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It's interesting how the X11 server is the only major category of infrastructure where we have one and only one open source implementation. With browsers -- wh
by zetalyrae 5y ago
It's interesting how the X11 server is the only major category of infrastructure where we have one and only one open source implementation.
With browsers -- which are massively complex nowadays -- at least we have both WebKit and Gecko.
C++ compilers are at a similar level of complexity and there is GCC and Clang.
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD etc. are all separate kernels.
But for X11 there is only the the X.Org server, the reference implementation. How much work would it be to implement a practical X11 server in a safe language like Ada or Rust, which supports the widely-used extensions?
- naasking 5y agoI assume there's only one implementation because for decades people have been saying that X is an antiquated design, and they want a different way. Thus we got Wayland.
- tablespoon 5y ago> With browsers -- which are massively complex nowadays -- at least we have both WebKit and Gecko. Isn't that a bit of a historical accident? Almost all alternative browsers are now based on Chromium, and if Firefox dies or drops Gecko, I doubt anyone would go through the trouble to create a new one. I mean Microsoft tried and gave up on it, and they're one of the few organizations with the resources to actually succeed.
- rjsw 5y agoThe KDrive X11 server was separate to the original one even though it was bundled with the rest of the X.Org software.
- exikyut 5y agoWhat was the provenance of/motivation behind (writing) KDrive? I always wondered.
- rjsw 5y agoFrom memory, it was that Keith Packard felt that the bits of the original server that run on the CPU (mfb, cfb) were optimized for CPUs without caches, they unroll the various bit operations and generate C functions for each one which increases code size. One of the first targets for KDrive was the Compaq iPaq with a StrongARM CPU and no GPU. I think the ideas behind KDrive have now been folded into the main X.Org server.
- hulitu 5y agoOnce upon a time there was XFree86.
- rjsw 5y agoThat is just an earlier distribution of the same server.
- pyb 5y agoThere are quite a few open-source X11 implementations, but they are either much more basic, or targeting historical platforms.
- marwis 5y agohttp://www.jcraft.com/weirdx/ http://www.jcraft.com/weirdx/ - Pure Java X Window System Server under GPL They also had closed version http://www.jcraft.com/wiredx/ http://www.jcraft.com/wiredx/ that supports antialiasing for core protocol (something X.org/XFree86 claimed to be impossible)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]