Are there any things in Linux that need to be started over from scratch?
I'm curious how software can be created and evolve over time. I'm afraid that at some point, we'll realize there are issues with the software we're using that can only be remedied by massive changes or a complete rewrite.
Are there any instances of this happening? Where something is designed with a flaw that doesn't get realized until much later, necessitating scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch?
You are viewing a single comment
What we wanted: Wayland.
What we needed: X12, X13...
The X standard is a really big mess
That's kind of what I was trying to imply.
We needed a new X with some of the archaic crap removed. I.e. no one needs X primitives anymore, everything is its own raster now (or whatever it's called).
Evolving X would have given us incremental improvements over time... Eventually resulting in something like Wayland.
You can't evolve something that old.
What was stopping X just undergoing some gutting? I get it's old and covered in dust and cobwebs but look, those can be cleaned off.
"Scoop out the tumors, and put some science stuff in ya", the company that produced that quote went on to develop the most advanced AGI in the world and macro-scale portable on-demand indestructible teleportation.
I would rather X didn't get access to deadly neurotoxin, thanks
I dunno, sounds kinda cool.
X12 it's got 15% less X11!
Because we no longer have mainframes in computer labs. Each person now has there own machine.
And yet I play modern games on modern hardware with X just fine. It's been extended a little bit since the 80s.
Yes it works but it everything is glued together with duct tape
So what? Clean that up then.
What part of 40 year old code that is so messed up that it's not cleanable any more do you not understand.
Of course it is. That's propaganda. It's hard, but possible. Probably not as hard as fighting Nvidia for 15 years either.
Simply put, no one with the necessary skills has come forward and demonstrated the willingness to do the work. No programmer I've ever met enjoys wrestling with other people's crufty old code. It isn't fun, it isn't creative, and it's often an exercise in, "What the unholy fsck was whoever wrote this thinking, and where did I put the 'Bang head here' mousepad?" So getting volunteers to mop out the bilges only happens when someone really wants to keep a particular piece of software working. It's actually more difficult than getting people to contribute to a new project.
So getting rid of X's accumulated legacy cruft isn't impossible, but I suspect someone would need to set up the "Clean up X" foundation and offer money for it to actually happen. (I'm no happier about that than you, by the way.)
Aye - there was definitely a lack of motivation there. It seems the X teams (XF86 and later Xorg) sorta ran out of juice at some point. Maybe Wayland has reinvigorated them since it's much more exciting to write new code than fix old cruft.
X is looking for maintainers
Dude what are you smoking?
clean it up yourself if you love it so much
Are we 12?
You're telling me a project that has taken 15 years and is just now getting decent nvidia support and which may someday allow applications to position their own windows is rousing success? Compared to a rework of an existing codebase? That has all the signs of a "we bit off more than we could chew".
It'll work, in the end. But 15 years of work on a migration from X11->"X12" or something would have likely been easier. Especially if they didn't ignore nvidia along the way.
Says the guy that believes its propaganda 😂
Blaming the developers of wayland instead of the company, who refuses to cooperate with them. You are really smart.
Have you seen the codebase from x11. Multiple developers who have worked on x11 for decades say its not worth the time to fix it. It was not designed to run on modern systems. Yet here you are all knowing and you saying it they are wrong. You know better.
X11 is dead, get over it and move on.
Look - they needed nvidia to be on board for this to succeed. Not wanted - needed. Yet they ignored them and moved ahead anyway and just blamed nvidia the whole time. And it works because nerds love to hate nvidia. But it's pretty poor project management to think that that would be okay.
By and large I believe them. The mistake is thinking a complete from-scratch rewrite that breaks all backwards compatibility to the point where the replacement isn't even feature-parity with the old system is the solution.
The #1 thing most people wanted was high DPI support and fractional scaling on multiple desktops. I believe they could have managed that in 15 years.
Neither was Linux. But proper management and migrations to newer platforms means after 30 years it's still running fine. Or do you want to just throw it out and replace it now that it's the same age X was when Wayland was started?
I mean - I get it. It's tempting to just redo everything "the right way" this time. I accept that Xorg needed lots of work. "Fix or replace" is never an easy question to answer. Replace may even have been the right answer, but Wayland has been a lesson in how not to do it.
Child.
I will take you seriously when you stop taking the side of a mega corporation. And stop calling someone a child because you don't like the truth. Good bye. Have luck staying on x11
I mean... I would if Wayland worked on my system. 😂
Then I hope your problems will gets fixed soon.
No body wanted Wayland except the mad scientists and anti nvidia bigots that made it.
Imagine calling developers who have a cold relationship with Nvidia due to Nvidia doing the bare minimum for Linux development "bigots" lol
I think you must be a fanboy. "Bigotry" towards a multi trillion dollar company lmao. What an absurd thought.
I'm no fanboy of any video card. I just have ton of laptops with NVidia in them, and the bigots making Wayland never gave a darn about our plight... and then they started pushing distros to switch before they did anything to fix it. Their callous attitude toward the largest desktop linux userbase is insulting and pushing the distros before they fix the problem should be criminal. Every one of them should be put away for trying to ruin Linux by abandoning it's largest desktop user base. We dislike them, dislike them so much.
Now, will it keep us from using that crap when it finally works? No. We don't have much choice. They've seen to that. x11 will go the way of the dodo. But can we dislike them forever for dragging us through the mud until they were finally forced to fix the darn thing? Yeah. Wish them nothing but the worst.
Nobody is being "bigoted" to Nvidia lmao, get some perspective.
And if you're this butthurt Bout Wayland, don't use it. I've been using it for years without issue, because I didn't choose a hardware manufacturer that's actively hostile to Linux. Nvidia is too bigoted for me, unfortunately.