Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Nicolas George]

Reco (12020-12-21):
> You're right. Xorg is a server, any window manager on top of it is
> merely an X client (a special one, but an interchangeable client).
> Wayland is not a server, it's a set of protocols. An implementation of
> these protocols inherently provides a set of functions that are provided
> by window manager on top of X, X itself, panel, copy-paste to name a
> few.
> Running a window manager in Xwayland is theoretically possible, but
> practically it'll be worthless.

Being a server has nothing to do with allowing window managers or not,
it is just a kind of RPC; X11 is a protocol, but it is designed like an
API.

The X11 Window system itself is very bare: windows are just plain
rectangles. The window manager is just an application like many others
that takes upon itself to add decorations on windows and move them
around.

Nothing would prevent the same UI design with a non-client-server API
design. But obviously Wayland chose otherwise.

(Which is not surprising, since Wayland comes from Freedesktop, and
Freedesktop are awed by Apple's policy of restricting user choice for
the good of the user.)

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George


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Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Javier Barroso]

El mar., 22 dic. 2020 14:07, Greg Wooledge  escribió:

> On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 08:12:28PM -0500, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> > Last I read wayland had serious accessibility problems.  How does fvwm
> > work with screen readers and similar accessibility items and is fvwm
> > going the way of xWindows?
>
> I have no experience with screen readers, and very little knowledge
> of the subject overall.  I wouldn't *expect* fvwm to work particularly
> well with screen readers, nor to be actively developed at this stage
> in its life cycle.  It's been around for decades.
>
> I just checked fvwm.org and apparently there is a version 3.x of fvwm
> in development, but I didn't go beyond the front page, so I don't
> know how active or how recent that development is, nor what features
> they're looking to add.
>

Seem like It is active

https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm3/commits/master

Regards

>
>

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Greg Wooledge]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 08:12:28PM -0500, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> Last I read wayland had serious accessibility problems.  How does fvwm
> work with screen readers and similar accessibility items and is fvwm
> going the way of xWindows?

I have no experience with screen readers, and very little knowledge
of the subject overall.  I wouldn't *expect* fvwm to work particularly
well with screen readers, nor to be actively developed at this stage
in its life cycle.  It's been around for decades.

I just checked fvwm.org and apparently there is a version 3.x of fvwm
in development, but I didn't go beyond the front page, so I don't
know how active or how recent that development is, nor what features
they're looking to add.

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Jude DaShiell]

Last I read wayland had serious accessibility problems.  How does fvwm
work with screen readers and similar accessibility items and is fvwm
going the way of xWindows?

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020, Greg Wooledge wrote:

> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 12:33:39
> From: Greg Wooledge 
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland
> Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:33:57 + (UTC)
> Resent-From: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 12:12:05PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > > Makes you wonder how long it [X.org] will be around; I guess a fair while
> > > though.
> >
> > I can't see why it'd need to be around for very long, given that it can
> > be replaced by Wayland + Xwayland.  So Xorg is only useful to the extent
> > that it supports hardware that Wayland doesn't.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that you *can't*
> use an X window manager with Wayland.  You're stuck using one of the
> window managers or desktop environments that has been ported to Wayland.
>
> If that's not true, then that changes a *lot*.
>
>

-- 

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Reco]

Hi.

On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 12:33:39PM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 12:12:05PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > > Makes you wonder how long it [X.org] will be around; I guess a fair while
> > > though.
> > 
> > I can't see why it'd need to be around for very long, given that it can
> > be replaced by Wayland + Xwayland.  So Xorg is only useful to the extent
> > that it supports hardware that Wayland doesn't.
> 
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that you *can't*
> use an X window manager with Wayland.

You're right. Xorg is a server, any window manager on top of it is
merely an X client (a special one, but an interchangeable client).
Wayland is not a server, it's a set of protocols. An implementation of
these protocols inherently provides a set of functions that are provided
by window manager on top of X, X itself, panel, copy-paste to name a
few.
Running a window manager in Xwayland is theoretically possible, but
practically it'll be worthless.


> You're stuck using one of the window managers or desktop environments
> that has been ported to Wayland.

More precise, "that implement Wayland protocol". And considering a
current state of testing, one can choose GNOME, KDE, weston or sway.
That's it, unless one builds something else from the source.

