8 ms·

Wlhc: Wayland Hot Corners

47 points by goranmoomin 2y ago

account42 2y ago
And with a display server protocol not designed for a low trust environment you wouldn't need to abuse unrelated extensions to backdoor in useful functionality.
- logicprog 2y ago
  Yeah, wouldn't it be great if every application I had open could read my entire screen and act as a key logger to collect all my passwords and personal information? Obviously, since I installed the app, that means I have to trust it completely, and not trusting it completely is just silly!
  - account42 2y ago
    Unironically, yes. You don't have the kind of security in your home that you are asking for in your computer.
    - singleshot_ 2y ago
      If non-corporeal entities could move within my home invisibly and observe my activities silently or change things in my environment at will, I’d definitely consider it.
    - logicprog 2y ago
      If it was practical to have some way to a priori prevent the appliances in my home from seeing me or listening to what I do, while still being able to use them for their intended purpose, then I would certainly use it. Since there is a practical way to do that on a computer, then I'm going to use that if I can. In the same way that I use live narrowing fuzzy search for almost all of my interfaces with the computer and would certainly use that if it were physically possible for physical objects as well, but it just isn't. There are many things that we can do on the computer that we can't do in real life and thus we request that the computer do them. Furthermore, in fact, to the extent that it is possible, I do in fact do this: I flat out refuse to install appliances in my house that would have the capability of passively listening to every word I say or watching every move I make with microphones or cameras — no Alexas or Google Homes or Nest security cameras or smart toasters or anything of the sort. Whereas installing applications under Xorg is essentially the equivalent of having every appliance in your entire house come with microphone and camera that is always on, and just having to trust that they don't actually do anything with that data. Every application installed under XROG essentially has the capability to surveil you and simply choose as not to, whereas I would prefer the digital equivalent of only having appliances in my house that do not have microphones or cameras, or must explicitly ask my permission to use them — Wayland.
      - Modified3019 2y ago
        This is exactly why SpectrumOS (not in a useable state yet) is intriguing to me, as well as qubes OS’s very recent efforts on practical gpu acceleration.
        logicprog 2y ago
        The thing is that Qubes OS uses child Xorg servers per application to make it so that applications can't read the screen or the keyboard from other applications, whereas Wayland simply builds that into the protocol level so that you don't need that horrible hack. Likewise, it needs VMs to isolate each application or environment from each other and the host, and to make the host immutable and reset on reboot. And we can do all of that now with containers and sandboxes and immutable image-based distros. Not as securely, but at great benefit to performance and interoperability. So personally, I think while Qubes is still the gold standard if all you care about is security, if you want a good balance of security and everyday usability, Fedora Silverblue with distrobox and Flatpaks and a Wayland DE/WM is acceptable enough, as long as you harden the polkit permissions and a few other things like that. And yes, yes, I know the FUD about Flatpak *not being a sandbox" lol
  - tedunangst 2y ago
    man xauth
    - logicprog 2y ago
      That only determines who/what can connect to the X server at all, it's either a host/user/client with a cookie can connect to the X server or it can't at all; that has no bearing on me wanting to be able to use graphical applications that are able to connect to the display server without having each one of the graphical applications so connected to be able to read all my keystrokes and the output of my entire screen.
  - vrighter 2y ago
    Yes it really would be. It's the reason I use Linux in the first place, to have freedom to do whatever I want. I don't need linux to protect me from Windows Recall. I chose linux because it already doesn't have stuff like that. And the system (used to) treat me like an adult.
