39 ms·

X is 40 years old. Talking about Wayland breaking compatibility there like it's a JS toolkit being dropped after 6 months is a bit silly. Yeah, compatibility i

by Latty 4y ago

X is 40 years old. Talking about Wayland breaking compatibility there like it's a JS toolkit being dropped after 6 months is a bit silly. Yeah, compatibility is nice, but not when it means you have security flaws innate to the system, bloat and stuff you never want but have to keep around, etc... Sometimes the positives outweigh the negatives.

metadat 4y ago
Who should be the one who decides this? Nothing personal to you, sir, madame, or they, but I don't want it to be someone with this attitude. Wayland breaks a huge amount of apps, with no good porting story. Most of us just want our apps to be able to keep working. Linux is not a place for a wizard in the high castle to disconnectedly architect the future of Linux GUIs.
- akvadrako 4y ago
  Mostly, it's the developers and those who pay them. Almost nobody is developing X11 anymore, they've moved on to Wayland. And GTK devs don't want to support it.
- ssivark 4y ago
  The code is still there (FOSS), so you can continue using it as long as you want — and even maintain/sponsor if you like. None of us is entitled to developer time (from others), so if the ecosystem moves and they wish to invest their effort on different endeavors or approaches, we can’t hold them back.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    But I've said this elsewhere. Yes, we can criticize what they are doing even if we are not paying them. We can't sue them, we can't take way their money, and that is 100% fair, of course we shouldn't be able to do that. But yes, I can absolutely say "Y'all are wasting a ton of time with this Wayland way y'all are doing things, you should go fix X instead."
    - Latty 4y ago
      So the answer to "who gets to be the one who decides this", remains "the one writing the code" and "the one choosing what to install", independent of each other. While it's true no one can stop you telling people they should be working on what you want and not what they find valuable, you sound like a petulant child demanding people do things for you.
      - jrm4 4y ago
        Sorry, your name calling here doesn't hold up at all. How they operate directly affects my work. I onboard people to Linux and this Wayland discrepancy is an annoyance I'd rather not deal with. What I'm doing is pretty similar to dealing with, e.g. a land developer putting up a big shopping center near my quiet neighborhood. I don't have much legal recourse here, but someone who speaks against it isn't childish.
        Latty 4y ago
        You write off the things other people care about as "pathetic" elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31973526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31973526) in this thread, your point of view seems to boil down to "things I care about should be tailored to, and other people's cares are worthless", which yes, is pretty childish.
        jrm4 4y ago
        I'll happily defend it. I believe a free/open source desktop OS that's easy for "regular" people to use is VERY important. One of the "selling" points is "stuff doesn't break, it will work the same way it does today as it will tomorrow." This could improve the user experience for a lot of people, this could get more people interested in tech, this could save a lot of e-waste. Again, this isn't mere ideas for me -- I do this with lots of people all the time. Now sure, you could get on your tech high horse and say "well, all those newbs should catch up." Yes, I think the people who focus too strongly on comparatively small things like fractional scaling aren't seeing the bigger picture. And that is pathetic.
jrm4 4y ago
The thing is, this story feels like BS because X never broke, in all this time. Devs can say all they want, but where's the breakage? It's been what, a decade? And X still works fine. All I hear is this pathetic "fractional scaling" and "screen tearing!!"
- dontlaugh 4y ago
  X has been broken for decades. For example, I’ve never managed to get it to be tear-free, on various hardware and software combinations over time. It got infuriating. It’s part of why I switched to macOS.
  - orbifold 4y ago
    Using NVIDIA drivers this was never a problem. I only ever encountered these issues using open-source drivers.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  Of course it's not broken. The architecture only prevents it from being as good as modern desktops. Think screen tearing, multi-resolution multi-screen support, plug and play support for multiple GPU's, monitors, refresh rates, color spaces and input devices. Those are all functions macOS and even Windows have had for years (ever reloaded your graphics driver without shutting down applications? Windows can do that since Vista...) Since X does not have the right architecture for those kind of features it's unfit for modern desktops. Also, lots of X functions are no longer necessary or even practical to use anymore. Why is Windows remote desktop useable with an order less bandwidth than most X clients. (of course that's all the clients fault and not the X server, but that doesn't matter for users does it?) If you want a vintage Unix workstation lookalike running 4 xterms and xeyes on a static desktop PC with a single ethernet connection X will do fine. But why force other people to look at the world in such a limited way?
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    > Of course it's not broken. The architecture only prevents it from being as good as modern desktops. Think screen tearing, multi-resolution multi-screen support, plug and play support for multiple GPU's, monitors, refresh rates, color spaces and input devices. I mean, most of those things aren't solved problems on Wayland either. The only thing we "solved" was screen tearing issues (fixed in most x11 compositors anyways...), configurable DPI is still extremely buggy, extended color spaces haven't even started development afaik and Xorg's input handling is still architecturally fairly sane. The 'problem' is that these hacks we used to use on x11 still feel better to use than their Wayland alternatives. Plus, once you consider all of the functionality, software compatibility and desktop environments we sacrificed for this meager victory, it seems utterly pyrrhic. Nothing of value was gained for the overwhelming majority of the software ecosystem. > Since X does not have the right architecture for those kind of features it's unfit for modern desktops. I agree. Consider the following: Wayland doesn't feature support for AppIndicators, which both MacOS and Windows have had for... 30 years. Is that befitting of a modern window server? Nobody's asking them to support it in GNOME, but rather to offer simple hooks in the code for the vast majority (eg. KDE, i3wm, Sway, Budgie, GNOME 3, MATE, LXDE, XFCE, etc.) of desktops that would want that functionality? It's another anti-cooperative move on the behalf of GNOME's development team, which is why it's no wonder that the rest of the community has abandoned the prospect of working with them. x11 needs to die urgently, and watching Wayland fail to replace Xorg, one of most ill-concieved software systems ever designed, makes me want to pull my hair out. > If you want a vintage Unix workstation lookalike running 4 xterms and xeyes on a static desktop PC with a single ethernet connection X will do fine. But why force other people to look at the world in such a limited way? Be pragmatic. If GNOME went Wayland-only tomorrow, 90% of the Nvidia systems would break overnight, that's not just ostracizing "Unix workstation lookalike" users. The reason Xorg is still around is obvious: Wayland simply isn't complete. The vast majority of desktop environments don't support it. The vast majority of desktop applications run worse on it. I despise x11 for being as crusty and stiff as it is, but I can run it on all of my systems without any problems. I can't do that with Wayland, and until I can, I have no reason to switch. x11 is superior for my workflow, full stop. There's no appeal to use it when only one or two of my computers actually run it well, and the rest have horrible showstopping bugs.
GauntletWizard 4y ago
X has no provision for untrusted programs running with access to the X server. That design is naive by modern standards, but whether that's a "flaw" is a matter of interpretation. It would be nice if there were a model for running individual applications as application specific users or subusers, but Wayland doesn't solve that problem, either. X being 40 years old has nothing to do with when it's reasonable to break compatibility. The amount of time that a suitable replacement has been around does matter; Typical times are 2-5 years from a suitable replacement being available to deprecation, which is to say that we'll be able to deprecate X in 2040 when someone's built something that actually solves user needs, unlike Wayland.
hulitu 4y ago
> Yeah, compatibility is nice, but not when it means you have security flaws innate to the system, bloat and stuff you never want but have to keep around, etc... Sometimes the positives outweigh the negatives. They shall fix the flaws not create new ones. Why do i need GTK 1, 2, 3 and 4 on my system ?

