5 ms·

Does anyone have a grasp/understanding of how desktop environments work on Linux? I don't. For me, everything feels to get more and more convoluted and tacked o

by Eduard 3y ago

Does anyone have a grasp/understanding of how desktop environments work on Linux? I don't. For me, everything feels to get more and more convoluted and tacked on.

hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
With gnome being the front runner on that one. I’m curious to see how much of an impact the wayland architecture will be, and if ‘gnome only’ apps become a thing.
- NekkoDroid 3y ago
  Funny that you say "gnome only", cuz currently there are "non-gnome only" apps due to a specific protocol not being implemented by gnome (drm-leasing for VR, at least on main. there is a PR that is specifically said to not merge since they want to handle it via a xdg-portal). They are very wary of exposing anything in an way that could very much backfire in the long run, be it as a general implementation or exposing something they would be stuck with.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
    I’m not blaming gnome, I just see it as a big problem in the future ‘oh sorry just have to restart wayland so I can boot into $app’. Any display renderer that has this limitation and expects each individual project to cross-support other renderers is a poor design, at least in my books.
  - PeakKS 3y ago
    The xdg-portal attempt was misguided and I don't beleive anyone is pursuing it at this point. Ideally drm-leasing would be managed by the login manager, allowing multiple compositors to lease connectors and run independently on other monitors, as well as being used for VR headsets. https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/29078 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/29078. Sidenote: I hacked the wayland protocol implementation for gnome into working at least for SteamVR, but at least with AMD gpus there is some serious bug preventing the card from performing properly. It basically throttles itself for no reason and never hits the refresh rates needed for smooth VR, especially since there is no asynchronous reprojection at the moment. So while ideally the drm-leasing problem would be solved already there are other even more important problems to solve with linux VR for now.
pavlov 3y ago
The X Window System was basically the wrong bet on how GUIs and computer hardware would evolve. Its client/server architecture was the opposite of the highly integrated graphics processing model we ended up with. Instead of cutting its losses early and dumping X11, both the Unix vendors and open source spent far too long trying to make lemonade out of a truckload of rotten lemons. And that’s why Linux GUIs are so far behind. It’s notable how rapidly Apple was able to evolve their Unix GUI because they were not tied to X11 and instead embraced the integrated model, even designing their own GPUs nowadays.
- EasyMark 3y ago
  People keep saying this but I never really had any complaints of kde vs windows vs macos. All 3 are perfectly usable, it's only in the past 8 years or so where windows has gone crazy with the obtuse spying and ads and "MICROSOFT" everywhere. Even that isn't too hard to remove with a download or two.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    They're not talking about usability, they're talking about the technical underpinnings. ;P
    - jwells89 3y ago
      And polish. With X you can sometimes feel the “layers” separating and slip-sliding around a bit in places that you don’t with a Wayland DE or in macOS. This was especially true in the late 00s when there was less computing power available to brute-force these issues into being less apparent.
      - user_7832 3y ago
        As someone not very familiar with Linux, which desktop environment would you recommend with most “polish”? I’m thinking of switching from windows 10 on my new laptop but I do appreciate all the animations in windows. (I could also consider a hackintosh or BSD if they are prettier, especially in movement/animations.)

by Eduard 3y ago

Does anyone have a grasp/understanding of how desktop environments work on Linux? I don't. For me, everything feels to get more and more convoluted and tacked on.

hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago

With gnome being the front runner on that one. I’m curious to see how much of an impact the wayland architecture will be, and if ‘gnome only’ apps become a thing.

NekkoDroid 3y ago
Funny that you say "gnome only", cuz currently there are "non-gnome only" apps due to a specific protocol not being implemented by gnome (drm-leasing for VR, at least on main. there is a PR that is specifically said to not merge since they want to handle it via a xdg-portal). They are very wary of exposing anything in an way that could very much backfire in the long run, be it as a general implementation or exposing something they would be stuck with.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
  I’m not blaming gnome, I just see it as a big problem in the future ‘oh sorry just have to restart wayland so I can boot into $app’. Any display renderer that has this limitation and expects each individual project to cross-support other renderers is a poor design, at least in my books.
- PeakKS 3y ago
  The xdg-portal attempt was misguided and I don't beleive anyone is pursuing it at this point. Ideally drm-leasing would be managed by the login manager, allowing multiple compositors to lease connectors and run independently on other monitors, as well as being used for VR headsets. https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/29078 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/29078. Sidenote: I hacked the wayland protocol implementation for gnome into working at least for SteamVR, but at least with AMD gpus there is some serious bug preventing the card from performing properly. It basically throttles itself for no reason and never hits the refresh rates needed for smooth VR, especially since there is no asynchronous reprojection at the moment. So while ideally the drm-leasing problem would be solved already there are other even more important problems to solve with linux VR for now.

pavlov 3y ago

The X Window System was basically the wrong bet on how GUIs and computer hardware would evolve. Its client/server architecture was the opposite of the highly integrated graphics processing model we ended up with. Instead of cutting its losses early and dumping X11, both the Unix vendors and open source spent far too long trying to make lemonade out of a truckload of rotten lemons. And that’s why Linux GUIs are so far behind. It’s notable how rapidly Apple was able to evolve their Unix GUI because they were not tied to X11 and instead embraced the integrated model, even designing their own GPUs nowadays.

EasyMark 3y ago
People keep saying this but I never really had any complaints of kde vs windows vs macos. All 3 are perfectly usable, it's only in the past 8 years or so where windows has gone crazy with the obtuse spying and ads and "MICROSOFT" everywhere. Even that isn't too hard to remove with a download or two.
- Klonoar 3y ago
  They're not talking about usability, they're talking about the technical underpinnings. ;P
  - jwells89 3y ago
    And polish. With X you can sometimes feel the “layers” separating and slip-sliding around a bit in places that you don’t with a Wayland DE or in macOS. This was especially true in the late 00s when there was less computing power available to brute-force these issues into being less apparent.
    - user_7832 3y ago
      As someone not very familiar with Linux, which desktop environment would you recommend with most “polish”? I’m thinking of switching from windows 10 on my new laptop but I do appreciate all the animations in windows. (I could also consider a hackintosh or BSD if they are prettier, especially in movement/animations.)