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I would argue that the biggest stumbling block to Linux going mainstream is actually X. Get rid of it, start something sensible from scratch that's based on cur

I would argue that the biggest stumbling block to Linux going mainstream is actually X. Get rid of it, start something sensible from scratch that's based on current (i.e. more developed) ideas than what was leading edge 25 years ago. Seriously. Case in point: trying to configure two screens on Linux is anything between painful to downright impossible. In 2009! Windows 95 had that ability.

wmf 17y ago
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~krh/wayland/ http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~krh/wayland/ AFAIK only one person is working on it.
CrLf 17y ago
The biggest stumbling block is not X, not by a long shot. The biggest stumbling block is the lack of a unifying vision.
- dschobel 17y ago
  if we're talking about X the standard and not Xorg the implementation, shouldn't the former be the grand unifying vision?
  - CrLf 17y ago
    X the standard and Xorg the implementation have been one and the same thing for a while. But X is just a component for the system, and what is lacking is a vision for the system as a whole. Actually, unifying visions have emerged for many facets of the system (as proven by the success on the server and embedded space), just not for the desktop.
  - acg 17y ago
    I think he's talking the about linux adoption not being down to X but there being no long term vision for linux as a whole. Perhaps there are not enough designers and artists on board to make the linux desktop woo business. It's not always decent APIs that win.
- astine 17y ago
  Well, in a way, that is also Linux's strongest advantage, so you win some, you lose some.
- hristov 17y ago
  That's actually the biggest advantage of Linux.
kevindication 17y ago
As the article points out, the X you use today is the ninth revision and a total redesign at that. They thought about the problem more than you are capable of giving credit. Also: "Linux going mainstream?" First: Who cares? Your case is also incorrect (or based off of experience with the wrong software) since I can drag and drop the dual monitors in the display configuration screen today. I was able to make this work with a few text file edits in 1998. It's been quite painless for a while and quite possible for even longer.
- catzaa 17y ago
  > I can drag and drop the dual monitors in the display configuration screen today. I was able to make this work with a few text file edits in 1998. That is the problem. Linux can do everything that Windows can but it takes a hell of a lot of time to sort everything out.
- lucumo 17y ago
  Try two screens that don't form a rectangular area (e.g. one large and one small screen) and still get a decent setup, i.e. one where you can see all of your desktop.
jmillikin 17y ago
Issues with advanced configurations such as dual-screens are generally the fault of drivers, not X. For example, I can configure two screens easily using the open-source Intel drivers, but proprietary nVidia drivers do not support the standard.
- Periodic 17y ago
  X supports multiple displays already. The problem mostly lies in getting those drivers to tell X how to deal with the windows. Over the last few years, setting up multiple monitors with nVidia cards has been as simple as: - Install the nVidia driver. - Run the nVidia config. - Double-click the grayed-out monitor to enable it. - Save settings - Restart X.
  - jmillikin 17y ago
    For non-nvidia cards: - Open the display properties dialog - Enable the second screen - Close the display properties dialog
bokchoi 17y ago
> Case in point: trying to configure two screens on Linux is anything between painful to downright impossible. In 2009! I used various flavors of linux all through college and I gave Ubuntu a fair shake for the past two years on my laptop, but this is the main reason why I'm using Vista today. That and shutting down took minutes. I don't have time to dick around with text files fixing this just to have it break again on the next upgrade.
hristov 17y ago
So, what exactly is outdated about the ideas of X? For example, I noticed that my old law firm paid lots and lots of money for a software solution that does on windows what X does natively. I think now that we are starting to run software from remote computers again, the ideas of X are becoming more and more relevant and are being essentially repeated at higher levels for higher cost.
- gaius 17y ago
  NeWS was technically superior to X in many ways. I'd argue with Chrome could effectively be NeWS with Javascript instead of Postscript, disguised as a browser so as not to wig everyone out...
  - cpr 17y ago
    And that's exactly browsers are turning into. Browser: Canvas/WebGL + fast JS = new generation of NeWS.
  - corbet 17y ago
    I actually wrote a significant program in NeWS. I ran screaming back to X. PostScript is a good page description language. It's a horrifyingly bad user interface implementation language.
    - gaius 17y ago
      That is true but it round-tripped between the client and server far more economically than X does.
thingie 17y ago
Strange, for me, it's very easy, which doesn't seem to fall in your range. What's wrong? Throw out working solution after 25 years of development, with all the codebase and everything, that makes perfect sense, of course. You are arguing with one particular case, which is most likely just an implementation shortcoming of your drivers (because it works for me, and well :-P), that doesn't justify throwing out thing like this. X was extended so many times, old stuff was replaced with new extensions, and eventually, it should be scrapped because someone can't configure two screens with it! Oh. Can you name one thing that is fundamentally wrong with X and cannot be simply replaced with a new X extension, or fixed in the implementation?
jcromartie 17y ago
My friend said: "imagine there was a baby and, instead of growing into an adult, it grew into a giant baby: that's X"
jsz0 17y ago
X is fine in my opinion. It's flexible and a known commodity with pretty good hardware support. The cost (in man hours) of replacing X and modifying all the associated bits that rely on it far out weighs NVIDIA or ATI getting someone to spend a few hours developing a utility to setup multiple monitors. A lot of the things people blame on X really have very little or nothing to do with it.
Ademan 17y ago
My biggest problem with your argument is that you haven't presented any reason to get rid of X whatsoever. You've pointed out that somewhere in X.org or supporting drivers there are issues, but that's not a problem with X11. If you were to say "we need to write a new X server from scratch" I would be somewhat with you, at least your point supports that. And if you were to say "X.org needs more bug fixing and better drivers" I'd wholeheartedly agree. But throwing out X11 alltogether is just... stupid, at least for the reasons you mentioned.
- FooBarWidget 17y ago
  Most people don't know there's a difference between X.org (the implementation) and X11 (the protocol). I guess that's why people conclude that "X" sucks and must be replaced.
known 17y ago
http://www.microxwin.com/architecture.html http://www.microxwin.com/architecture.html

wmf 17y ago

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~krh/wayland/ http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~krh/wayland/ AFAIK only one person is working on it.

CrLf 17y ago

The biggest stumbling block is not X, not by a long shot. The biggest stumbling block is the lack of a unifying vision.

dschobel 17y ago
if we're talking about X the standard and not Xorg the implementation, shouldn't the former be the grand unifying vision?
- CrLf 17y ago
  X the standard and Xorg the implementation have been one and the same thing for a while. But X is just a component for the system, and what is lacking is a vision for the system as a whole. Actually, unifying visions have emerged for many facets of the system (as proven by the success on the server and embedded space), just not for the desktop.
- acg 17y ago
  I think he's talking the about linux adoption not being down to X but there being no long term vision for linux as a whole. Perhaps there are not enough designers and artists on board to make the linux desktop woo business. It's not always decent APIs that win.
astine 17y ago
Well, in a way, that is also Linux's strongest advantage, so you win some, you lose some.
hristov 17y ago
That's actually the biggest advantage of Linux.

kevindication 17y ago

As the article points out, the X you use today is the ninth revision and a total redesign at that. They thought about the problem more than you are capable of giving credit. Also: "Linux going mainstream?" First: Who cares? Your case is also incorrect (or based off of experience with the wrong software) since I can drag and drop the dual monitors in the display configuration screen today. I was able to make this work with a few text file edits in 1998. It's been quite painless for a while and quite possible for even longer.

catzaa 17y ago
> I can drag and drop the dual monitors in the display configuration screen today. I was able to make this work with a few text file edits in 1998. That is the problem. Linux can do everything that Windows can but it takes a hell of a lot of time to sort everything out.
lucumo 17y ago
Try two screens that don't form a rectangular area (e.g. one large and one small screen) and still get a decent setup, i.e. one where you can see all of your desktop.

jmillikin 17y ago

Issues with advanced configurations such as dual-screens are generally the fault of drivers, not X. For example, I can configure two screens easily using the open-source Intel drivers, but proprietary nVidia drivers do not support the standard.

