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The common web browsers or web-based apps are all using hardware accelerated Skia. Almost nothing uses the core X11 APIs anymore. I'm honestly confused when I

The common web browsers or web-based apps are all using hardware accelerated Skia. Almost nothing uses the core X11 APIs anymore. I'm honestly confused when I hear people say they still use X forwarding and it has no slowdown. It's known to be one of the worst possible options for remoting, the core protocol doesn't even support image/video compression. RDP runs circles around it.

Amezarak 4y ago
I don’t know what to tell you. I use Firefox every day over X forwarding and it seems to work just as well as anything else with no noticeable slowdown. This is exactly my confusion, why people say there is one. I guess things would be different if I was trying to do it over low bandwidth high latency sat connection or something. At least with connections as slow as 50mbps I have not noticed any issue, I don’t have anything slower to readily test to see what people are talking about. I’ve no doubt it’s theoretically slower due to e.g. compression but that doesn’t seem to be a big practical concern at least for most connections and use cases. I’ve found it highly concerning because the other solutions will not work for me, but adherents seem to insist what’s working for me doesn’t.
- QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
  I mean if you have a high bandwidth connection and you want to only transfer raw uncompressed software-rendered images then sure, go nuts. For me that lags horribly and it's pretty much broken if you try to remote a fullscreen window above 1080p. It's not exactly "network transparent" if it only works in a very contrived network situation. What do you think a remoting protocol is supposed to do if not compensating for bandwidth and latency issues? These are really basic things (bandwidth negotiation, latency compensation) but they were just never added to X11. And it's not like people didn't try to add them either! Edit: I want to say that nearly everything in X11 is like this. It seems to work ok at first glance but it breaks horribly when you get outside the design parameters of a mainframe in 1987. So basically, transferring software-rendered images over a high-bandwidth LAN connection and that's it.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    I haven’t had any trouble with 1920x1200, but I haven’t tried to watch full-screen 1080 video or something either. Probably the most intensive thing I’ve done is watch IP camera streams on Firefox over X forwarding. I understand that not everyone has > 50 mbps connections but I don’t think this is a contrived fringe edge case either. Meanwhile, the present alternative of “just use rdp” or “just install this package” is completely infeasible for me. And I mean, ant some point, bandwidth is a factor no matter what you do, though I agree more efficient is theoretically better. Unfortunately my job is going to get a lot harder down the road when X is retired for good.
    - QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
      If your IT department at work refuses to give you a modern solution I think that's their problem, not yours. They should just know, X11 forwarding was already obsolete decades ago. They're just signing up for trouble and misery with that. I doubt that X11 is going to disappear for good. It will still always be around for running the odd old X client or for historical curiosity. Just like how you can still emulate the original Macintosh (released the same year as the original version of X!).
      - Amezarak 4y ago
        We don’t have an IT department per se but hundreds of offline sites consisting of thousands of servers each which cannot be changed in this manner and for which neither I nor any person I have ever met has the option of complaining that they’re using “obsolete” solutions that happen to work fine. The more likely end result is that there will simply be no GUI available on most servers when more recent OS releases are deployed and we will shrug and life will be worse. So I guess you can say it’s someone else’s problem but it sure feels like my problem.
        QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
        I can't understand the situation here. Why wouldn't a more recent OS release have a VNC server available? And why is a web server being used to run firefox? Shouldn't that be run on the client? Why are you even installing a GUI on a Unix server? It seems to me like something is very backwards about your setup.

Amezarak 4y ago

I don’t know what to tell you. I use Firefox every day over X forwarding and it seems to work just as well as anything else with no noticeable slowdown. This is exactly my confusion, why people say there is one. I guess things would be different if I was trying to do it over low bandwidth high latency sat connection or something. At least with connections as slow as 50mbps I have not noticed any issue, I don’t have anything slower to readily test to see what people are talking about. I’ve no doubt it’s theoretically slower due to e.g. compression but that doesn’t seem to be a big practical concern at least for most connections and use cases. I’ve found it highly concerning because the other solutions will not work for me, but adherents seem to insist what’s working for me doesn’t.

QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
I mean if you have a high bandwidth connection and you want to only transfer raw uncompressed software-rendered images then sure, go nuts. For me that lags horribly and it's pretty much broken if you try to remote a fullscreen window above 1080p. It's not exactly "network transparent" if it only works in a very contrived network situation. What do you think a remoting protocol is supposed to do if not compensating for bandwidth and latency issues? These are really basic things (bandwidth negotiation, latency compensation) but they were just never added to X11. And it's not like people didn't try to add them either! Edit: I want to say that nearly everything in X11 is like this. It seems to work ok at first glance but it breaks horribly when you get outside the design parameters of a mainframe in 1987. So basically, transferring software-rendered images over a high-bandwidth LAN connection and that's it.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  I haven’t had any trouble with 1920x1200, but I haven’t tried to watch full-screen 1080 video or something either. Probably the most intensive thing I’ve done is watch IP camera streams on Firefox over X forwarding. I understand that not everyone has > 50 mbps connections but I don’t think this is a contrived fringe edge case either. Meanwhile, the present alternative of “just use rdp” or “just install this package” is completely infeasible for me. And I mean, ant some point, bandwidth is a factor no matter what you do, though I agree more efficient is theoretically better. Unfortunately my job is going to get a lot harder down the road when X is retired for good.
  - QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
    If your IT department at work refuses to give you a modern solution I think that's their problem, not yours. They should just know, X11 forwarding was already obsolete decades ago. They're just signing up for trouble and misery with that. I doubt that X11 is going to disappear for good. It will still always be around for running the odd old X client or for historical curiosity. Just like how you can still emulate the original Macintosh (released the same year as the original version of X!).
    - Amezarak 4y ago
      We don’t have an IT department per se but hundreds of offline sites consisting of thousands of servers each which cannot be changed in this manner and for which neither I nor any person I have ever met has the option of complaining that they’re using “obsolete” solutions that happen to work fine. The more likely end result is that there will simply be no GUI available on most servers when more recent OS releases are deployed and we will shrug and life will be worse. So I guess you can say it’s someone else’s problem but it sure feels like my problem.
      - QUrprUd1nCeicw 4y ago
        I can't understand the situation here. Why wouldn't a more recent OS release have a VNC server available? And why is a web server being used to run firefox? Shouldn't that be run on the client? Why are you even installing a GUI on a Unix server? It seems to me like something is very backwards about your setup.