Wayland

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But he has a point. Wayland is part of Linux effort to become a Windows-like operating system instead of a Unix-like one. Games are a large part of the Wayland effort which is why most Windows users own a computer at all. Porting Wayland to FreeBSD might only attract such people and cause a distraction away from serious computing and put us in the same mess Linux is in now.

Someone else had a great line, that FreeBSD is like a quiet beach no one knew about and you want to enjoy it before anyone else discovered it and messed it all up.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Someone else had a great line, that FreeBSD is like a quiet beach no one knew about and you want to enjoy it before anyone else discovered it and messed it all up.
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I share this thought 100%.

But I do not share this:
drhowarddrfine said:
Wayland is part of Linux effort to become a Windows-like operating system instead of a Unix-like one. Games are a large part of the Wayland effort which is why most Windows users own a computer at all. Porting Wayland to FreeBSD might only attract such people and cause a distraction away from serious computing and put us in the same mess Linux is in now.
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Did you remember evolution of X-Windows? Do you know about the history of Xorg security problems, still not resolved and lagging behind months in FreeBSD compared to actual patching done by Xorg?

If we discuss about Wayland here, we need to compare to Xorg and what we actually do have with that (mess). And Wayland emerged because of that.

FreeBSD has a well reputation with it's kernel. That is what we want to have and keep it up without diluting it. If Wayland can use it without messing with it, there should be no reason to give it a try. Isn't it? Facts on this for discussion are welcome.

Your gaming argument is not very fair as it is a general dual-use-problem. You could use MS-Windows also for serious usage. On the other hand if that are your fears about Wayland, it would have a very big potential to become really successful. :)
 
X11 sucks as a graphics platform, it's a product of 1980's thinking and ideas as witnessed by its monolithic design *). It's time for something more modern that can compete with MS Windows and OS X on an even basis.

*) If you don't buy my argument, just think about how X11 is providing support for various pieces of display hardware. It is still providing its own drivers (userspace code that runs as part of the main X process!!!) that have to be updated in X11 itself when new hardware is introduced. The competition moved to proper kernel level device drivers that offer proper abstraction of the hardware already in late 1990's.
 
I'm not sure I understand the argument against here. Wayland is a vastly improved modern X11 replacement as already stated. No more, no less. It's already been ported, FreeBSD just has nothing to test and take advantage of it yet, at least according to the wiki SirDice referenced above. I don't think Windows gamers are going to be a problem. Windows works quite well for gaming, and I really don't see many of them running too switch over. Most of them don't even know Linux much less FreeBSD exists, and besides, the majority are consumer gamers not developers so it's a moot point anyway IMO. Finally, anyone using FreeBSD as a server without graphics will not be affected by Wayland in the first place and can continue to use FreeBSD exactly as they have been.
 
protocelt said:
I'm not sure I understand the argument against here.
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Because there's a been a small, but vocal minority of people who basically thinks everything created out of the 1980s is sacred and any attempts to change that will turn it into Windows. I think this slide from Theo De Raadt sums up part of the problem with X: http://openbsd.comstyle.com/papers/asiabsdcon2009-release_engineering/mgp00009.html

From a security standpoint, there are plans to sandbox apps with Wayland as well: https://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2015/02/17/first-fully-sandboxed-linux-desktop-app/
 
swirling_vortex said:
Because there's a been a small, but vocal minority of people who basically thinks everything created out of the 1980s is sacred and any attempts to change that will turn it into Windows.
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No. The problem is new people thinking something created in the 80s is old and therefore bad so something new must replace it rather than fixing what's already there. Now, it's true X has problems but Wayland is fighting every established virtue and ... I have to leave now and can't finish my thought.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
No. The problem is new people thinking something created in the 80s is old and therefore bad so something new must replace it rather than fixing what's already there. Now, it's true X has problems but Wayland is fighting every established virtue and ... I have to leave now and can't finish my thought.
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There is some valid truth to that as well. I agree change just for the sake of change is IMHO stupid, however I don't believe replacing X11 with Wayland would be a mistake. X11 is just too much of a huge mess in so many different ways at this point to fix correctly. Also I am speaking only of X11 vs Wayland here, nothing else, and this is only my personal opinion.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
But he has a point. Wayland is part of Linux effort to become a Windows-like operating system instead of a Unix-like one. Games are a large part of the Wayland effort which is why most Windows users own a computer at all. Porting Wayland to FreeBSD might only attract such people and cause a distraction away from serious computing and put us in the same mess Linux is in now.

Someone else had a great line, that FreeBSD is like a quiet beach no one knew about and you want to enjoy it before anyone else discovered it and messed it all up.
Click to expand...

