Xorg metaport extremely bloated with linux crap

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NetBSD Blog

blog.netbsd.org blog.netbsd.org
X.org on NetBSD - the state of things - May 2024

NetBSD uses its own build system with BSD make files, instead of GNU tools for building its implementation of X. Though, not everything is upstreamed to X. There is some modernization within NetBSD's personal X implementation.

NetBSD has HID drivers which aren't upstreamed. Some of these may be duplicate efforts though. NetBSD maintains its own implementation of X, while following upstream X, as part of NetBSD.

Everyone is aware of OpenBSD's Xenocara, and can compare that to this. This is where it makes sense for BSD's to have a single upstream fork to share an effort.


Aside from that, also from that article, NetBSD has acceleration added to the once legacy opensource Nvidia driver. NetBSD also has default fallbacks for when the specialized graphics drivers don't work. NetBSD may seem like a legacy distribution, but they're pretty modern when it comes to drivers. For instance, they have VideoCore 2D acceleration drivers for ARM64 SBC's (ie Raspberry Pi), when FreeBSD doesn't have that. However, they have lacked devfs, which allows /dev/ files to be dynamically created. That has made their /dev/ directory confusing to use. I'm unsure of the state of NetBSD's /dev/ tree today.

NetBSD and OpenBSD have also had a HID USB system, which allowed them to use any HID hardware driver. FreeBSD barely has it, and it still has to be enabled, with the old driver system being phased out. A recent FreeBSD implementation of iichid(4) or i2chid worked with all except Mac input devices. The current USBHID works with those too, as it's universal. A lot of newer input drivers were recognized by both USBHID and iichid. The old USB implementation of the HID system didn't work universally at all.
 
If XLibre succeeds as the next iteration of Xorg, that's nice, it means that it earned its keep as a viable option for being a component of the UNIX graphics display stack.

I'm personally betting on Wayland, and following the progress on that side of things.
 
elgrande said:
Ok I checked here and fortunately do not have this problem.
I assume you installed server and drivers from xlibre repo?
Which graphics driver do you have (I have nvidia)?
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This says it's an expected debug message: https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/issues/4#issuecomment-2949898881

I reported it here: https://github.com/b-aaz/xlibre-ports/issues/14

I added the repo, installed xlibre, removed all non-xlibre xf86 packages and installed xlibre-specific evdev/intel/synaptics (later removed for modesetting/libinput), and startx. Intel UHD 630 (xf86-video-intel).

Everything seemed fine (Xfce loaded, Firefox worked), but I'd rather that log not be spammed in the background.

Edit: Confirmed expected message: https://github.com/b-aaz/xlibre-ports/issues/14#issuecomment-3246630231

That's kind of concerning knowing that's going on in the background normally without the debug message, but 🤷‍♂️
 
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https://gitgud.io/u3shit/xserver/-/blob/xorg-server-1.20.9/os/inputthread.c?ref_type=tags#L301 (random GitLab that happened to have a convenient os/inputthread.c) mentions:

Runs in parallel with the server main thread, listening to input devices in an endless loop.
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Anyone know how Wayland, Windows, or macOS work in that regard? It doesn't exactly sound efficient to endlessly loop on CPU(?) waiting for a device until it does something. What's the server main thread run at and its limit?
 
Not quite sure of your question, but I run Wayland and X on two machines, (one Nvidia, the other AMD), with no problems. I have to start seatd when running Wayland (dwl and labwc, equivalents for dwm and openbox). I also run them both on a Thinkpad laptop, and on that one, I've found that on Fedora at least, when hooking it up to the TV, Wayland gives me a far smoother picture, but on my workstations I can't say I notice much difference.
 
RetroComputingCollector said:
Who is the enemy now then?
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There doesn't have to be an enemy. Perhaps the enemy is ideology.
RetroComputingCollector said:
I would say Oracle. Except for their good job with Java, they ran everything else into the ground.
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astyle said:
Oracle managed to drive even HP up the wall with their Java EE license harassment.
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The good that came of Sun Microsystems, is their CDDL1.0 license. MPL and other copyleft licenses were based off of it.

Oracle stewards CDDL1.1, which is almost the same, except it has a patent retaliation clause with legality to the state of California, and the differences or the steward's names. It only didn't get get Opensource recognition, because not very many programs used this version, as it was mostly limited to Oracle's offerings. It would get opensource recognition if they applied it. CDDL1.0 doesn't get FSF recognition, and never will CDDL1.1.

