Can you use Unix without X11 forward?

Do you need X(wayland) with X forward?

  • yes

    Votes: 10 58.8%

  • No

    Votes: 7 41.2%
  • Total voters
    17
hruodr said:
For having only one terminal displaying windows for controlling many devices
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This implies that all those devices run GUI applications. X11's purposes were clear and reasonable at earlier times.
Nowadays such approach is not practical. Overwhelming majority of operators/devices use SSH for command line control and web-based interfaces for graphical. Those are de facto industrial standards, and there are many reasons for that.
 
Web is closer to original X in intent than something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT-SHM. That is, web allows drawing UI with vector graphics (yes, rather indirectly through html/css) in a dpi-independent way with user fonts on a remote machine. With modern X in practice you are mostly passing bitmaps for rendering, original widgets are nowhere to be seen.
 
I think, the vote should be rephrased differently:
Do you need to run GUI application on remote computers frequently?
or:
How frequently do you need to run GUI applications on remote machines?
• Every day
• Once a week
• Once a month
• Never
 
For a custom installation, Xorg can be installed and running on 140-300 Mb only max.

rigoletto@ said:
Wayland, by design, doesn't support 'Color Management', leave alone ICC profiles (apparently Wayland developers don't know what 'Color' is). If you wanna have any kind of color management in Wayland, you will need to embed and manage that separated in every single program.

A desktop without 'Color Management' is useless for anything remotely serious. I am sure they can add it later, but I am also sure it will be a hack. "Great design" from something that is advertised as the new morden, cool and hot thing for Linux desktops.

Well Xorg, with its err... 35 years(?), at least have some arcane but functional color management.

So, in short, Wayland is a joke.
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Yeah, but Joke or not, Linux developers are able to implement it.

Social phenomena:
Later, BSD can have issue with it - or it has some given X percent of probability (X >= 50 %) that the question will come. What a given population votes and decides alltogether is not necessary the wisest and best (software) solution.
 
Why settle for one when you can have both?

5999


It got installed with www/firefox-esr. I had unchecked that option on another app and it wouldn't build without support for it in that associated program, but the details not currently available due to lack of sleep.

I don't see your fixation with it, this is one of several times you mention it. Personally, I can't get emotionally involved enough to care about things like it, gtk etc. Of course I'm concerned with vulnerabilities.

If a program I use needs it to function properly, all that matters is it does so. It's not like today's machines don't have the power to run or space to install them. Of the two machines I have up this one has 566 packages and the other 556. The difference being ASCII programs and games on this one.

All my laptops are fully functional, use the same basic programs for desktop activities and are never short on resources. That's what I want and expect from them. I can and prefer to work from the login terminal when compiling ports and exit out of x11-wm/fluxbox when I do but for my needs a desktop needs X and it runs under the usr.

Change bad, FreeBSD as it is now good IMO
 
Trihexagonal said:
Why settle for one when you can have both?

View attachment 5999

It got installed with www/firefox-esr. I had unchecked that option on another app and it wouldn't build without support for it in that associated program, but the details not currently available due to lack of sleep.

I don't see your fixation with it, this is one of several times you mention it. Personally, I can't get emotionally involved enough to care about things like it, gtk etc. Of course I'm concerned with vulnerabilities.

If a program I use needs it to function properly, all that matters is it does so. It's not like today's machines don't have the power to run or space to install them. Of the two machines I have up this one has 566 packages and the other 556. The difference being ASCII programs and games on this one.

All my laptops are fully functional, use the same basic programs for desktop activities and are never short on resources. That's what I want and expect from them. I can and prefer to work from the login terminal when compiling ports and exit out of x11-wm/fluxbox when I do but for my needs a desktop needs X and it runs under the usr.

Change bad, FreeBSD as it is now good IMO
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Do we really need need GTK? I don't think so.

---------
It shows what happens during compilation of GTK source code.
gcc gtk_hello.c -o gtkhello pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0
it will need to compile:
... -pthread -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/gio-unix-2.0/ -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/libpng16 -I/usr/include/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 -I/usr/include/libpng16 -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/harfbuzz -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/freetype2 -lgtk-x11-2.0 -lgdk-x11-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -latk-1.0 -lcairo -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lfontconfig -lfreetype
 
Spartrekus said:
Do we really need need GTK? I don't think so.
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The proper question would be do I need graphics/gimp and the answer a resounding yes. I use it every single day, there is no replacement for it to suit me and it needs GTK to run.

I started using it with Linux and had a harder time figuring it out than Linux. :p
 
X and Y : was a good one. Thanks !!!!

aragats said:
From the official Xorg website:
«Rather than develop directly for X, we recommend you use a toolkit such as GTK+ or Qt.»
Click to expand...

Xorg haven't much choice actually. GTK+ and QT are the most popular.

Quote:
An opensource developer takes what is available as library.
A closesource developer takes interests in making its own library.
Click to expand...

LIkely FLTK could be added.
 
