4 ms·

RHEL 10 will be Wayland only; what does this mean for X.org?

35 points by lproven 3y ago

rumdz 3y ago
Does anyone actually run RHEL with an X server?
- snakeyjake 3y ago
  Many devs targeting RHEL run RHEL as a workstation OS and it works great.
- _chu1 3y ago
  I honestly wish Red Hat sold a prosumer version of RHEL with support
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    As nice as that would be I can imagine the support staff required would balloon quite a bit and where businesses sometimes make funky choices on how they build their things, prosumers may do that at a higher rate and make for harder to support systems.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - csdreamer7 3y ago
    What do you, as a prosumer, need paid support for?
    - csdreamer7 3y ago
      You can buy it with phone support for $349 per year. https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-server https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-ser...
  - tapoxi 3y ago
    They do, https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-workstation https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-wor...
sillywalk 3y ago
I'm not sure if this is true, but JWZ, "the world's foremost expert on screen savers on Unix-like operating systems", says that "Wayland does not support screen savers: it does not have any provision that allows screen savers to even exist in any meaningful way. If you value screen savers, that's kind of a problem. " [0] *caution*: links from HN to jwz's blog do, or did show an nsfw picture [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/
- tristan957 3y ago
  Do people even use screensavers anymore?
  - kuhsaft 3y ago
    Not for any “purposeful” use. Screensavers were used to prevent burn-in. So, unless you’re using a CRT, it’s a waste of power. OLED displays usually have built-in burn-in protection nowadays as well. Again, it is more energy efficient to power off the display.
  - bzzzt 3y ago
    Apple seems to think so. It's the first 'improvement' mentioned on the macOS Sonoma homepage. https://www.apple.com/macos/sonoma/ https://www.apple.com/macos/sonoma/
- forgotpwd16 3y ago
  A relevant protocol (https://wayland.app/protocols/ext-session-lock-v1 https://wayland.app/protocols/ext-session-lock-v1) has been introduced nearly two years ago.
  - franga2000 3y ago
    This looks a lot more like a lock screen than a screensaver. A screensaver could be implemented using this API, but it would replace the DE-native lock screen and need to implement everything it used to do.
peatmoss 3y ago
OpenBSD has maintained a fork of X.org called Xenocara for quite some time. I wonder if those developers will be the last with a deep understanding of the guts.
- lproven 3y ago
  Article author/submitter here. > OpenBSD has maintained a fork of X.org called Xenocara Did you RTFA? I specifically mentioned that: « If nobody volunteers to take on the considerable workload of maintaining X.org, it will die. The task of getting OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonflyBSD to all cooperate on maintaining a shared implementation, perhaps based on OpenBSD's Xenocara, is probably even more difficult. Xenocara does run on Linux – Hyperbola used it, but that OS is in the process of moving to a BSD base. »
  - peatmoss 3y ago
    Huh, no I didn't see that—I think when I read this on my phone that the content cut off at the "More Context" section. I remember thinking that your article had a rather strange ending point, and was a little less deep than I would have wanted. I guess that explains that :-) EDIT: reading the remainder now, this article does a great job discussing other approaches: Arcan, NeWS, X12. Lovely work.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Thank you!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Woodi 3y ago
RHE10 anouncement stated that they want that change in 2025 so they count on 2 years of development for Wayland. Becouse Wayland is still not ready. RHE9 have support to 2032 ? So X Org still have a lot of support. And you know what ? RHE10 is planned to still have XWayland supported so X Org code is still in play. Can be packaged and supported again any time before 2040 maybe longer. Just remove all that drivers, only 2 are needed :) Plus few for Arm, but that is new code.

35 points by lproven 3y ago

rumdz 3y ago

Does anyone actually run RHEL with an X server?

snakeyjake 3y ago
Many devs targeting RHEL run RHEL as a workstation OS and it works great.
_chu1 3y ago
I honestly wish Red Hat sold a prosumer version of RHEL with support
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  As nice as that would be I can imagine the support staff required would balloon quite a bit and where businesses sometimes make funky choices on how they build their things, prosumers may do that at a higher rate and make for harder to support systems.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- csdreamer7 3y ago
  What do you, as a prosumer, need paid support for?
  - csdreamer7 3y ago
    You can buy it with phone support for $349 per year. https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-server https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-ser...
- tapoxi 3y ago
  They do, https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-workstation https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-wor...

sillywalk 3y ago

I'm not sure if this is true, but JWZ, "the world's foremost expert on screen savers on Unix-like operating systems", says that "Wayland does not support screen savers: it does not have any provision that allows screen savers to even exist in any meaningful way. If you value screen savers, that's kind of a problem. " [0] *caution*: links from HN to jwz's blog do, or did show an nsfw picture [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/wayland-and-screen-savers/

tristan957 3y ago
Do people even use screensavers anymore?
- kuhsaft 3y ago
  Not for any “purposeful” use. Screensavers were used to prevent burn-in. So, unless you’re using a CRT, it’s a waste of power. OLED displays usually have built-in burn-in protection nowadays as well. Again, it is more energy efficient to power off the display.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  Apple seems to think so. It's the first 'improvement' mentioned on the macOS Sonoma homepage. https://www.apple.com/macos/sonoma/ https://www.apple.com/macos/sonoma/
forgotpwd16 3y ago
A relevant protocol (https://wayland.app/protocols/ext-session-lock-v1 https://wayland.app/protocols/ext-session-lock-v1) has been introduced nearly two years ago.
- franga2000 3y ago
  This looks a lot more like a lock screen than a screensaver. A screensaver could be implemented using this API, but it would replace the DE-native lock screen and need to implement everything it used to do.

peatmoss 3y ago

OpenBSD has maintained a fork of X.org called Xenocara for quite some time. I wonder if those developers will be the last with a deep understanding of the guts.

lproven 3y ago
Article author/submitter here. > OpenBSD has maintained a fork of X.org called Xenocara Did you RTFA? I specifically mentioned that: « If nobody volunteers to take on the considerable workload of maintaining X.org, it will die. The task of getting OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonflyBSD to all cooperate on maintaining a shared implementation, perhaps based on OpenBSD's Xenocara, is probably even more difficult. Xenocara does run on Linux – Hyperbola used it, but that OS is in the process of moving to a BSD base. »
- peatmoss 3y ago
  Huh, no I didn't see that—I think when I read this on my phone that the content cut off at the "More Context" section. I remember thinking that your article had a rather strange ending point, and was a little less deep than I would have wanted. I guess that explains that :-) EDIT: reading the remainder now, this article does a great job discussing other approaches: Arcan, NeWS, X12. Lovely work.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Thank you!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Woodi 3y ago

RHE10 anouncement stated that they want that change in 2025 so they count on 2 years of development for Wayland. Becouse Wayland is still not ready. RHE9 have support to 2032 ? So X Org still have a lot of support. And you know what ? RHE10 is planned to still have XWayland supported so X Org code is still in play. Can be packaged and supported again any time before 2040 maybe longer. Just remove all that drivers, only 2 are needed :) Plus few for Arm, but that is new code.