    - logicprog 2y ago
      Yeah a secure-by-default system "doesn't treat you like an adult."
      - vrighter 2y ago
        it's where the security boundary is. The system should protect me from unwanted software getting on the system. Once a piece of software starts running, I do want to give it full access to the system. If not, I'll run it in a container. All the protections wayland offers are to protect against a piece of software someone had to already have access to install. If you are that paranoid, set up selinux properly. Which nobody does, cos it's a pita. Enforcing permissions for everything on everyone is a similar pain in the ass.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  I dunno; X11 was a pile of ugly hacks that we accepted because they were functional/useful. Thus far Wayland has been elegant at the expense of missing features, but if we can get all the missing features I kinda don't care if it involves some degree of ugly hacks.
  - wpm 2y ago
    And in 2042: I dunno, Wayland was a pile of ugly hacks we accepted because they were functional/useful. Thus far Zooplah has been elegant at the expense…
    - logicprog 2y ago
      Insofar as you are even making an argument here, instead of simply childishly parroting what someone you disagree with has said, it's a nonsensical argument — a slippery slope fallacy or something similar: if we replace our display technology stack once, next thing you know we'll do it again next week! Simply because we replace an outdated protocol that didn't and couldn't have take(n) into account the needs and technological capabilities of today (because it was made long before then) with a protocol that is better designed for modern technology and modern requirements once does not mean that it has to happen wantonly and repeatedly — it may or may not happen again at all. There's no forcing function there. Whether it will be replaced again will be determined by whether the fundamental structure of how our computers are used and the graphical technology we use to display things shifts in such a fundamental way again... In which case we should absolutely rethink our display technology instead of layering more shit on the big ball of mud. Xorg's design was fundamentally intended for time-sharing mini-computers, where graphical thin terminals would connect to a central computer where the actual applications ran, and the apps would send display commands to the terminal in return. It was also designed for an era where there was no such thing as GPU acceleration regular graphical applications, so every application would want to communicate with a display server to explain to it what should be displayed instead of directly to hardware. It was also originally designed without support for compositors, when compositors have now become the main thing that displays servers even do in the first place at all, and so therefore should be merged into them. Things have changed significantly since then. Of course, there are protocols layered on top of XORG to account for all these things, but it means that there's a ton of extra complexity and functionality laying around inside it that isn't needed, and much functionality and deficiency left on the table, which is exactly why Wayland exists. If we never see such a substantial change in display technology, again, then there will be no reason to reinvent Wayland. And if you argue that despite the requirements and constraints of display technologies changing so drastically, we should still not replace XORG in fear of it, precipitating some sort of eternal shifting and changing of display technology, then that is simply conservatism taken to the level of insanity. My personal humble opinion, I think we should change our software when our needs and requirements change enough that simply adding more mud to the ball of mud produces a subpar and product.
tuna74 2y ago
Isn't this something that the compositor should do?
- Katzenmann 2y ago
  In theory yes. But leaving all extra functionality to the compositor makes it really complex so the freedom to write programs like these is great. I wish there was more freedom for things wayland clients can do

