Hi guys.

Pardon my curiousity. Recently i read the news that Ubuntu and Fedora will use wayland, and i was curious, whats the advantege of wayland over x.org? will Mr. Volkerding will follow this 2 and use wayland in some future release of Slackware or it will continue to use x.org?

Honestly, Slackware is a great distro, too stable, i hope Mr. Volkerding continues to use x.org, but what is the opinion of the Slackware team?

I'm pretty sure that Wayland isn't anywhere near ready for Slackware. I don't think it will be included any time soon. I tried to build it just to see if I could and ran into a problem with the version of Mesa that it needs not building.

I vote dropping back to XFree86.

I'd say the question is, "what will be the disadvantages of wayland"... apparently nvidia aren't going to support wayland at all, which for me... completely puts me off and would obviously continue to use x.org.

Post 11 here:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show....php?p=2343452

Seeing as i am a nvidia user and am very happy with how nvidia works alongside x.org i don't want my graphics card going to waste

I think because wayland needs KMS support for any graphics drivers, it would mean nvidia (and possiblt others such as ATI) would have to completely open-source their drivers to work alongside wayland, and i'm not sure they would like to do that.

But hey, if slackware or any other distro decided to go with wayland, im sure x.org will always be there as a choice.

I'm not sure I follow the logic in that. But it's late

I am 110% sure that Slackware isn't going with this 'Wayland' thingie, and definitely won't be following any kind of path Ubuntu is trying to 'set', nor Fedora which is the only other distro that I heard is going to use Wayland.

I have mixed feelings about 'dumping' x. Wayland is new, but that doesn't necessarily make it better, and certainly doesn't mean it is even 'ready for prime time'.

On the one hand, perhaps x has gotten a bit too complex to manage, but for the most part it is very stable and well supported. Wayland is neither.

Also the fact that Ubuntu is 'picking up Wayland' should not really be a real concern for us Slackers. We don't follow trends. It is not our style .

I never worry about the packages that Pat chooses to introduce to slackware-current. Slackware has and always will have a proven track record for stability, maturity, and security.
This is the reason our OS is well-respected.

Ubuntu and Fedora have made it clear that *eventually* they will be moving to Wayland. It is not a sufficient replacement for Xorg yet and won't be for some time. At some point in time, if Wayland actually does become usable and sufficiently better than Xorg, some (most?) distros will switch. I'm sure Slackware will be one of the last. I really don't think making a firm decision now about the possibility of using something that is not even close to being ready in the near future is helpful. If Wayland actually does develop into something that has significant advantages over Xorg without breaking compatibility with other software, then it is inevitable that it will eventually be included in Slackware. At this point in time, there is no evidence to suggest that will become true at any point in the predictable near future.

So...with that being said...why do you really want a firm commitment now? You may as well be asking if Slackware will switch to GNU HURD (which has been asked as well, funnily enough).

I am wondering with these upcoming or planned changes if this means one day in the near future some linux distros will go one way while others will go another. Neither being greater, just evolving down two different paths. The heart will stay the same, the bodies will just look different.

Edit: I know splits happen all the time in one form or another and have in the past. I am thinking this one will be much larger.

Remember that Ubuntu and Fedora are on the very bleeding edge. If this is what you want then go use those distros, but don't expect Slackware, probably the most stable and far from the bleeding edge, to use bleeding edge stuff.

Also, I think the entire GNU/Linux community should understand this, and be glad that Slackware exists, because one day all these bleeding edgers will bleed to death.

Normally we only get stable software in Slackware and I would be happy with whatever PV decides. I am also confident that Slackers always find how to include any other possible option. That is our perception of how "open source" should be.

Chris