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Ha, I bet this one will crash and burn over Fiji too. More information here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec They don't like X
by randallu 14y ago
Ha, I bet this one will crash and burn over Fiji too.
More information here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec
They don't like X for all the normal reasons, they think Wayland might be like X but haven't investigated (I think you can replace the input handling in the "compositor" plugin; maybe I'm wrong).
They don't specify how they'll handle hard problems, such as:
- Client vblank sync (as well as compositor vblank sync). Compiz, unity, etc, don't do this now; clients run unsynced and tear.
- Switching unoccluded windows to render directly to the framebuffer instead of going through the compositor. Mandatory for good performance on something like a Nexus 10 (which has a 16MB framebuffer, so nearly 1GB/s bandwidth to deliver glClear at 60fps with no extra copies...).
- Handling multiple clients that want to read gestures. They actually say in their "INPUT" section that they will handle "shell" gestures "in the server", which sounds like they're going to bake their UI into their display server.
They want it to be compatible with all of the old apps too, which Wayland already does. I'm trying not to be judgemental, but it sounds like they want to write something like Wayland but without designing it first. Good luck with re-entry, guys.
- nicholassmith 14y agoBigger burn than reentry. You're right though, this feels a bit like not developed here syndrome. X is horrible to hack on top, and has had a good run but Wayland could be a fantastic base for them, especially given Qt has spent time working on it.
- ithkuil 14y agoIs it possible that once toolkits like qt and gtk have been ported to simpler/more direct APIs like wayland (w.r.t X11), porting them to other APIs like this mir would be easier than starting from scratch?
- nicholassmith 14y agoPossibly, but I've followed some of the Qt Wayland development and it looks like they've hit problems on a fairly regular basis. When you're building GUI toolkits you're also including a certain amount of understanding of the weird corner cases from the windowing system, so you're ending up porting a large chunk of code and then working out what's broken. Although, Qt might have it a bit easier as they've switched to drawing their GUI components with OpenGL.
- slurgfest 14y agoThey were the major ones touting Wayland for a while, it seems unlikely that they "haven't investigated".
- throwaway54-762 14y agoOther than, e.g., Red Hat[0]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(display_server_protocol)#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(display_server_protoc...