That means no openbox, twm, icewm, or your favorite panel (because it's
a special extension of a Wayland protocol) if you're planning on using
Wayland.


> If that's not true, then that changes a *lot*.

I wish it too, but it's deliberately not possible.

Reco

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Greg Wooledge]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 12:12:05PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > Makes you wonder how long it [X.org] will be around; I guess a fair while
> > though.
> 
> I can't see why it'd need to be around for very long, given that it can
> be replaced by Wayland + Xwayland.  So Xorg is only useful to the extent
> that it supports hardware that Wayland doesn't.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that you *can't*
use an X window manager with Wayland.  You're stuck using one of the
window managers or desktop environments that has been ported to Wayland.

If that's not true, then that changes a *lot*.

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Nicolas George]

Stefan Monnier (12020-12-21):
> I can't see why it'd need to be around for very long, given that it can
> be replaced by Wayland + Xwayland.  So Xorg is only useful to the extent
> that it supports hardware that Wayland doesn't.

Quoting
https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch05.html#sect-X11-Application-Support-xwm
:

# From the X11 point of view, the X window manager (XWM) living inside a
# Wayland compositor is just like any other window manager.

So no, Xwayland cannot replace X.org: it cannot run window managers,
since only one window manager can run, and there's already one
hard-coded.

For the purpose of this very thread, this is completely unacceptable.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George


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Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Stefan Monnier]

> Makes you wonder how long it will be around; I guess a fair while
> though.
> [1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/x_server_lead_maintainer_declares/

I can't see why it'd need to be around for very long, given that it can
be replaced by Wayland + Xwayland.  So Xorg is only useful to the extent
that it supports hardware that Wayland doesn't.


Stefan

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Tixy]

Sorry, quoting got messed up on my last email, fixed version below (I
hope)...

On Mon, 2020-12-21 at 08:15 -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 06:32:20PM +0100, Kamil Jońca wrote:
[...]
> > As an user of FVWM (desktop box) and xfce (laptop) I feel little
> > lost.
> > In particular it is not clear to me if it will be possible to use
> > FVWM /
> > xfce on top (X)Wayland?
> > Will be possible to use emacsclient with ssh X tunneling?
> 
> See 
> and .
> 
> I don't know how up to date that wiki page is, so if there are any
> Wayland experts out there, we'd love to hear from you.
> 
> As an fvwm user myself, I have absolutely no plans to move to Wayland
> at this time.

I read recently that xorg has been has been abandoned [1] "to the
extent that that means using it to actually control the display, and
not just keep X apps running."

Makes you wonder how long it will be around; I guess a fair while
though.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/x_server_lead_maintainer_declares/

-- 
Tixy

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Tixy]

On Mon, 2020-12-21 at 08:15 -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote:
On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 06:32:20PM +0100, Kamil Jońca wrote:

[...]
> As an user of FVWM (desktop box) and xfce (laptop) I feel little
> lost.
> In particular it is not clear to me if it will be possible to use
> FVWM /
> xfce on top (X)Wayland?
> Will be possible to use emacsclient with ssh X tunneling?

See 
and .

I don't know how up to date that wiki page is, so if there are any
Wayland experts out there, we'd love to hear from you.

As an fvwm user myself, I have absolutely no plans to move to Wayland
at this time.

I read recently that xorg has been has been abandoned [1] "to the
extent that that means using it to actually control the display, and
not just keep X apps running."

Makes you wonder how long it will be around; I guess a fair while
though.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/x_server_lead_maintainer_declares/

-- 
Tixy

Re: Future of X, fvwm and wayland

[Greg Wooledge]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 06:32:20PM +0100, Kamil Jońca wrote:
> It seems, that main graphical UI base will be Wayland instead of X
> Window.
> If I understand correctly Wayland has no separate window  manager
> process.

I think this is incorrect.  There's still a window manager.  You just
don't get many to choose from.

> As an user of FVWM (desktop box) and xfce (laptop) I feel little lost.
> In particular it is not clear to me if it will be possible to use FVWM /
> xfce on top (X)Wayland?
> Will be possible to use emacsclient with ssh X tunneling?

See 
and .

I don't know how up to date that wiki page is, so if there are any
Wayland experts out there, we'd love to hear from you.

As an fvwm user myself, I have absolutely no plans to move to Wayland
at this time.