5 ms·

x11 has seen no development for 10 years. Staying on it for forever is not viable.

by robert_foss 3y ago

Nullabillity 3y ago
Maybe that's why X11 still works, while Wayland is still an absolute shitshow.
- dralley 3y ago
  I've been using Wayland for years at this point, and it works fine, and has continued working fine. When I switched, which again was years ago, it handled several things I cared about much better than Xorg. Try using multiple monitors of different DPIs on Xorg, it sucks.
abaines 3y ago
According to [0] there have been several releases in the last 10 years. Including one in 2021 that added variable refresh rate and touchpad gesture support. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server
- robert_foss 3y ago
  Maintenance work has been done, yes. But not new feature development.
  - abaines 3y ago
    Aren't the two examples I mentioned new features?
    - robert_foss 3y ago
      Oh sorry. They weren't visible in the edit I replied to.
  - gkbrk 3y ago
    What new features are needed to display my windows on my screen?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - abenga 3y ago
      At some point you will have to either start building it for yourself or get someone to build it for you (when distros drop it from their repos). And that will become harder and harder as time goes by. Just recently apps I was building using Tauri stopped working on Xband forced me to switch to the Wayland Gnome session (on Debian testing) permanently. This will become more and more common, until it becomes untenable.
      - gkbrk 3y ago
        I doubt it will be so hard to build. Folks build X servers for Linux, Mac and Windows right now. If anything, X will probably outlive Wayland.
        abenga 3y ago
        Building X is probably going to be trivial going into the future, yeah. Building and running future apps written for the Wayland will be a different beast though.
        gkbrk 3y ago
        Just like there is XWayland today to make it possible to use a Wayland system with X apps, there are already similar solutions to run Wayland apps on an X system. If you run `cage`, it will run a Wayland application in its own sandboxed window while the rest of the system runs X. Similarly; if you run `sway` under X for example, it will start the window manager in its own window, and you can run Wayland applications inside it.
    - vetinari 3y ago
cuddlyogre 3y ago
I find that comforting. I know it works and isn't going to be affected by what's trendy. Fortunately, the source is available and if there is a need to make changes, that is entirely possible.
mjw1007 3y ago
If the X11-and-Wayland maintainers had put X11 up for adoption that might not have been the case. That is, they might have said "We're looking for new maintainers for X11. They will be responsible for its future direction, representing X11's interests to the kernel and to distributions, and deciding when (and if) X11 is to be declared deprecated." As far as I can make out, what they did instead was say "We're looking for people to fix bugs in X11, but they won't get to make any nontrivial decisions."
- vetinari 3y ago
  By fixing bugs in X11, you get to make nontrivial decisions; that's the point why nobody wants to touch it.
- robert_foss 3y ago
  Anyone is welcome to contribute. You still can I you feel so inclined[1]. Contributions have never been discouraged, but no one wants to work on xserver. Remember, this is a 20 year old codebase. With all the cruft and dark corners you would expect and more. [1] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver
dmitrygr 3y ago
"ls" has likely seen no development either, nor have "dd" or "cat" I bet When will you youngsters learn that something can be complete, done, and in no need of pointless reshuffling.
hulitu 3y ago
> x11 has seen no development for 10 years. Staying on it for forever is not viable. Erm, what ? Are you sure ? Why it is X starting without a mouse now ? It has not done it 10 years ago ? Why do i need a gazilion of font libraries now ? Why were the default fonts changed ? Why is Mesa a hard dependency now ?
freedude 3y ago
Xorg is unmaintainable and this is acknowledged by the experienced maintainers that don't want to maintain it any longer.

x11 has seen no development for 10 years. Staying on it for forever is not viable.

Nullabillity 3y ago

Maybe that's why X11 still works, while Wayland is still an absolute shitshow.

dralley 3y ago
I've been using Wayland for years at this point, and it works fine, and has continued working fine. When I switched, which again was years ago, it handled several things I cared about much better than Xorg. Try using multiple monitors of different DPIs on Xorg, it sucks.

abaines 3y ago

According to [0] there have been several releases in the last 10 years. Including one in 2021 that added variable refresh rate and touchpad gesture support. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server

robert_foss 3y ago
Maintenance work has been done, yes. But not new feature development.
- abaines 3y ago
  Aren't the two examples I mentioned new features?
  - robert_foss 3y ago
    Oh sorry. They weren't visible in the edit I replied to.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  What new features are needed to display my windows on my screen?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - abenga 3y ago
    At some point you will have to either start building it for yourself or get someone to build it for you (when distros drop it from their repos). And that will become harder and harder as time goes by. Just recently apps I was building using Tauri stopped working on Xband forced me to switch to the Wayland Gnome session (on Debian testing) permanently. This will become more and more common, until it becomes untenable.
    - gkbrk 3y ago
      I doubt it will be so hard to build. Folks build X servers for Linux, Mac and Windows right now. If anything, X will probably outlive Wayland.
      - abenga 3y ago
        Building X is probably going to be trivial going into the future, yeah. Building and running future apps written for the Wayland will be a different beast though.
        gkbrk 3y ago
        Just like there is XWayland today to make it possible to use a Wayland system with X apps, there are already similar solutions to run Wayland apps on an X system. If you run `cage`, it will run a Wayland application in its own sandboxed window while the rest of the system runs X. Similarly; if you run `sway` under X for example, it will start the window manager in its own window, and you can run Wayland applications inside it.
  - vetinari 3y ago

cuddlyogre 3y ago

I find that comforting. I know it works and isn't going to be affected by what's trendy. Fortunately, the source is available and if there is a need to make changes, that is entirely possible.

mjw1007 3y ago

If the X11-and-Wayland maintainers had put X11 up for adoption that might not have been the case. That is, they might have said "We're looking for new maintainers for X11. They will be responsible for its future direction, representing X11's interests to the kernel and to distributions, and deciding when (and if) X11 is to be declared deprecated." As far as I can make out, what they did instead was say "We're looking for people to fix bugs in X11, but they won't get to make any nontrivial decisions."

vetinari 3y ago
By fixing bugs in X11, you get to make nontrivial decisions; that's the point why nobody wants to touch it.
robert_foss 3y ago
Anyone is welcome to contribute. You still can I you feel so inclined[1]. Contributions have never been discouraged, but no one wants to work on xserver. Remember, this is a 20 year old codebase. With all the cruft and dark corners you would expect and more. [1] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver

dmitrygr 3y ago

"ls" has likely seen no development either, nor have "dd" or "cat" I bet When will you youngsters learn that something can be complete, done, and in no need of pointless reshuffling.

hulitu 3y ago

> x11 has seen no development for 10 years. Staying on it for forever is not viable. Erm, what ? Are you sure ? Why it is X starting without a mouse now ? It has not done it 10 years ago ? Why do i need a gazilion of font libraries now ? Why were the default fonts changed ? Why is Mesa a hard dependency now ?

freedude 3y ago

Xorg is unmaintainable and this is acknowledged by the experienced maintainers that don't want to maintain it any longer.