Why it isn't a microkernel is pretty obvious to me: They do not work efficiently on production hardware. Specifically, their IPC is terrible with virtual memory. I've argued several times that microkernels are good theory but not so good application on available hardware.

Yes, I cherry picked and you "summary rubbish"ed. Touche.

Lastly, my point is that someone is finally developing something better. But, what do we get? We get "x is the Unix way" and people arguing to keep bad software around. Calling it crap, when it clearly is crap, will hopefully keep things moving forward. Or, we can spend another 20 years running garbage software because people assume that because it is old, it must be "the UNIX way" and is therefore worth hanging on to. Again old != Unix Philosophy, currently works != Unix philosophy.

You know, the first time I ran Weston it crashed. You know what else... It told me right there on the screen what failed, there was a module named incorrectly in the config file. When it did finally come up, it felt like a desktop. No flaky input lag, no tearing, no filling empty blocks when resizing windows. (Note: I never understood the reason for the input lag until I watched that presentation, the ridiculous amount of IPC involved in just drawing an X window finally explains it.)

Why would I ever want to go back to generating config files and xserver lag that can last seconds? To want X to stay around is to be a masochist.

Which is why XNU and NT are hybrid kernels... but my point is that I also prefer monolithic kernels for the reasons stated and more, but "the future" may view things differently. History is the judge as they say.

I agree, but I've never made the point that I want X to stay around...

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6/#post5708154
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6/#post5708098
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6/#post5709751

I just don't agree with your stance that we've been running "garbage" for "20 years". I also don't think the "The Unix Haters Handbook" makes better or more valid points than Eric S Raymond makes in his blog. In fact it's mainly a collection of quotes, more like throwaway comments, from some very biased people.

Again, I don't think X has just become "dated". So, I don't see how people see monolithic kernels in the future is relevant. I think, as many others do, that X has has always been terrible design. This is not a new idea for me. When I first used it in... 96ish it gave me a WTF moment because it did not seem possible that the console worked so well and X was... well, a nightmare. When I investigated further, I understood it to be some carry over (clone) from CDE and commercial Unixes, one that was not well liked there either.

Could X11 have been better maintained, actually by the maintainers? here is a beautiful quote:

Just as leaded gasoline was killed by the automobile industry. I fail to see why deliberately depreciating a poor design is bad.

Good point... I am looking forward to reading others on it.

I wasn't talking about you personally, but whatever. Think what you want.

The corporate trend of replacing broken things with new and shiny is what worries me, not some individual.
Just toss it and buy a new one, until the point where it's soldered together in a factory so you can't repair it. EU has written laws against it.
Wayland will eventually get replaced when something new comes along, and then you will see it could've been much easier and cheaper to just strip down X to a minimum and fix what's broken.
But there's no profit to be made on "crap" as you put it, so why not build another "crap" every year? Like apple does for example.

(Modern) developers are the first to create bloat and shiny things. X11 shall still be the future?

Respect for your thinking. However the sad thing is that you are completely alone, well, +1 +1, = 2 Persons only so far.

@Elcore:

woooooww. That's courageous to say this !

Quote:

and then you will see it could've been much easier and cheaper to just strip down X to a minimum and fix what's broken.

This is UNIX thinking !!

If X can be stripped down and fixed so easily I suggest you setup a presentation at one of the OS/FS events. At the very least you should setup a blog about it. Otherwise, you're just another one of the internet "peanut gallery" talking b.s. and armchair quarterbacking on an issue he doesn't know anything about. If you have good arguments for fixing and continuing X, people will hear them, including me. If you can't do that then I will rightfully consider your opinion to be based on nostalgia or some other nonsense that doesn't apply to the actual problem at hand.

1 members found this post helpful.

I hear lots of bluster and see very little architectural or programmatic demonstration in such statements.

We can fix X... I don't know how, but we can do it!

Good luck with that.

1 members found this post helpful.

With all of that to be fixed. Good luck, but the idea is good.

Like a mountain of code to fix. Probably impossible and Wayland came as a good solution.

It is always better to make a new project name, when the code is significantly changed, improved,... and does not look similar.

Sad for X11.

X works, sometimes the end result depends on GPU driver and hardware, but it works fine for my use case; monitoring servers.
I've got nothing against alternative solutions, there always must be something to fill the blank when things break, I get that.
What you don't get, is that both packagers and sysadmins like well tested, feature complete things with a stable and modular interface.
Evidently, they're not going to toss a working solution until the alternative is stable enough.

Personally, I think part of the problem is the failure of many people to understand what X was designed to be and what it is used for. Taking my use-case for example:
- I use a tiling window manager. No resource-heavy DE that requires hardware acceleration and 2GB of RAM.
- I do not use my computer to play games. (Which is not an option anyway when using OpenBSD.)
- I use the lightest viable browsers. Not huge monstrosities like Firefox.

The result is X has always worked perfectly well for me with both BSD and Linux. The X window system was designed a long time ago for simple graphical needs. The problem is that it has been expanded and modified to accomodate what the new generation of Linux users want; a free Windows replacement. (And what the businesses that have been persuaded to use it in their workplaces want.) X is being used for a job it was not designed for, so a replacement is needed, but that will take time and money. Until then, one workaround is to have a simple and lean system that does not task the graphical capbilities of X, which, in my opinion, is something BSD and Linux users should want anyway.

2 members found this post helpful.

They (Sysadmins) also don't like shoddy, problematic code bases that users and support personnel constantly complain about. I know this because I am a Systems Management Admin and I've been through it enough with Java. So, I get things just fine and you're just making assumptions again.

Assumptions, opinions, complaints and thinly veiled resistance to change... Since that's all I continue to see here, I'll unsubscribe. That way y'all can go on and on about how good X is, how easy it is to fix, how it's "network transparent" (not for some years now), how much the world still needs motif, and how this really bad IPC implementation (X11) is an exemplar of the Unix Philosophy and is the One True Way®. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will move on while you are all stilling here scoffing at True Type Fonts, composite effects and contextual menus like a bunch of old curmudgeons.

When I got my first Unix, it had 16k of RAM. We didn't even have no electricity and I had to run in a squirrel cage attached to a generator! Uphill, both ways!

So, go ahead commence with the reciprocal back patting. Oh, and PM your address. I think I might have some 8" floppy disks out in the garage that you might find useful. Hell, I might have a couple of mouldy reels or even a drum!