Arch Linux

syntaxvorlon

Member

Registered: 2008-08-13

Posts: 62

A new Xserver: Wayland

Slashdot recently ran a story about a new X-server implementation: Wayland, A Red Hat engineer cooked it up, with the intention of slicing as much cruft and bloat from X as he could, modernizing old code and improving X with new features such as:

Kernel Mode-setting
Graphics Execution Management
Built-in compositing

As well as a commitment to client-side control over visual settings and fonts. A good deal has to be added to this project for it to be complete, but the idea of a slim and fully featured, modern X-server is heartening to me. Phoronix Article

This project is young and I'm not suggesting it as an immediate package or even AUR, but I think it's a good idea that the Arch community should keep an eye on. It may well become a worthy successor to X.org or supplant it entirely.

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,223

Website

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Interesting! I'm probably not the one to add much to that project, but I'll keep an eye on it, as I'm always looking for stuff to make my machine lean and mean

THX for the heads up!

Zl.

Dieter@be

Forum Fellow

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 2,001

Website

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Hey, this looks cool...

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< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
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Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

As long as basic tasks like window resizing and window switching become faster than the current Xorg then I'm looking forward to this.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

As long as it's less crashy than the current Xorg, I'm looking forward to it.

luciferin

Member

Registered: 2007-05-10

Posts: 144

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Anyone up for some discussion on getting this up on Arch?  I know we'd need a KMS kernel and ATI or Intel drivers.  Anyone have the will to work out a PKGBUILD? 

I'm really not sure if this is anywhere near feasible.

baze

Member

Registered: 2005-10-30

Posts: 393

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

just fyi, wayland is _not_ an x-server as it doesn't implement the x11 protocol.

jarryson

Member

Registered: 2007-02-18

Posts: 298

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

i am also very instrested in this. but i think it will be a long time for it to run.

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

just fyi, wayland is _not_ an x-server as it doesn't implement the x11 protocol.

May I ask exactly what it is then?

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Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

Dieter@be

Forum Fellow

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 2,001

Website

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

http://hoegsberg.blogspot.com/2008/11/p … an-no.html

They got the headline wrong, though, it's not a new X server, it's a tiny display server + compositing manager.
(...)
The core idea is that all windows are redirected, we can do all rendering client side and pass a buffer handle to the server and the compositing manager runs in the display server. One of the goals is to get an X server running on Wayland, first in a full screen window (like Xnest), then rootless, since X just isn't going aways anytime soon.

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< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
4 8 15 16 23 42

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Oh I see.

-dav7

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Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

thisperishedmin

Member

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 164

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

I read this on slashdot today as well.  I'll be keeping an eye on it in hopes of an eventual solid replacement for xorg - which seems to be quite monolithic for most tasks.  However, I was slightly thrown off by the article title - interesting facts posted above.

I am curious to see how this works out and if it will become a viable alternative for the home user / day to day user.

damjan

Member

Registered: 2006-05-30

Posts: 454

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

It's not a X server, but if GTK and Qt are ported to Wayland .. it's more or less the same thing
and the rootless X server will be there for "legacy" applications.

ps.
afaik Cairo using glitz probably doesn't use any X primitives even now.

Last edited by damjan (2008-11-08 23:45:44)

guinness

Member

Registered: 2009-01-11

Posts: 4

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Anyone have any luck getting wayland to work?  I tried following the build instructions (http://groups.google.com/group/wayland- … ng-wayland) with no luck.  I can build the modesetting kernel just fine (it kicks ass btw) and libdrm but then I get a compiler error when I try to build mesa.

jey

Member

Registered: 2009-01-01

Posts: 20

Re: A new Xserver: Wayland

Aww, I was really hoping someone might have been trying to rewrite X!