There is always a choice: why even bothering about any high-level libraries, there is great MenuetOS, where everything is written in assembly, and you can write your own GUI in assembly ;-)
 
I must say that most of this thread is over my head. And that's not because I don't understand what people are saying. I can't imagine why somebody would want a GUI when they can have the luxury of a terminal. We all have different aesthetics of course, but I suspect that younger people with sharp eyes don't actually care about the ease of use because it doesn't matter to them, and that's fair enough.
 
OJ said:
I must say that most of this thread is over my head. And that's not because I don't understand what people are saying. I can't imagine why somebody would want a GUI when they can have the luxury of a terminal. We all have different aesthetics of course, but I suspect that younger people with sharp eyes don't actually care about the ease of use because it doesn't matter to them, and that's fair enough.
Click to expand...

This was largely true in the past, but today things are a bit more different.

Software evolves according to common user importances. Maybe it has become the web.

Likely, indeed, younger generations may think maybe a bit differently:
the terminal is no longer a luxury. Luxury is GUI.

Usually typical use: file managers, chromium, gimp,... Unfortunately, there is also an important, observed arising use of the web for google drive, google documents, onenote, dropbox, microsoft 360,..., and all these things, that are really present in our modern times. The data are no longer on a FreeBSD webserver but on a Google or Microsoft one. They won't allow SSH ;)

Social media will also add pressure on younger generations. They likely will tell to use Windows or Mac because it is cool. Won't say to be using a terminal. Whatsapp on a terminal has nothing really cool.
 
Spartrekus said:
This was largely true in the past, but today things are a bit more different.
Click to expand...

Indeed things are changing, and I accept that as a fact of life. :) That doesn't mean that things are getting easier to use, from a visual point of view. I personally have difficulty reading GUIs. That would probably have been different if my eyes were as sharp and fast as they were 30 years ago. In any case I feel that moving one's eyes around to see all parts of the screen is a waste of time and energy, even if one is very good at it.

Certainly one thing that is changing is that computer resources don't make a lot of difference to common computer tasks because even people who are quite poor, if they can have a computer at all, can have more than enough cpu/ram to do more than they need. The only thing that is not available to everybody all the time is bandwidth and/or a reliable connection. That said, I think that some people who complain about excessive disk space and RAM usage are indeed mistaken, unless of course they're talking about aesthetics like minimalism - in which case I'm totally in agreement.
 
OJ said:
Indeed things are changing, and I accept that as a fact of life. :) That doesn't mean that things are getting easier to use, from a visual point of view. I personally have difficulty reading GUIs. That would probably have been different if my eyes were as sharp and fast as they were 30 years ago. In any case I feel that moving one's eyes around to see all parts of the screen is a waste of time and energy, even if one is very good at it.

Certainly one thing that is changing is that computer resources don't make a lot of difference to common computer tasks because even people who are quite poor, if they can have a computer at all, can have more than enough cpu/ram to do more than they need. The only thing that is not available to everybody all the time is bandwidth and/or a reliable connection. That said, I think that some people who complain about excessive disk space and RAM usage are indeed mistaken, unless of course they're talking about aesthetics like minimalism - in which case I'm totally in agreement.
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Thank you! There is unfortunately nothing that we can do about social phenomena and these trends. The way would be to boycott google phone and android products, microsoft, .... It can't happen, users are dependents.
 
I voted yes. For me the question distills down to do I like using a gui browser - which I do compared to a terminal browser. Fundamentally I use a desktop PC and android phone. Aging eyesight and screen space restrict what I can do on the phone, such that the desktop is the more comfortable to use, but fixed (recliner/personal home space), the phone is obviously portable. On the desktop I have tmux/mc/tput menus ..etc running on tty1, Xephyr/pflask (chroot/dropped capabilities etc.) running on tty4 (highly restricted X/gui). Primarily for browsing and listening to music/multimedia, less frequently office type activities (either google docs or local libreoffice). Yes I could use terminal for browsing - but that's not to my liking. Yes I could use terminal cmus for music, but graphical audacious better caters for easy equaliser adjustments (and has nice visualisations).
 
Spartrekus said:
This was largely true in the past, but today things are a bit more different.

Software evolves according to common user importances. Maybe it has become the web.

Likely, indeed, younger generations may think maybe a bit differently:
the terminal is no longer a luxury. Luxury is GUI.

Usually typical use: file managers, chromium, gimp,... Unfortunately, there is also an important, observed arising use of the web for google drive, google documents, onenote, dropbox, microsoft 360,..., and all these things, that are really present in our modern times. The data are no longer on a FreeBSD webserver but on a Google or Microsoft one. They won't allow SSH ;)

Social media will also add pressure on younger generations. They likely will tell to use Windows or Mac because it is cool. Won't say to be using a terminal. Whatsapp on a terminal has nothing really cool.
Click to expand...

that is so true,just when I learned FreeBSD to do all the work(and do it right) like web server,samba,firewall,proxy..all from
the magic of command line, BUT in my work they started adopting these new technologies...they suck..when I can do the
same things and better with FreeBSD (without neglecting the fact of data security and integrity) like ZFS RAID..etc..etc
 
This survey doesn't make sense, because it mixes things up.

