Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 17 May 2006 15:39:33 +0200 | From | "Jesper Juhl" <> | Subject | Re: replacing X Window System ! |
| |
On 17/05/06, linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> wrote: > --- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu a écrit : > > On Wed, 17 May 2006 13:47:22 +0200, linux cbon said: > > > > If it isn't backward compatible, people won't use > > it. X may suck, > > but it doesn't suck hard enough that people will > > abandon all their > > currently mostly-working software. > > If we have a new window system, shall all applications > be rewritten ? > Unless the new windowing system is 100% backwards compatible with X11, then yes.
> > > Actually, you've proved the opposite. Consider if > > the kernel had *already* > > included some universal window system (we'll call it > > W). At that point, you > > can't easily write an X, Y, or Z if you don't like > > W. If anything, the > > *current* W (which happens to be called X11) is > > *too* friendly with the kernel > > already - witness all the headaches dealing with DRM > > and 'enable' attributes > > and other hoops things have to jump through. > > > > If anything, there should be even *less* kernel > > support for graphics. > > That way, writing a Y or Z (or improving X) is > > easier to do without > > destabilizing the kernel. > > My idea is that the kernel should include universal > graphical support. > And then we would NOT need ANY window system AT ALL. > We wouldnt have 2 os (kernel and X) at the same time > like now. > It would be faster, simpler, easier to manage etc. > And when the windowing system crashes it'll take the kernel down with it - ouch.
And if I want to run a headless server without a graphical display I can't simply stop the windowing system I'd have to rebuild a kernel without the windowing system in it - yuck.
What we have now is a nicely decoupled system - it would be even better if X was even more decoupled from the kernel, but lets not put the windowing system in kernel space.
X is not perfect, but it has been around long enough that it has a huge base of software using it. Throwing that out the window would be silly. X also has had networking support since the beginning, and all X apps can run with remote displays without having to do much (if anything) themselves to support that - that's a really nice feature. Modern X can be quite fast with a properly supported graphics card, and stuff like Xgl has just improved things even more recently. X has good multihead support - another nice feature. Graphics drivers for X run (usually/mostly) in userspace - nice, then they don't destabilize the kernel. And there's lots of other features as well.
Do you really want to put all that complexity into the kernel?
-- Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |