The real story behind Wayland and X
Linux.conf.au 2013 -- Canberra, Australia4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2018–2024
talk · advanced · evergreen · 2018–2024 on HN
X.Org developer Daniel Stone explains the history and technical limits of the X Window System and why Wayland was created, debunking myths from forum comments. He covers topics such as network transparency and blocking calls.
HN uses it as the go-to answer to claims that Wayland is unnecessary, from a developer who knew X's codebase well.
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12 comments from Hacker News
This criticism looks like "free as beer and I know better". 1. The old, mostly working thing waits your commit 2. That new thing can have some help too I recommend developers story about this "mostly working thing" (2014) [1]. It is quite fun and eye opening, he clearly knows his subject better than most of the comments. Wayland demo worked almost from day one. I've run it in 2010 [2]. But we need applications, that is migrating toolkits and this took 10 years. It is very toxic development culture, cancel culture, mob. [1] ▶ this video [2] link
Really recommend that speech as well since it's give good understanding what's wrong with X11 and why Wayland was created. The real story behind Wayland and X: ▶ this video
> I've seen commentary from people who have worked intimately on both protocols and implementations of both who consider Wayland to have the better architecture. For those interested in details: ▶ this video
Well, you can imagine some evil behind everything if you wish.. Or just look at a technical video about it: ▶ this video I don’t see these conteos regarding linux, especially goddamn desktop with the minuscule user share. It is literally a hobby thing for some graphics enthusiasts without any sort of money. Yeah sure, red hat or whatever..
It would be nice to reproduce phoronix results. Do they run in GNOME shell? What if I run in Sway? What exactly they expect of Selenium? I've heard gedit startup example. Sorry, I can't continue until you've watched presentation [1] > gedit startup: > 130 blocking InternAtom calls > 34 blocking GetProperty calls > 116 property change requests > blocking because Xlib is terrible > usually spends 25ms waiting for requests > sometimes spends 1428ms [1] ▶ this video
Daniel Stone, The real story behind Wayland and X (Or, 'Why Everything You've Read in LWN and Phoronix Comments is Untrue') ▶ this video And directly from ajaxnwnk link > Moreover, X works for me now and does everything I need. Someone makes pig fly all these years.
'Programming X is like reading one of those French philosophers where afterwards you start wondering whether you really know anything for sure.' [1] [1] Thomas Thurman - ▶ this video link
But why? X11 works. I've tried wayland in 2010, second time today. If anything today's story shows that developers do not want to work on X11 and how much we depend on Red Hat. X11 problems explained by Daniel Stone [1]. As I understand there are two parallel architectures, one uses X11 server primitives (xfontsel), another renders on client (fontconfig fc-list etc). It is very confusing. [1] ▶ this video
Protocol limits what is possible. Legacy defines performance. Gnome is X11 first. Wlroots in Wayland first. It should be possible to optimize Gnome. Wayland was created because of horrible X11 performance [1]. It is not Waylands prime time yet but X.Org still works and maintained. Phoronix.com should have checked contributions [2]. [1] ▶ this video [2] link
link I've described context. You've confirmed it. Statement supported not by fact but by inner voice. My morale stems from Christianity, I believe Enlightenment got it right — discovery of nature is discovery of God. I've been to church, I've seen priest who shared joy. I've seen other priests, I would rather not see them. X.Org developer described what's wrong with the project [1]. Not one of the Wayland critiques addressed his points. They have no facts, they just want it to fail. Those who work hard and share for free get anger in return. Sway / wlroots maintainer (ddevault) got off the edge from this misinformation and I do not agree with him but I am not maintainer either. Where is love and God in this story? > That’s not even considering any personal goals, which I have vanishingly little time for. I get zero exercise, and though my diet is mostly reasonable the majority of it is delivery unless I get the odd 2 hours to visit the grocery store. That is, unless I want to spend those 2 hours with my friends, which means it’s back to delivery. My dating life is almost nonexistent. I want to spend more time studying Japanese, but it’s either that or keeping up with my leisure reading. Lofty goals of also studying Chinese or Arabic are but dust in the wind. I’m addicted to caffeine, again. > Less healthy ways have included walking to the corner store to buy unhealthy comfort foods, consuming alcohol or weed too much or too often, getting in stupid internet arguments, being
Please address [1] or you don't know what you are talking about. Similar point in next post [2]. [1] ▶ this video [2] link
> I have an opposite view. All I can say is that nearly every single one of the former core Xorg developers has said precisely the opposite (sometimes in literal terms [0] [1]), and has switched to developing Wayland. [0] ▶ this video [1] link > In Plasma we need Wayland support as we are hitting the limitations of X all the time. Wayland will simplify our architecture and allow us to composite the screen in the way we consider as most useful.