4 ms·

I never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs suc

I never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs such as elementary handle the replacement of X with Mir? I'm not familiar with how child distros handle divergent dependencies in general so I'd love to hear what elementary is doing.

aroman 13y ago
Great question. The simple answer is: we don't know yet. We actually had a conference call with some folks from Canonical a few weeks ago discussing this very issue. At present, it seems like there are three options (I'm taking these points mostly from the minutes from that call): 1. Port everything to Qt and use Mir (because GTK+ might not work under pure Mir -- they've been backing Wayland so far). This would require an IMMENSE amount of work and would be tantamount to rewriting almost every line in our codebase. 2. Help port GTK+ (or make an extension/fork of it) to Mir. This might honestly be less work than #1, but elementary would be at a specific disadvantage because most of our developers (speaking for myself as well) don't really have the skills needed for something like this. 3. Do nothing and use XMir until we absolutely must switch. We don't have an official or internal consensus on this point yet, to my knowledge. However, I would personally tend to think we'll be leaning toward #3, depending on how XMir shapes up. This is definitely an area of interest and importance for us, and it's something that will undoubtedly continue to be discussed as we begin the L+1 cycle and beyond.
- pilgrim689 13y ago
  Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?
  - aroman 13y ago
    I would imagine they would help with the porting effort, but I really have no idea. I can't speak to Canonical's intentions or Ubuntu's plans, I'm afraid.
- e12e 13y ago
  How about 4. Rebase to Debian (Aka: which probably would mean stick with Wayland/follow Gnome) ?
  - aroman 13y ago
    Rebasing to Debian definitely comes up a lot. Our main reasons for sticking with Ubuntu are: - we rely very heavily on Launchpad - we rely on the hardware support and testing work they do - the Ubuntu userbase seems to be a bit more in-line with the kinds of people who will enjoy elementary OS (this isn't a technical reason) - we have some close relationships with Canonical/Ubuntu employees/developers It's definitely a possibility, though personally I don't see it becoming feasible in the near term.
    - nly 13y ago
      How about talking to the Linux Mint guys about it?
  - anonymous 13y ago
    Or 5. package wayland for ubuntu. Kubuntu have already said that they will be using wayland and not switching to Mir, so you may want to talk with them, too. It doesn't seem like anything but stock Ubuntu will be using Mir.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      I wonder where that leaves XFCE and LXDE?
      - mdellabitta 13y ago
        "Looking further ahead, the GTK version of LXDE will be dropped and all efforts will be focused on the Qt port." http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046 http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046
- synchronise 13y ago
  It's good to see another distribution approaching Mir as a viable replacement to X11. Keep up the good work guys.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  How have you found developing in Vala? What is concurrency and multi-threading support like in the language? With Vala's object system built upon GObject, wouldn't targeting Qt be a problem?
  - aroman 13y ago
    Vala is, all in all, fantastic. The way I describe it to people is "it feels like C# but runs at C speed", and that's pretty much accurate. The only issues we have are binding bugs and Vala bugs, both of which are harder and harder to find these days. And when you do find one, the development community is very active and you can find the help you need. For concurrency, I have personally written async vala code (which has some excellent support, including closures), but there is full thread support via GObject. The thread safety stuff is the same as the underlying library, and lots of work goes into GLib/GTK+ to make them thread safe where appropriate. Yes, targeting Qt with Vala would a real problem. That's why we have absolutely no plans to move to Qt :) Not that it hasn't been brought up -- I remember some very vocal discussions in IRC a few years back when a few developers (mostly who have since moved on, interestingly) tried to convince us to jump ship and go to Qt. It was a lot more feasible back then too, since we were still pretty early in the Luna cycle. But the insurrection was ultimately quelled with practical concerns and majority mindshare :)
    - TheLegace 13y ago
      How do you feel about using Python generating code just like Vala code is generated? Doesn't GObject basically mean all the languages supported are compatible and we can write libraries/applications (which are generated into C code) and they are binary compatible with each other without extra code or configuration. I think that's really interesting and could make very fast, and robust applications very flexible as well. I am actually watching a talk on PyGObject by the author Tal Liron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrGmA_RR4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrGmA_RR4E
- munchor 13y ago
  Aroman, the general plan is to move to Wayland, GNOME has made an impressive amount of work on it and many of the devs like me, Daniel and Shnatsel are fans of the Wayland project too.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