by Latty 4y ago

metadat 4y ago

Who should be the one who decides this? Nothing personal to you, sir, madame, or they, but I don't want it to be someone with this attitude. Wayland breaks a huge amount of apps, with no good porting story. Most of us just want our apps to be able to keep working. Linux is not a place for a wizard in the high castle to disconnectedly architect the future of Linux GUIs.

akvadrako 4y ago
Mostly, it's the developers and those who pay them. Almost nobody is developing X11 anymore, they've moved on to Wayland. And GTK devs don't want to support it.
ssivark 4y ago
The code is still there (FOSS), so you can continue using it as long as you want — and even maintain/sponsor if you like. None of us is entitled to developer time (from others), so if the ecosystem moves and they wish to invest their effort on different endeavors or approaches, we can’t hold them back.
- jrm4 4y ago
  But I've said this elsewhere. Yes, we can criticize what they are doing even if we are not paying them. We can't sue them, we can't take way their money, and that is 100% fair, of course we shouldn't be able to do that. But yes, I can absolutely say "Y'all are wasting a ton of time with this Wayland way y'all are doing things, you should go fix X instead."
  - Latty 4y ago
    So the answer to "who gets to be the one who decides this", remains "the one writing the code" and "the one choosing what to install", independent of each other. While it's true no one can stop you telling people they should be working on what you want and not what they find valuable, you sound like a petulant child demanding people do things for you.
    - jrm4 4y ago
      Sorry, your name calling here doesn't hold up at all. How they operate directly affects my work. I onboard people to Linux and this Wayland discrepancy is an annoyance I'd rather not deal with. What I'm doing is pretty similar to dealing with, e.g. a land developer putting up a big shopping center near my quiet neighborhood. I don't have much legal recourse here, but someone who speaks against it isn't childish.
      - Latty 4y ago
        You write off the things other people care about as "pathetic" elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31973526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31973526) in this thread, your point of view seems to boil down to "things I care about should be tailored to, and other people's cares are worthless", which yes, is pretty childish.
        jrm4 4y ago
        I'll happily defend it. I believe a free/open source desktop OS that's easy for "regular" people to use is VERY important. One of the "selling" points is "stuff doesn't break, it will work the same way it does today as it will tomorrow." This could improve the user experience for a lot of people, this could get more people interested in tech, this could save a lot of e-waste. Again, this isn't mere ideas for me -- I do this with lots of people all the time. Now sure, you could get on your tech high horse and say "well, all those newbs should catch up." Yes, I think the people who focus too strongly on comparatively small things like fractional scaling aren't seeing the bigger picture. And that is pathetic.