I agree with that completely.
 
protocelt said:
I don't believe replacing X11 with Wayland would be a mistake. X11 is just too much of a huge mess in so many different ways at this point to fix correctly.
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I agree about X11 and the Intel people even said so but I don't think Wayland's approach is correct and it's too Linux-centric.
 
Quoting the great Isaac Asimov from his novel "Nemesis" (spoken by Dr. Tessa Wendel, one of the main characters of the novel):

Everone's like that, now and then, given certain conditions. I suppose aging scientist are particularly like that. That's why the daring young revolutionaries of science become old fossils after a few decades. Their imaginations harden with encrusted self-love and that's their end. It's now my end.
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This is really Asimov himself firing shots at the scientific community he knew himself extremely well.
 
This is how I see Wayland: It's written by Linux people for Linux and not by UNIX people for UNIX. And even if Wayland gets ported, and it will eventually, it's going to be a bunch of hacks and glue code to make it work. :mad:

Anyway IMHO if FreeBSD would want to compete with the Windows and Mac in the desktop we should ditch both Xorg and Wayland and create our own graphics stack. Odds for that, IMO, are slim but hey we have Lumina from PC-BSD and maybe in the future there will be a project for out own graphics stack. But for that to happen FreeBSD would have to seriously focus on the desktop, which, well, it probably wont...

Option #2 is for a team of coders to get together and make it happen. But that's also not going to happen since there is no way a team of that caliber is going to form and code it up with out any financing.

Option #3, that actually has the most chance, is that is for some company to recognize that FreeBSD is the coolest thing in world and they decide to make the next coolest desktop OS based on FreeBSD and they decide to keep it open source and give back their work to FreeBSD community.

In the mean time FreeBSD and desktop is going to be status quo. I mean it's 2015 and there is a thread right now on this forum called "Finally a Network Manager for FreeBSD!". Seriously?

One thing that bothers me thou is why people want to turn FreeBSD into Linux so much? For example there is no native Flash for FreeBSD so we use some Linux compatibility layer bullshit to make it work? Why? Linux obviously dose not care about FreeBSD (they proved it with Wayland) so why should we care about Linux. Instead of trying to be Linux and bitch Linux has this and that accept what you have and if you don't like it take the effort to make it work native on FreeBSD (and yes in know in the case of Flash we can't do much but in that case fuck Flash and if it's a deal breaker move on, FreeBSD is not for you).

Bottom line FreeBSD is server first and then everything else second. And unless options 1,2 or 3 happen it's going to be like that for a long time.

You want Wayland? Then you want Linux and not FreeBSD!
 
taz
Well said! But I cannot see any "competition" to the OSes you mentioned. If it were a competition, the Foundation could rise funds more easily. IMO.
Linux kernel drivers were never activated here, nor is there a desire to ever use Flash and the like or other Linux stuff. Problem is that you can hardly work around using Xorg when strictly avoiding MSFT or AAPL products. There is a need for graphical application now and then even for a CLI guy like me. And it is horrible from a security point of view when you need to use it.

To boil it down: There is a need for an Xorg replacement. If there were something done by UNIX people done for FreeBSD it certainly would be the finest what we could get.

Personally I have no problem with that when other than FreeBSD people are helping to get FreeBSD out of the Xorg dependencies. If Wayland developes better than Xorg than so what?

taz said:
You want Wayland? Then you want Linux and not FreeBSD!
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I disagree as this is propaganda, IMO. The last sentence could have been written better.

I do want FreeBSD and not Linux. And if I prefered Wayland over Xorg I still do not want Linux. And I dislike manipulation attempts for what I want or not want.
 
Look at it this way; AFAIK, there is no commercial interest in FreeBSD's graphics stack at all. That leaves it up to the community of which there is, last time I've read, a total of 4 developers working on it of which none work on it full time. Contrast that to a lot of commercial interest in the Linux graphics stack on top of hundreds of developers who work on it at various levels. Given the the resources available, while I would really love to see FreeBSD(or really any *BSD) innovate in the graphics area, the reality of the situation right now is there is little recourse but to port and use Wayland or eventually down the line lose the capability to use FreeBSD as a Desktop or Workstation to any worthwhile degree other than possibly development purposes. IMO, this is also a major reason Wayland itself is what some would say "Linux-centric", and technically they're not wrong. In addition, the Wayland developers are not closed to working with other communities and are happy to accept work upstream to make Wayland work better with other UNIX-like operating systems as far as I know.
 
