why the noise about Mir & Wayland

[dmeyer]

Howdy,

In simple words why the community hates Mir and prefer Wayland? Does it because Wayland is open source while Mir isn't? OR Mir violates some open source licenses?

The big issue is that it has the power to fundamentally fragment desktop linux which could be dangerous as Linux is finally gaining mainstream traction.

Other concerns are that Canonical aren't acting in cooperative way. Wayland as a whole is a far superior piece of technology. Mir is being developed by people without the technical background. Canonical said they were going with Wayland and sprung Mir on people. So many other reasons. Don't worry, the Kubuntu community is strongly anti-Mir.

[richb]

The big issue is that it has the power to fundamentally fragment desktop linux which could be dangerous as Linux is finally gaining mainstream traction.

First of all I do not see the Linux desktop gaining mainstraem traction. I have heard that for many years.
Secondly desktop Linux is already fragmented. Linux desktop is not only Ubuntu and Kubuntu and its derivatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._distributions

[Feathers McGraw]

For the sake of example, how much difference does having one display server for Ubuntu and another for Kubuntu make?

If I wrote a program and wanted it to be usable on both, is it trivial to make it work with both display servers, or does it require a lot more work?

Mir is being developed by people without the technical background

If this is true, then surely Wayland will be just fine, as they have the skilled devs? If the skilled devs split 50/50 then obviously it would be a big issue.

Feathers

[claydoh]

My take on it is that Mir is to support mobile devices, while Wayland --?? who knows. Linux has fragmentation always has and will. But for the very short exception of the transition from xfree86 to the forked xorg, there has not been any 'competition' in the display server sphere.

My opinionated take is that Wayland was simply dragging its feet around for way too long, and that the Ubuntu/canonical people don't know how to spur thongs on, nudge things along in this area with multiple goals, companies, and personalities involved. And yes, there is a tiny bit of anti-Ubuntu sentiment, there always has been that, since the beginning, which of course Canonical have not done much in recent years to prevent.

[dmeyer]

First of all I do not see the Linux desktop gaining mainstraem traction. I have heard that for many years.
Secondly desktop Linux is already fragmented. Linux desktop is not only Ubuntu and Kubuntu and its derivatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._distributions

Ok, maybe mainstream traction is a little bit much but it is definitely increasing in popularity like it never has before. When it comes to the fragmentation then you are right in that there are a seemingly infinite number of distros; however, they all share the same core. They all use X11, they all use the same kernel, all use the same glibc, same gnu packages etc etc. Much of the current fragmentation is fairly superficial except maybe the package format wars. When we start having large divisions on these very core components then we have much larger issues. A good example is what happened with PulseAudio. It did divide the distros for a while but because if offered full compatability with ALSA nobody saw the fragmentation and overtime it won the war. Mir and Wayland are not compatible with each other in the same was as PulseAudio and ALSA.

For the sake of example, how much difference does having one display server for Ubuntu and another for Kubuntu make?

If I wrote a program and wanted it to be usable on both, is it trivial to make it work with both display servers, or does it require a lot more work?


If this is true, then surely Wayland will be just fine, as they have the skilled devs? If the skilled devs split 50/50 then obviously it would be a big issue.

Ubuntu being the "default" linux distro means that if it goes out on its own then we may run into issues like Canonical having to maintain its own versions of MESA, its own version of QT, its own version of GTK+ to name just a few things. KDE will not be heading the Mir route, especially not KWin which is quite integral to the KDE experience.

Feathers

Ubuntu being the "default" linux distro means that future users might end up with a distro that is so incompatible with others that you should consider it to be a unique OS. If they go out on their own then we may run into issues like Canonical having to maintain its own versions of MESA, its own version of QT, its own version of GTK+, its own version of LibreOffice to name just a few things. KDE will not be heading the Mir route, especially not KWin which is quite integral to the KDE experience. Supporting both technologies is far from trivial. So much needs to be done which is why it's taking so long.

[richb]

Ok, When it comes to the fragmentation then you are right in that there are a seemingly infinite number of distros; however, they all share the same core. They all use X11, they all use the same kernel, all use the same glibc, same gnu packages etc etc. Much of the current fragmentation is fairly superficial except maybe the package format wars. se xfree86
.

.
I do not see the differences as superficial. They do use different kernel versions, not a superficial difference. T

My understanding is Wayland was to enable running X11 applications through an X server, optionally rootless, running as a Wayland client. In other words there is compatibility.

[dmeyer]

.
I do not see the differences as superficial. They do use different kernel versions, not a superficial difference. T

My understanding is Wayland was to enable running X11 applications through an X server, optionally rootless, running as a Wayland client. In other words there is compatibility.

These differences are superficial. I can compile a QT app on Kubuntu 12.04, and then run it without any issue on 12.10, 13.04 and 13.10 even though they all use different kernels, versions of xorg etc. I can even run that app on Arch or openSUSE if I so desired. To a large extent we have this compatibility. A great testament to that is Steam. It works on a large variety of different distros.

Compatibility for legacy apps, so far nobody has done any compatibility between Mir and Wayland.

[richb]

Compatibility for legacy apps, so far nobody has done any compatibility between Mir and Wayland.

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/it...d-1619051.html

[dmeyer]

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/it...d-1619051.html

You misunderstood me. Both Mir and Wayland can run legacy X11 applications using XMir and XWayland respectively. My statement was to the effect that a Mir application cannot run on Wayland or vice versa. This is where the major fragmentation will start to creep in.

[richb]

Who else is going to use MIR other than Canonical and Ubuntu? I do not know the answer. I do know Ubuntu is not the Linux universe. Maybe minor fragmentation,

[dmeyer]

Who else is going to use MIR other than Canonical and Ubuntu? I do not know the answer. I do know Ubuntu is not the Linux universe. Maybe minor fragmentation,

I have no statistics to back me up but I'd guess a very good proportion of dekstop Linux users use Ubuntu or derivative of it. Look, I was really just explaining why it could cause fragmentation. In all honesty, I do not think Canonical will be successful with Mir. I just fear that it's adoption might damage the ecosystem around Ubuntu.

[richb]

We will have to wait and see.