Misc. BSD/UNIX X11/X.Org: The beginning of the end

[e1-531g]

2016-11-22: Fedora 25 was released.
Fedora is one of the most popular Gnu/Linux distributions. Undeniably Fedora has large influence on Gnu/Linux world (and indirect, smaller on other FOSS systems too).
Default graphical environment for Fedora 25 is Gnome 3.22. Fedora 25 has session of Gnome3/Wayland as default. Legacy X11 apps can be used by XWayland backward compatibility layer.
Fedora 25 has still Gnome3/X11 session, because some features are still missing in Gnome3/Wayland session and properietary drivers (Nvidia, AMD) are still not supporting DRM/KMS/GBM. There are some talks about replacing GBM requirement by new Unix graphics (and compute) memory API.

Others spins of Fedora 25 with other graphical environments (KDE5, Xfce,...) still are using X11 session.

It is going to take years to complete process of replacing X11 by Wayland, though.

[scottro]

Wayland is, even in Fedora, somewhat Gnome connected. For example, if I do a minimal Fedora install, and add a window manager, it's not going to be using Wayland yet.

As you say, it is going to be years.

[e1-531g]

Window managers for X11 need to be rewritten as Wayland compositors (every single one of them) if somebody wants to use them as a basis for Wayland desktop environment.

There are several Wayland compositors. Mutter (from Gnome3) is only one of them.
Weston is reference Wayland compositor.

KDE5 has KWin compositor. Developers from KDE Plasma project recently have invested a lot of time and work to refactor KWin for Wayland. You can read some more about KDE Five Plasma's KWin work here:
https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/tag/wayland/

There is also a Sway Wayland compositor inspired by i3 X11 window manager, but nowadays integrated desktop environments (Gnome3, KDE5) are best bet for using Wayland, though.
It is sad and I hope this is going to change, but it is what it is, at least for now.

[blackhole]

Originally Posted by scottro

Wayland is, even in Fedora, somewhat Gnome connected. For example, if I do a minimal Fedora install, and add a window manager, it's not going to be using Wayland yet.

It's kind of the other way around. Gnome have simply implemented wayland support earlier than most other projects. So not really "gnome connected".

Gnome project have certain objectives - all 'Linux proprietary' of course - so tying everything to Linux specific interfaces such as systemd is not an issue for them. It was fairly predictable that they would be an early wayland adopter and that fedora - the test bed for RHEL - would be the first Linux distribution to include it.

It's not really in Red Hat's interests to be developing, funding and backing projects (such as gnome and systemd) which can be utiltised by competitors to RHEL in the server market. And this is why gnome and systemd projects are simply not interested in portability to other *nix like systems.

I don't know enough about wayland to comment further, especially on it's portability, but someone has been working on porting it to DragonFly BSD: https://github.com/DragonFlyBSD/DeltaPorts/pull/123

With the KMS/DRI bits now ported from Linux and in place in most of the *BSDs it seems feasible at least?

Perhaps it's long overdue, considering that most single user desktop users don't really need an X server anyway...

[e1-531g]

AFAIK Wayland is quite portable. It uses Unix domain sockets.
Kernel should expose KMS/DRM interfaces.
By convention Wayland-based environments to handle hardware accelerated rendering use GBM (Mesa's way to handle graphics memory) and EGL as binding. Compositors often use OpenGL ES (with binding by EGL) and clients renders through desktop OpenGL (also binded by EGL) or mobile variant: OpenGL ES.
GBM probably is going to be replaced, in medium or long-term, by new Unix graphics (and compute) memory API, which is in designing phase.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Is it possible that Wayland may eventually replace Xenocara in the OpenBSD base system?

As I understand it, Wayland is fundamentally more secure than the X server, although I am far from expert in this subject.

[e1-531g]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

Is it possible that Wayland may eventually replace Xenocara in the OpenBSD base system?

I hope so, but at the same time I am aware that this will take a lot of time. I haven't heard about any porting effort to OpenBSD, yet.
Even in Gnu/Linux community it is quite new, a lot of programs needs to be ported and Wayland probably is going to be enriched by new functionalities.

[LeFrettchen]

Maybe not : https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/com...pport_wayland/

[e1-531g]

Originally Posted by LeFrettchen

Maybe not : https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/com...pport_wayland/

This question was asked year ago. I think this question was asked too early. Even in Gnu/Linux community, only enthusiasts were using Wayland year ago.

On the other hand in 10/11 years from now (2027) probably nobody is going to use X.Org in Gnu/Linux community (except enterprises using old, deprecated versions of RHEL) and I don't think that OpenBSD's Devs would like to develop and maintain X.Org themselves, so it must be ported in the coming years.

[LeFrettchen]

Maybe in 10 years, but there's no really need of Wayland now, and it should require large porting efforts.

And Wayland needs to prove itself before it should be used in OpenBSD.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by LeFrettchen

...Wayland needs to prove itself before it should be used in OpenBSD.

Agreed. It isn't the only game in town.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Well, somebody appears to be working on a port:

https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-...er/x11/wayland

I'm trying to get this to build on my -current box but I'm too much of a n00b

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

Well, somebody appears to be working on a port:

Vadim Zhukov. Send him an Email, I'm sure he'll reply with a status update regarding this WIP port's status. He doesn't bite.

[e1-531g]

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/...er/064198.html

News from FreeBSD community

Originally Posted by Johannes Lundberg

Hi Everyone!
We had some progress with Wayland that we'd like to share.

Wayland (v1.12.0)
Working

Weston (v1.12.0)
Working (Porting WIP)

Weston-clients (installed with wayland/weston port)
Working

XWayland (run X11 apps in Wayland compositor)
Works (maximized window only) if started manually but not when
launching X11 app from Weston. Most likely problem with Weston IPC.

[richardet]

While it may be inevitable, it is in a way too bad , in my opinion, that the Linux ecosphere is now starting to drive some of the*BSD world, with Wayland & systemd. I guess its like when Solaris 8 began to embrace GNOME. That's also about the time when Sun began its downward spiral.

Originally Posted by e1-531g

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/...er/064198.html

News from FreeBSD community

[e1-531g]

Originally Posted by richardet

While it may be inevitable, it is in a way too bad , in my opinion, that the Linux ecosphere is now starting to drive some of the*BSD world, with Wayland & systemd.

I don't like when somebody puts words Wayland and systemd together in the same sentence. Wayland and systemd are not in the same category. Two distinct projects designed and implemented by different people with different attitude.
Wayland is designed by experienced X.Org developers to be reliable protocol. They could write display server, but they haven't because they want it to be reliable.

[richardet]

I understand that they are not directly connected or even indirectly, and serve different purposes; my only point was that whatever their merits, or lack thereof, the various *BSD projects will either at some point have to embrace, ignore, or work around them. But I am not trying to step on your thread, but add to the conversation!

[e1-531g]

KDE Plasma 5.* have some problems with Wayland after Qt 5.8 release
Plasma Wayland and Qt 5.9 and beyond

[e1-531g]

Wayland, and Weston, and FreeBSD – oh my!

So this gives users of Area51 (while shufflinig branches, granted) a modern desktop and modern display capabilities. Oh my!

It will take a few days for this to trickle up and/or down so that the CI can benefit and we can make sure that KWin’s tests all work on FreeBSD, but it’s another good step towards tight CI and another small step towards KDE Plasma 5 on the desktop on FreeBSD.

[ibara]

https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-...er/x11/wayland
https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-...land-protocols

I wouldn't worry about it. If it happens, it happens. If not, that's fine too.