Nobody needs “X forward”. But some people need to be able to use graphical applications via a network connection (“remotely”, although this includes cases where the connection endpoints are on the local machine, for example within jails). This will work with Wayland, too, of course, although (a) it's not called “X forwarding”, and (b) it's not within the scope of Wayland itself. Of course, things like nested servers and VNC clients/servers still work with Wayland – for example, Wayland's Weston compositor supports RDP, and libvnc supports Wayland, although it's still a little immature, but the developers are actively working on it. In fact you can have an X11 layer on top of Wayland if you want (this has very little overhead). Please see the description of the architecture of Wayland and the FAQ.

It should also be noted that “X forwarding” doesn't work very well. For many modern applications it is very inefficient. Many of the common rendering extensions only work with a local display (they didn't exist when the X11 protocol was designed several decades ago). It works with simple things like terminal windows and xclock, but anything more advanced is slow, and there are even things that don't work at all. If I had the choice between X forwarding and something built on top of Wayland, I'd choose the latter.
 
aragats said:
I'm mostly agreed, but there are at least two things I cannot do in terminal: web browsing and image processing.
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I can honestly see terminal web browsing making a comeback. It wont be for many years but the complexity of web browsers is going to become so great (and so full of DRM) that I think open-source communities will have to make a decision; a broken / crippled HTML6 experience or a perfectly working albeit simplistic experience.

I personally would go for the latter and if enough technical users do, this might actually set some sort of critical mass.
I am not entirely talking about Lynx or [e]links, because they are concerned with attempting to display standard web pages in them. I think if an effective TUI browser was going to take off, it would need to be quite a different beast compared to supporting something like CSS. Maybe even something as simple as Gopher.
 
I can live without it. I don't allow myself remote access, use jails, etc.

I enjoy using ee but am much more productive with editors/leafpad if working on my site where I might have 10 instances of it open to work from using copy&paste.

www/youtube_dl is very handy but for mass downloading without 7-8 terminals open at once a browser with DownLoadThemAll (now DownThemAll) extension rules. I can and have worked from multiple terminals running www/youtube_dl as something that is the only option that works for a site. Multiple machines working different sites at once not uncommon if serious about it.

I use a file manager to the extent that I have x11-fm/xfe open from .xinitrc along with x11/rxvt-unicode and leave both open constantly for quick access. I like misc/mc but again can get more work done faster with xfe. Which is what it all boils down to for me. I'm at home with the terminal but much faster with the GUI programs of my choice, even though the little X in the corner of my file manager supposedly makes my x11-wm/fluxbox desktop look like a Windows machine to some. ☣

For music it's multimedia/xmms and over 600 skins in multimedia/xmms-skins-huge to match any desktop theme. You can load around 100 songs to play but there is a upper limit (125?) at which it will crash, but my desktops never crash. One year uptime for my FreeBSD mp3 player within 100 days and xmms runs constantly.

kpedersen said:
I can honestly see terminal web browsing making a comeback. It wont be for many years but the complexity of web browsers is going to become so great (and so full of DRM) that I think open-source communities will have to make a decision; a broken / crippled HTML6 experience or a perfectly working albeit simplistic experience.
Click to expand...

Don't DRM me, bro. If I wanted someone to audit my media I'd upload it to a fluffy pink cloud or use Windows10. www/firefox has developed a bad habit of taking a shot of pages you bookmark for a library or some such innocuous sounding name they cooked up for a spy database.


My eyes are worse from long hours of typing and I'm usually about a foot from the screen without my glasses so I can see type. After so many hours I may lose focus and be touchtyping fast as I can, eyes half crossed and need to regain focus to actually see the keys. If not careful I will glance at a paragraph or post and take that in instead of reading it carefully and need to slow down. Thank you, ports.

My fingers and wetware are not always in sync when going for speed and my fingers sometime type the same word twice while waiting for wetware to catch up. I've seen the same word repeated twice in the bot transcript of a friend at The Forge, where everything is typed by hand. I do it often...
 
kpedersen said:
I can honestly see terminal web browsing making a comeback. It wont be for many years but the complexity of web browsers is going to become so great (and so full of DRM) that I think open-source communities will have to make a decision; a broken / crippled HTML6 experience or a perfectly working albeit simplistic experience.
Click to expand...
Whatever we decide to do at the client side won't help if the server side demands too much.
I used graphical www/palemoon browser for long time, but now I can't since more and more sites simply refuse working properly.
I completely agree with you, kpedersen , but I hate using my phone as the only option to browse the Internet...
 
kpedersen said:
6002
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I use cwm, no title bars, no tray. The above quoted image (full screen snapshot) is my view of the FreeBSD forum, relatively letter-box. With other window managers that include window title bar, menu bar and tray ... even more so. What with accept cookies and other advertising space some web sites throw at you and quite often you have very little applicable content visible. Totally agree, something like gopher perhaps along with the option to ssh into desired/target web sites, that accommodated textual browsers would have great appeal. Fundamentally however its the adverts that pay for the internet, even if the cost to many is the giving away of their personal profile.
 
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