Companies need to be sensible when it comes to stuff like that.

Two different companies, but in a way Oracle is a successor.
 
Fedora doesn't only come with Wayland. I've seen that a couple of times on this forum.

It's true for RH and clones--see my page https://srobb.net/rhel10.html for installing something besides Gnome, but Fedora has most of the basic X window managers, openbox, etc., as well as the usual xorg programs. I usually do an install using fedora custom, which does a minimal install, and then add xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-xinit (to get startx) xorg-x11-drv-libinput (for mouse and keyboard) alacritty, (for terminal) liberation-fonts and openbox. If I'll be using dwm I also add xsetroot because it's needed to put a date in dwm's bar.
I also use an old rpm (from Fedora 39) for tint2, as Fedora does seem to have stopped making an rpm for it, but the F39 one works fine. (If you want that, I have a link for it on https://srobb.net/fluxopen.html). Fedora also has Wayback, the Alpine linux developed package that allows you to run various xorg window managers
 
scottro said:
Fedora doesn't only come with Wayland. I've seen that a couple of times on this forum.

It's true for RH and clones--see my page https://srobb.net/rhel10.html for installing something besides Gnome, but Fedora has most of the basic X window managers, openbox, etc., as well as the usual xorg programs. I usually do an install using fedora custom, which does a minimal install, and then add xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-xinit (to get startx) xorg-x11-drv-libinput (for mouse and keyboard) alacritty, (for terminal) liberation-fonts and openbox. If I'll be using dwm I also add xsetroot because it's needed to put a date in dwm's bar.
I also use an old rpm (from Fedora 39) for tint2, as Fedora does seem to have stopped making an rpm for it, but the F39 one works fine. (If you want that, I have a link for it on https://srobb.net/fluxopen.html). Fedora also has Wayback, the Alpine linux developed package that allows you to run various xorg window managers
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I’ll repeat myself, because I’m certain that what I said is correct:
vmisev said:
Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 42 is definitely Wayland only OOB, I installed XLibre form custom COPR, and then plasma-workspace-x11 and kwin-x11 from official repo; also had to install/reinstall few more things and to edit sddm.conf to make it work, probably it is simpler with official xorg-x11
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Why do people care about licenses when they're not redistributing software?

How is Glibc Linux only? This post is crap.
 
rbranco said:
Why do people care about licenses when they're not redistributing software?

How is Glibc Linux only? This post is crap.
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License matters.
Even if the ported apps are in GPL, ports to build / install it need to be BSD licensed, as ports collection itself is part of FreeBSD (non-base, though).
Even if my patches contributed to ports (or even base) is NOT distributed BY MYSELF, FreeBSD project distributes them instead, once it's committed.

And any GPL'ed softwares can use Glibc (beware it's NOT glib!), as they're already GPL'ed as Glibc. And with regard to the functionalities implemented, BSD libc and GNU Glibc overwraps in too many POSIX standardized area with different implementations. Use Glibc itself outside Linuxulator on FreeBSD is not realistic.

As FreeBSD itself is BSD-licensed (exceptions: contrib components), GPL'ed softwares can freely use codes from FreeBSD and freely re-license them under GPL (BSD license does NOT prohibit and does NOT pollute GPL, permissive), but it's not true for reverse. GPL is NOT AT ALL PERMISSIVE TO CHANGE THE LICENSE TERMS ONCE APPLIED, THUS, PULLUTE DERIVED WORKS!

The only safe way to incorporated GPL'ed codes is to ask for ALL authors of the to-be-incorporated codes to make its license to be dual or more including BSD-compatible one. This is the only clear way that GPL cannot prohibit, as far as I know.

In my hubmle opinion, GPL is ideal for corporates to release their codes as open source codes.

On the other hand, BSD and compatible licenses are ideal for corporates to incorporate external codes into their products. They can even sell the software as closed-source proprietary softwares, that GPL disallows.

This would be the reason at least some of corporate donors donates for FreeBSD and other BSD projects and want *BSD projects to be GPL-free.
 
Certain Fedora spins, including their default Gnome Workstation, are Wayland only, I think. I'm sure that vmisev is correct about certain spins, including being Wayland only. I interpreted it as meaning all of Fedora is Wayland only, which it isn't, though probably their main flagship spins, Workstation, KDE, and probably a couple of others do come, out of the box (or out of the download?) as Wayland only.
 