aroman 13y ago

Great question. The simple answer is: we don't know yet. We actually had a conference call with some folks from Canonical a few weeks ago discussing this very issue. At present, it seems like there are three options (I'm taking these points mostly from the minutes from that call): 1. Port everything to Qt and use Mir (because GTK+ might not work under pure Mir -- they've been backing Wayland so far). This would require an IMMENSE amount of work and would be tantamount to rewriting almost every line in our codebase. 2. Help port GTK+ (or make an extension/fork of it) to Mir. This might honestly be less work than #1, but elementary would be at a specific disadvantage because most of our developers (speaking for myself as well) don't really have the skills needed for something like this. 3. Do nothing and use XMir until we absolutely must switch. We don't have an official or internal consensus on this point yet, to my knowledge. However, I would personally tend to think we'll be leaning toward #3, depending on how XMir shapes up. This is definitely an area of interest and importance for us, and it's something that will undoubtedly continue to be discussed as we begin the L+1 cycle and beyond.

pilgrim689 13y ago
Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?
- aroman 13y ago
  I would imagine they would help with the porting effort, but I really have no idea. I can't speak to Canonical's intentions or Ubuntu's plans, I'm afraid.
e12e 13y ago
How about 4. Rebase to Debian (Aka: which probably would mean stick with Wayland/follow Gnome) ?
- aroman 13y ago
  Rebasing to Debian definitely comes up a lot. Our main reasons for sticking with Ubuntu are: - we rely very heavily on Launchpad - we rely on the hardware support and testing work they do - the Ubuntu userbase seems to be a bit more in-line with the kinds of people who will enjoy elementary OS (this isn't a technical reason) - we have some close relationships with Canonical/Ubuntu employees/developers It's definitely a possibility, though personally I don't see it becoming feasible in the near term.
  - nly 13y ago
    How about talking to the Linux Mint guys about it?
- anonymous 13y ago
  Or 5. package wayland for ubuntu. Kubuntu have already said that they will be using wayland and not switching to Mir, so you may want to talk with them, too. It doesn't seem like anything but stock Ubuntu will be using Mir.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    I wonder where that leaves XFCE and LXDE?
    - mdellabitta 13y ago
      "Looking further ahead, the GTK version of LXDE will be dropped and all efforts will be focused on the Qt port." http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046 http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046
synchronise 13y ago
It's good to see another distribution approaching Mir as a viable replacement to X11. Keep up the good work guys.
yapcguy 13y ago
How have you found developing in Vala? What is concurrency and multi-threading support like in the language? With Vala's object system built upon GObject, wouldn't targeting Qt be a problem?
- aroman 13y ago
  Vala is, all in all, fantastic. The way I describe it to people is "it feels like C# but runs at C speed", and that's pretty much accurate. The only issues we have are binding bugs and Vala bugs, both of which are harder and harder to find these days. And when you do find one, the development community is very active and you can find the help you need. For concurrency, I have personally written async vala code (which has some excellent support, including closures), but there is full thread support via GObject. The thread safety stuff is the same as the underlying library, and lots of work goes into GLib/GTK+ to make them thread safe where appropriate. Yes, targeting Qt with Vala would a real problem. That's why we have absolutely no plans to move to Qt :) Not that it hasn't been brought up -- I remember some very vocal discussions in IRC a few years back when a few developers (mostly who have since moved on, interestingly) tried to convince us to jump ship and go to Qt. It was a lot more feasible back then too, since we were still pretty early in the Luna cycle. But the insurrection was ultimately quelled with practical concerns and majority mindshare :)
  - TheLegace 13y ago
    How do you feel about using Python generating code just like Vala code is generated? Doesn't GObject basically mean all the languages supported are compatible and we can write libraries/applications (which are generated into C code) and they are binary compatible with each other without extra code or configuration. I think that's really interesting and could make very fast, and robust applications very flexible as well. I am actually watching a talk on PyGObject by the author Tal Liron. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrGmA_RR4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrGmA_RR4E
munchor 13y ago
Aroman, the general plan is to move to Wayland, GNOME has made an impressive amount of work on it and many of the devs like me, Daniel and Shnatsel are fans of the Wayland project too.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]