4 ms·

It's really frustrating reading all of the misunderstandings regarding Wayland and remote access. The rendering modes modern applications use (SHM and dri2) ar

by dmm 14y ago

It's really frustrating reading all of the misunderstandings regarding Wayland and remote access. The rendering modes modern applications use (SHM and dri2) are already just swapping image buffers around. The applications(the toolkits mostly) are doing all the rendering. So you if you are accessing X11 remotely you are _already_ sending image buffers over the network. Wayland can will be no worse at that and can potentially be much better.

rwmj 14y ago
For people using old X programs it's probably still sending X core protocol messages, but you're right that there are misunderstandings. What I and most people want is "ssh [-Y]" to continue to transparently forward the display so we can run programs. Luckily it seems that xpra[1] will do this for Wayland at some point, although the real test will be how simple it is to set up (like ssh -Y it should Just Work for the majority of users). [1] http://xpra.org/ http://xpra.org/
- zanny 14y ago
  From my understanding, it seems like what we want is a VNC switch in ssh rather than necessarilly display server specific functionality. Go even further and maybe the ssh server could just use the RFB protocol vnc uses. Any Linux VNC server worth its salt already support tunneling RFB over ssh. To take it a step further, you would just need very little display server support for an ssh server to request the framebuffer of an application it opens and send it via RFB or the vnc server to the client. And I'd imagine Wayland already has some mechanism for other applications to read somethings frames. If it is generic enough, ssh should be able to use that. My only concern is that Wayland would need to be rendering programs but not displaying them locally, and I don't have any understanding of Wayland's internal implementation enough to know if it supports hidden windows like that.
- joeyo 14y ago
  Thank you so much for pointing out xpra. I've been wanting this exact feature for years. I frequently use Matlab on remote servers (they're closer to the data and faster than my laptop). I've been mostly able to get by through a combination of tmux, matlab -nodisplay, and rendering plots to files, but it's a less than ideal solution. Xpra does exactly what I need and it's glorious. Many thanks again.
loudmax 14y ago
That came up in the article: "We think it's going to be better at remoting than X," Stone said, or at least it cannot be worse than X. That is encouraging. I was worried that they were going to simply drop support for opening remote windows altogether. It looks like they've learned from the behavior of graphical networking outside of X.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  They have openly discussed their intention to build an X-compatible layer on top of Wayland for remote windows for years, it is really sad that FUD has prevailed about how they want to take our remote windows away.
  - wmf 14y ago
    XWayland exists, but it's not the issue. We want to run native Wayland apps remotely.
    - jdub 14y ago
      Maybe you do, but then, maybe you have no idea what you're asking for and why it makes no sense.
mich41 14y ago
Does Wayland support sending only buffers of the particular window I want to see on my desktop? As I understand it, it's going to only support forwarding of the whole desktop (like VNC). And this would be a huge functionality regression.
- anonymous 14y ago
  Yes it does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Wayland/Weston already is better. That's the infuriating thing. If you watch the video from one of the main Wayland devs, he calls out the absurd crap that gets posted on reddit and LWN and months later, the same ludicrous crap is being posted.

by dmm 14y ago

rwmj 14y ago

For people using old X programs it's probably still sending X core protocol messages, but you're right that there are misunderstandings. What I and most people want is "ssh [-Y]" to continue to transparently forward the display so we can run programs. Luckily it seems that xpra[1] will do this for Wayland at some point, although the real test will be how simple it is to set up (like ssh -Y it should Just Work for the majority of users). [1] http://xpra.org/ http://xpra.org/

zanny 14y ago
From my understanding, it seems like what we want is a VNC switch in ssh rather than necessarilly display server specific functionality. Go even further and maybe the ssh server could just use the RFB protocol vnc uses. Any Linux VNC server worth its salt already support tunneling RFB over ssh. To take it a step further, you would just need very little display server support for an ssh server to request the framebuffer of an application it opens and send it via RFB or the vnc server to the client. And I'd imagine Wayland already has some mechanism for other applications to read somethings frames. If it is generic enough, ssh should be able to use that. My only concern is that Wayland would need to be rendering programs but not displaying them locally, and I don't have any understanding of Wayland's internal implementation enough to know if it supports hidden windows like that.
joeyo 14y ago
Thank you so much for pointing out xpra. I've been wanting this exact feature for years. I frequently use Matlab on remote servers (they're closer to the data and faster than my laptop). I've been mostly able to get by through a combination of tmux, matlab -nodisplay, and rendering plots to files, but it's a less than ideal solution. Xpra does exactly what I need and it's glorious. Many thanks again.

loudmax 14y ago

That came up in the article: "We think it's going to be better at remoting than X," Stone said, or at least it cannot be worse than X. That is encouraging. I was worried that they were going to simply drop support for opening remote windows altogether. It looks like they've learned from the behavior of graphical networking outside of X.

slurgfest 14y ago
They have openly discussed their intention to build an X-compatible layer on top of Wayland for remote windows for years, it is really sad that FUD has prevailed about how they want to take our remote windows away.
- wmf 14y ago
  XWayland exists, but it's not the issue. We want to run native Wayland apps remotely.
  - jdub 14y ago
    Maybe you do, but then, maybe you have no idea what you're asking for and why it makes no sense.

mich41 14y ago

Does Wayland support sending only buffers of the particular window I want to see on my desktop? As I understand it, it's going to only support forwarding of the whole desktop (like VNC). And this would be a huge functionality regression.

anonymous 14y ago
Yes it does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Wayland/Weston already is better. That's the infuriating thing. If you watch the video from one of the main Wayland devs, he calls out the absurd crap that gets posted on reddit and LWN and months later, the same ludicrous crap is being posted.