47 points by goranmoomin 2y ago

And with a display server protocol not designed for a low trust environment you wouldn't need to abuse unrelated extensions to backdoor in useful functionality.

logicprog 2y ago
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if every application I had open could read my entire screen and act as a key logger to collect all my passwords and personal information? Obviously, since I installed the app, that means I have to trust it completely, and not trusting it completely is just silly!
- account42 2y ago
  Unironically, yes. You don't have the kind of security in your home that you are asking for in your computer.
  - singleshot_ 2y ago
    If non-corporeal entities could move within my home invisibly and observe my activities silently or change things in my environment at will, I’d definitely consider it.
  - logicprog 2y ago
    If it was practical to have some way to a priori prevent the appliances in my home from seeing me or listening to what I do, while still being able to use them for their intended purpose, then I would certainly use it. Since there is a practical way to do that on a computer, then I'm going to use that if I can. In the same way that I use live narrowing fuzzy search for almost all of my interfaces with the computer and would certainly use that if it were physically possible for physical objects as well, but it just isn't. There are many things that we can do on the computer that we can't do in real life and thus we request that the computer do them. Furthermore, in fact, to the extent that it is possible, I do in fact do this: I flat out refuse to install appliances in my house that would have the capability of passively listening to every word I say or watching every move I make with microphones or cameras — no Alexas or Google Homes or Nest security cameras or smart toasters or anything of the sort. Whereas installing applications under Xorg is essentially the equivalent of having every appliance in your entire house come with microphone and camera that is always on, and just having to trust that they don't actually do anything with that data. Every application installed under XROG essentially has the capability to surveil you and simply choose as not to, whereas I would prefer the digital equivalent of only having appliances in my house that do not have microphones or cameras, or must explicitly ask my permission to use them — Wayland.
    - Modified3019 2y ago
      This is exactly why SpectrumOS (not in a useable state yet) is intriguing to me, as well as qubes OS’s very recent efforts on practical gpu acceleration.
      - logicprog 2y ago
        The thing is that Qubes OS uses child Xorg servers per application to make it so that applications can't read the screen or the keyboard from other applications, whereas Wayland simply builds that into the protocol level so that you don't need that horrible hack. Likewise, it needs VMs to isolate each application or environment from each other and the host, and to make the host immutable and reset on reboot. And we can do all of that now with containers and sandboxes and immutable image-based distros. Not as securely, but at great benefit to performance and interoperability. So personally, I think while Qubes is still the gold standard if all you care about is security, if you want a good balance of security and everyday usability, Fedora Silverblue with distrobox and Flatpaks and a Wayland DE/WM is acceptable enough, as long as you harden the polkit permissions and a few other things like that. And yes, yes, I know the FUD about Flatpak *not being a sandbox" lol
- tedunangst 2y ago
  man xauth
  - logicprog 2y ago
    That only determines who/what can connect to the X server at all, it's either a host/user/client with a cookie can connect to the X server or it can't at all; that has no bearing on me wanting to be able to use graphical applications that are able to connect to the display server without having each one of the graphical applications so connected to be able to read all my keystrokes and the output of my entire screen.
- vrighter 2y ago
  Yes it really would be. It's the reason I use Linux in the first place, to have freedom to do whatever I want. I don't need linux to protect me from Windows Recall. I chose linux because it already doesn't have stuff like that. And the system (used to) treat me like an adult.
  - logicprog 2y ago
    Yeah a secure-by-default system "doesn't treat you like an adult."
    - vrighter 2y ago
      it's where the security boundary is. The system should protect me from unwanted software getting on the system. Once a piece of software starts running, I do want to give it full access to the system. If not, I'll run it in a container. All the protections wayland offers are to protect against a piece of software someone had to already have access to install. If you are that paranoid, set up selinux properly. Which nobody does, cos it's a pita. Enforcing permissions for everything on everyone is a similar pain in the ass.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
I dunno; X11 was a pile of ugly hacks that we accepted because they were functional/useful. Thus far Wayland has been elegant at the expense of missing features, but if we can get all the missing features I kinda don't care if it involves some degree of ugly hacks.
- wpm 2y ago
  And in 2042: I dunno, Wayland was a pile of ugly hacks we accepted because they were functional/useful. Thus far Zooplah has been elegant at the expense…
  - logicprog 2y ago
    Insofar as you are even making an argument here, instead of simply childishly parroting what someone you disagree with has said, it's a nonsensical argument — a slippery slope fallacy or something similar: if we replace our display technology stack once, next thing you know we'll do it again next week! Simply because we replace an outdated protocol that didn't and couldn't have take(n) into account the needs and technological capabilities of today (because it was made long before then) with a protocol that is better designed for modern technology and modern requirements once does not mean that it has to happen wantonly and repeatedly — it may or may not happen again at all. There's no forcing function there. Whether it will be replaced again will be determined by whether the fundamental structure of how our computers are used and the graphical technology we use to display things shifts in such a fundamental way again... In which case we should absolutely rethink our display technology instead of layering more shit on the big ball of mud. Xorg's design was fundamentally intended for time-sharing mini-computers, where graphical thin terminals would connect to a central computer where the actual applications ran, and the apps would send display commands to the terminal in return. It was also designed for an era where there was no such thing as GPU acceleration regular graphical applications, so every application would want to communicate with a display server to explain to it what should be displayed instead of directly to hardware. It was also originally designed without support for compositors, when compositors have now become the main thing that displays servers even do in the first place at all, and so therefore should be merged into them. Things have changed significantly since then. Of course, there are protocols layered on top of XORG to account for all these things, but it means that there's a ton of extra complexity and functionality laying around inside it that isn't needed, and much functionality and deficiency left on the table, which is exactly why Wayland exists. If we never see such a substantial change in display technology, again, then there will be no reason to reinvent Wayland. And if you argue that despite the requirements and constraints of display technologies changing so drastically, we should still not replace XORG in fear of it, precipitating some sort of eternal shifting and changing of display technology, then that is simply conservatism taken to the level of insanity. My personal humble opinion, I think we should change our software when our needs and requirements change enough that simply adding more mud to the ball of mud produces a subpar and product.

tuna74 2y ago

Isn't this something that the compositor should do?

Katzenmann 2y ago
In theory yes. But leaving all extra functionality to the compositor makes it really complex so the freedom to write programs like these is great. I wish there was more freedom for things wayland clients can do