniel Stone that addresses the main points; note that it was made 8 years ago and people are still arguing the points: https://youtu.be/RIctzAQOe44 https://youtu.be/RIctzAQOe44 As far as the graphics stack maintainers are concerned the debate is pretty much over, and Wayland won. X will get little to no developer attention going forward. Unless you want to take responsibility for the X server, your choices are to get with the program and get on Wayland, or find your use case completely unsupported. (Note that when it comes to large projects like Xorg, corporate sponsorship is critical. The corporations are putting their money behind Wayland, not X.)