jrm4 4y ago

The thing is, this story feels like BS because X never broke, in all this time. Devs can say all they want, but where's the breakage? It's been what, a decade? And X still works fine. All I hear is this pathetic "fractional scaling" and "screen tearing!!"

dontlaugh 4y ago
X has been broken for decades. For example, I’ve never managed to get it to be tear-free, on various hardware and software combinations over time. It got infuriating. It’s part of why I switched to macOS.
- orbifold 4y ago
  Using NVIDIA drivers this was never a problem. I only ever encountered these issues using open-source drivers.
bzzzt 4y ago
Of course it's not broken. The architecture only prevents it from being as good as modern desktops. Think screen tearing, multi-resolution multi-screen support, plug and play support for multiple GPU's, monitors, refresh rates, color spaces and input devices. Those are all functions macOS and even Windows have had for years (ever reloaded your graphics driver without shutting down applications? Windows can do that since Vista...) Since X does not have the right architecture for those kind of features it's unfit for modern desktops. Also, lots of X functions are no longer necessary or even practical to use anymore. Why is Windows remote desktop useable with an order less bandwidth than most X clients. (of course that's all the clients fault and not the X server, but that doesn't matter for users does it?) If you want a vintage Unix workstation lookalike running 4 xterms and xeyes on a static desktop PC with a single ethernet connection X will do fine. But why force other people to look at the world in such a limited way?
- smoldesu 4y ago
  > Of course it's not broken. The architecture only prevents it from being as good as modern desktops. Think screen tearing, multi-resolution multi-screen support, plug and play support for multiple GPU's, monitors, refresh rates, color spaces and input devices. I mean, most of those things aren't solved problems on Wayland either. The only thing we "solved" was screen tearing issues (fixed in most x11 compositors anyways...), configurable DPI is still extremely buggy, extended color spaces haven't even started development afaik and Xorg's input handling is still architecturally fairly sane. The 'problem' is that these hacks we used to use on x11 still feel better to use than their Wayland alternatives. Plus, once you consider all of the functionality, software compatibility and desktop environments we sacrificed for this meager victory, it seems utterly pyrrhic. Nothing of value was gained for the overwhelming majority of the software ecosystem. > Since X does not have the right architecture for those kind of features it's unfit for modern desktops. I agree. Consider the following: Wayland doesn't feature support for AppIndicators, which both MacOS and Windows have had for... 30 years. Is that befitting of a modern window server? Nobody's asking them to support it in GNOME, but rather to offer simple hooks in the code for the vast majority (eg. KDE, i3wm, Sway, Budgie, GNOME 3, MATE, LXDE, XFCE, etc.) of desktops that would want that functionality? It's another anti-cooperative move on the behalf of GNOME's development team, which is why it's no wonder that the rest of the community has abandoned the prospect of working with them. x11 needs to die urgently, and watching Wayland fail to replace Xorg, one of most ill-concieved software systems ever designed, makes me want to pull my hair out. > If you want a vintage Unix workstation lookalike running 4 xterms and xeyes on a static desktop PC with a single ethernet connection X will do fine. But why force other people to look at the world in such a limited way? Be pragmatic. If GNOME went Wayland-only tomorrow, 90% of the Nvidia systems would break overnight, that's not just ostracizing "Unix workstation lookalike" users. The reason Xorg is still around is obvious: Wayland simply isn't complete. The vast majority of desktop environments don't support it. The vast majority of desktop applications run worse on it. I despise x11 for being as crusty and stiff as it is, but I can run it on all of my systems without any problems. I can't do that with Wayland, and until I can, I have no reason to switch. x11 is superior for my workflow, full stop. There's no appeal to use it when only one or two of my computers actually run it well, and the rest have horrible showstopping bugs.

GauntletWizard 4y ago

X has no provision for untrusted programs running with access to the X server. That design is naive by modern standards, but whether that's a "flaw" is a matter of interpretation. It would be nice if there were a model for running individual applications as application specific users or subusers, but Wayland doesn't solve that problem, either. X being 40 years old has nothing to do with when it's reasonable to break compatibility. The amount of time that a suitable replacement has been around does matter; Typical times are 2-5 years from a suitable replacement being available to deprecation, which is to say that we'll be able to deprecate X in 2040 when someone's built something that actually solves user needs, unlike Wayland.

hulitu 4y ago

> Yeah, compatibility is nice, but not when it means you have security flaws innate to the system, bloat and stuff you never want but have to keep around, etc... Sometimes the positives outweigh the negatives. They shall fix the flaws not create new ones. Why do i need GTK 1, 2, 3 and 4 on my system ?