Periodic 17y ago
X supports multiple displays already. The problem mostly lies in getting those drivers to tell X how to deal with the windows. Over the last few years, setting up multiple monitors with nVidia cards has been as simple as: - Install the nVidia driver. - Run the nVidia config. - Double-click the grayed-out monitor to enable it. - Save settings - Restart X.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  For non-nvidia cards: - Open the display properties dialog - Enable the second screen - Close the display properties dialog

bokchoi 17y ago

> Case in point: trying to configure two screens on Linux is anything between painful to downright impossible. In 2009! I used various flavors of linux all through college and I gave Ubuntu a fair shake for the past two years on my laptop, but this is the main reason why I'm using Vista today. That and shutting down took minutes. I don't have time to dick around with text files fixing this just to have it break again on the next upgrade.

hristov 17y ago

So, what exactly is outdated about the ideas of X? For example, I noticed that my old law firm paid lots and lots of money for a software solution that does on windows what X does natively. I think now that we are starting to run software from remote computers again, the ideas of X are becoming more and more relevant and are being essentially repeated at higher levels for higher cost.

gaius 17y ago
NeWS was technically superior to X in many ways. I'd argue with Chrome could effectively be NeWS with Javascript instead of Postscript, disguised as a browser so as not to wig everyone out...
- cpr 17y ago
  And that's exactly browsers are turning into. Browser: Canvas/WebGL + fast JS = new generation of NeWS.
- corbet 17y ago
  I actually wrote a significant program in NeWS. I ran screaming back to X. PostScript is a good page description language. It's a horrifyingly bad user interface implementation language.
  - gaius 17y ago
    That is true but it round-tripped between the client and server far more economically than X does.

thingie 17y ago

Strange, for me, it's very easy, which doesn't seem to fall in your range. What's wrong? Throw out working solution after 25 years of development, with all the codebase and everything, that makes perfect sense, of course. You are arguing with one particular case, which is most likely just an implementation shortcoming of your drivers (because it works for me, and well :-P), that doesn't justify throwing out thing like this. X was extended so many times, old stuff was replaced with new extensions, and eventually, it should be scrapped because someone can't configure two screens with it! Oh. Can you name one thing that is fundamentally wrong with X and cannot be simply replaced with a new X extension, or fixed in the implementation?

jcromartie 17y ago

My friend said: "imagine there was a baby and, instead of growing into an adult, it grew into a giant baby: that's X"

jsz0 17y ago

X is fine in my opinion. It's flexible and a known commodity with pretty good hardware support. The cost (in man hours) of replacing X and modifying all the associated bits that rely on it far out weighs NVIDIA or ATI getting someone to spend a few hours developing a utility to setup multiple monitors. A lot of the things people blame on X really have very little or nothing to do with it.

Ademan 17y ago

My biggest problem with your argument is that you haven't presented any reason to get rid of X whatsoever. You've pointed out that somewhere in X.org or supporting drivers there are issues, but that's not a problem with X11. If you were to say "we need to write a new X server from scratch" I would be somewhat with you, at least your point supports that. And if you were to say "X.org needs more bug fixing and better drivers" I'd wholeheartedly agree. But throwing out X11 alltogether is just... stupid, at least for the reasons you mentioned.

FooBarWidget 17y ago
Most people don't know there's a difference between X.org (the implementation) and X11 (the protocol). I guess that's why people conclude that "X" sucks and must be replaced.

known 17y ago

http://www.microxwin.com/architecture.html http://www.microxwin.com/architecture.html