I agree with you. FreeBSD's problem no.1 is lack of resources. I know that, for example, basically one guy coded and maintains the Atheros drivers and HAL. Which is crazy and I give my thanks to Adrian Chadd. Anyhow no wonder we are so "behind" since basically every project is seriously under powered.

But the question that I often wonder about is how to get more people and by people I mean programmers since this is what we are lacking involved into FreeBSD project? Realistically dose FreeBSD have and any edge over Linux that we can leverage?

IMO currently the best "selling point" for FreeBSD is PC-BSD. But within the PC-BSD project I don't really get why the didn't come up with Lumina years ago. And why are they wasting their resources on maintaining KDE and GNOME instead of focusing on Lumina. KDE and GNOME on FreeBSD will NEVER be what is KDE and GNOME on Linux so why wast time and resources in the first place?
 
taz said:
I agree with you. FreeBSD's problem no.1 is lack of resources. I know that, for example, basically one guy coded and maintains the Atheros drivers and HAL. Which is crazy and I give my thanks to Adrian Chadd. Anyhow no wonder we are so "behind" since basically every project is seriously under powered.

But the question that I often wonder about is how to get more people and by people I mean programmers since this is what we are lacking involved into FreeBSD project? Realistically dose FreeBSD have and any edge over Linux that we can leverage?
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It would be nice to see a company like iXsytems put some resources if available into this given they fund the PC-BSD project, which I think is a great project. :). FreeBSD has a lot of leverage in regards to server usage and as expected development shows. Not such much in the desktop space unfortunately.

Other than a large increase in funding directed to the FreeBSD Foundation or more commercial interest in this, I don't really see how things could change at this point of time. At this point of time, IMO, it largely boils down to "money talks". :(
 
taz said:
Bottom line FreeBSD is server first and then everything else second. And unless options 1,2 or 3 happen it's going to be like that for a long time.
You want Wayland? Then you want Linux and not FreeBSD!
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FreeBSD is universal system. For example, I use it on my gaming PC as the only OS and I definitely see how Wayland would benefit here. X protocol is used on 20%, other 80 is deprecated stuff no one using now.
 
protocelt said:
It would be nice to see a company like iXsytems put some resources if available into this given they fund the PC-BSD project, which I think is a great project. :). FreeBSD has a lot of leverage in regards to server usage and as expected development shows. Not such much in the desktop space unfortunately.

Other than a large increase in funding directed to the FreeBSD Foundation or more commercial interest in this, I don't really see how things could change at this point of time. At this point of time, IMO, it largely boils down to "money talks". :(
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Se my post edit for PC-BSD.
 
taz said:
But within the PC-BSD project I don't really get why the didn't come up with Lumina years ago. And why are they wasting their resources on maintaining KDE and GNOME instead of focusing on Lumina. KDE and GNOME on FreeBSD will NEVER be what is KDE and GNOME on Linux so why wast time and resources in the first place?
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Well money follows strategic marketing. KDE and GNOME are known widely. So people ask themselves why should I run/want Lumina (WTF is that?) on PC-BSD? I think KDE and GNOME are attractors used like "oh, well I can run such resource eating KDE on PC-BSD too". Those people unfortunately have to go through several installations for finding out that they might better want Lumina.
 
getopt said:
Well money follows strategic marketing. KDE and GNOME are known widely. So people ask themselves why should I run/want Lumina (WTF is that?) on PC-BSD? I think KDE and GNOME are attractors used like "oh, well I can run such resource eating KDE on PC-BSD too". Those people unfortunately have to go through several installations for finding out that they might better want Lumina.
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Ok, yes KDE and GNOME are known widely but what I'm trying to say that when PC-BSD started if they started with "Lumina" back then today it would not be "WTF is Lumina" it would have been "Lumina is PC-BSDs DE" and and it would have been "our brand" just like KDE and GNOME are "Linux brands" so to speak. I think that this is a much more stronger "selling point" than the fact that PC-BSD "is multi DE" because in the end if you actually want KDE/GNOME on FreeBSD you can have that with or with out PC-BSD. Plus I do not think that people that came from Linux to PC-BSD or where already familiar with KDE/GNOME came because they could have switched between KDE and GNOME they came for some other reasons and I think they would have welcome a "native BSD DE" more than what they already knew.

The way I see it, and this is just my personal opinion, Windows, Mac, Linux they are all looking after them self. And I think FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/DragonflyBSD should start doing the same and produce stuff that is *BSD native (so to speak). Otherwise it's just going to keep lagging behind. Lumina is a great step in that direction I just wish it had been done sooner and that they ditch KDE and GNOME when it's production ready. (also note that I'm talking about desktop)
 
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