If I recall / understand correctly, future Gnome is going to drop supports for X.

The worst and predictable cases would be supports for X are dropped from Gtk / glib including already exisiting major versions at some minor version updates (downgrades!). If it comes true, it should be a nightmare, as even Gtk2 apps are still alive.

Fork and maintainances by outside Gnome project would be strongly wanted, but unfortunately, it clearly beyonds me.
 
Licensing matters, as how to use different pieces of code together, and to not have redundancies in code. Many different pieces of code would be needed for the same function, due to license incompatibility.
T-Aoki said:
In my humble opinion, GPL is ideal for corporates to release their codes as open source codes.
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This isn't so. The ideal licenses for both open source and for corporate are file-based or weak copyleft licenses.

When a company makes the mistake of using GPL code with theirs, they risk losing their code.

With a nonviral copyleft, a company can use open source libraries through dynamic linking. A company has to give back what it puts into a license, but they know its borders, and they don't lose anything more than what they put into a nonviral copyleft piece of code. It's where companies should be required to give back to open source. Non viral copyleft is business friendly, while at the same time requiring return contributions. While viral copyleft isn't friendly to business use.
 
sidetone said:
This isn't so. The ideal licenses for both open source and for corporate are file-based or weak copyleft licenses.
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Well, I've missed an important point in my previous post.

In my hubmle opinion, GPL is ideal for corporates to release their codes "which does NOT contain third parties' codes" as open source codes.

And when it's ideal for corporates is B2B case.

If the licenser noticed that their strong competitor ships software based on their GPL'ed software with some important business informations (including NDA'ed ones!), the licenser can force the licensee (the strong competitor!) to disclose the whole bunch of their modifications, including NDA'ed parts, as GPL!

Why isn't it ideal? The licenser can "legally" obtain the strong competitor's business secrets and, as it's forcibly disclosed under GPL, the licenser can legally use the business secrets for their business, legally!

And this is why using GPL'ed (with recent enough versions polluting even on dynamic linking) codes in business codings needs special and maximum attentions to determine "the border line" clearly with lawers, while BSD-licensed codes doesn't need such a cares.
 
T-Aoki said:
License matters.
Even if the ported apps are in GPL, ports to build / install it need to be BSD licensed, as ports collection itself is part of FreeBSD (non-base, though).
Even if my patches contributed to ports (or even base) is NOT distributed BY MYSELF, FreeBSD project distributes them instead, once it's committed.

And any GPL'ed softwares can use Glibc (beware it's NOT glib!), as they're already GPL'ed as Glibc. And with regard to the functionalities implemented, BSD libc and GNU Glibc overwraps in too many POSIX standardized area with different implementations. Use Glibc itself outside Linuxulator on FreeBSD is not realistic.

As FreeBSD itself is BSD-licensed (exceptions: contrib components), GPL'ed softwares can freely use codes from FreeBSD and freely re-license them under GPL (BSD license does NOT prohibit and does NOT pollute GPL, permissive), but it's not true for reverse. GPL is NOT AT ALL PERMISSIVE TO CHANGE THE LICENSE TERMS ONCE APPLIED, THUS, PULLUTE DERIVED WORKS!

The only safe way to incorporated GPL'ed codes is to ask for ALL authors of the to-be-incorporated codes to make its license to be dual or more including BSD-compatible one. This is the only clear way that GPL cannot prohibit, as far as I know.

In my hubmle opinion, GPL is ideal for corporates to release their codes as open source codes.

On the other hand, BSD and compatible licenses are ideal for corporates to incorporate external codes into their products. They can even sell the software as closed-source proprietary softwares, that GPL disallows.

This would be the reason at least some of corporate donors donates for FreeBSD and other BSD projects and want *BSD projects to be GPL-free.
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You're treating GPL as it were a disease. If you're not redistributing the software, the license shouldn't be an issue to you, because the license says nothing about the quality of the software.

I choose BSD & MIT for all my projects because I don't care who uses it and because I don't have the time to read the whole GNU license and IANAL to understand it. I also don't like that GPLv2 isn't compatible with any Apache License but only GPLv3 is compatible with Apache-2.0.

Otherwise I despise any kind of license fundamentalism. They get in the way of getting work done.
 
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