RE: replacing X Window System !

RE: replacing X Window System !

["Döhr, Markus ICC-H"]

> > Although one has to admit that working with remote X 
> terminals over a
> > SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull, [...]
> You can tunnel just about anything X11 over SSH/VPN/etc.; even things
> like a whole desktop GUI; not just plain X terminals.

Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes about 3
minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want (almost)
immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
until the app is doing something.

> > However, there´s NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) and
> > other products but out of the box X11 it´s quite slow over 
> higher latency
> > connections.
> One good way to reduce latency (at least when using X11 over SSH) is
> to tell SSH to compress its connection tunnel ("ssh -C ...").
> 

Yes, this will start Firefox (as an example) down to 2 minutes 15 seconds
and put additional compression/decompression load on the system. We go for
AIP right now (Sun Secure Global Desktop), there you have the feeling as if
you were sitting in front of the box.


-- 
Markus

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Alexander Gran]

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Am Samstag, 20. Mai 2006 02:57 schrieb Döhr, Markus ICC-H:
> Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes about 3
> minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want (almost)
> immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
> until the app is doing something.

strange. starting konqueror over my (6Mbit) ADSL Line takes 5 seconds. ping 
times to server are 40ms. Of course it's cached on the remote machine. Localy 
it takes 2 seconds.

> Yes, this will start Firefox (as an example) down to 2 minutes 15 seconds
> and put additional compression/decompression load on the system. We go for
> AIP right now (Sun Secure Global Desktop), there you have the feeling as if
> you were sitting in front of the box.

No idea what's going on at your machine, but 2.15 minutes for firefox seems to 
be seriously broken. 

regards
Alex

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RE: replacing X Window System !

[David Lang]

On Sat, 20 May 2006, "Döhr, Markus ICC-H" wrote:

> Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 02:57:55 +0200
> From: "\"Döhr, Markus ICC-H\"" <Markus.Doehr@siegenia-aubi.com>
> To: 'Peter Gordon' <codergeek42@gmail.com>
> Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: RE: replacing X Window System !
> 
>>> Although one has to admit that working with remote X
>> terminals over a
>>> SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull, [...]
>> You can tunnel just about anything X11 over SSH/VPN/etc.; even things
>> like a whole desktop GUI; not just plain X terminals.
>
> Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes about 3
> minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want (almost)
> immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
> until the app is doing something.

this is due to the latency, not the speed (X by default requires many 
round-trips to startup). There is an extention that greatly reduces the 
number of round-trips nessasary, I'm willing to bet this will make a huge 
difference for your startup. Unfortunantly I don't remember what this is.

however the huge delays on startup don't translate into a general slowdown 
once the application is started.

yes, this is an add-on, but the way that X evolves is for new 
functionality to be initially available as an add-on, and then move into 
the core distribution.

David Lang

-- 
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
  -- C.A.R. Hoare

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Bart Samwel]

David Lang wrote:
> On Sat, 20 May 2006, "Döhr, Markus ICC-H" wrote:
> 
>> Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 02:57:55 +0200
>> From: "\"Döhr, Markus ICC-H\"" <Markus.Doehr@siegenia-aubi.com>
>> Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes 
>> about 3
>> minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want 
>> (almost)
>> immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
>> until the app is doing something.
> 
> this is due to the latency, not the speed (X by default requires many 
> round-trips to startup). There is an extention that greatly reduces the 
> number of round-trips nessasary, I'm willing to bet this will make a 
> huge difference for your startup. Unfortunantly I don't remember what 
> this is.

I think it's called "lbxproxy".

Cheers,
Bart

Re: replacing X Window System !

[shogunx]

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On Sat, 20 May 2006, Bart Samwel wrote:

> David Lang wrote:
> > On Sat, 20 May 2006, "Döhr, Markus ICC-H" wrote:
> >
> >> Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 02:57:55 +0200
> >> From: "\"Döhr, Markus ICC-H\"" <Markus.Doehr@siegenia-aubi.com>
> >> Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes
> >> about 3
> >> minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want
> >> (almost)
> >> immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
> >> until the app is doing something.
> >
> > this is due to the latency, not the speed (X by default requires many
> > round-trips to startup). There is an extention that greatly reduces the
> > number of round-trips nessasary, I'm willing to bet this will make a
> > huge difference for your startup. Unfortunantly I don't remember what
> > this is.
>
> I think it's called "lbxproxy".

Description: Low Bandwidth X (LBX) proxy server
 Applications that would like to take advantage of the Low Bandwidth
extension
 to X (LBX) must make their connections to an lbxproxy.  These
applications
 need know nothing about LBX, they simply connect to the lbxproxy as if
were a
 regular X server.  The lbxproxy accepts client connections, multiplexes
them
 over a single connection to the X server, and performs various
optimizations
 on the X protocol to make it faster over low bandwidth and/or high
latency
 connections.





>
> Cheers,
> Bart
> -
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>

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jan Knutar]

On Saturday 20 May 2006 09:56, Bart Samwel wrote:

> I think it's called "lbxproxy".

NX is probably more useful.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Helge Hafting]

Döhr, Markus ICC-H wrote:

>>>Although one has to admit that working with remote X 
>>>      
>>>
>>terminals over a
>>    
>>
>>>SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull, [...]
>>>      
>>>
>>You can tunnel just about anything X11 over SSH/VPN/etc.; even things
>>like a whole desktop GUI; not just plain X terminals.
>>    
>>
>
>Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes about 3
>minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users want (almost)
>immediate response to an application, to clicking and waiting 10 seconds
>until the app is doing something.
>  
>
It is not that bad.  I tried starting firefox on a machine 20km away,
using a 5Mbps ADSL link from the "wrong" end.  (I ssh'ed into
my home pc from work.)
Firefox started in 55s, not 3min. Still bad, but that is a firefox
problem, not a generic X-tunneling problem.  I can start the
lyx word processor in 3s over the same link, and have decent
performance while using it too.

Helge Hafting

RE: replacing X Window System !

["Döhr, Markus ICC-H"]

[...]
> >Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes 
> >about 3 minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users 
> >want (almost) immediate response to an application, to clicking and 
> >waiting 10 seconds until the app is doing something.
> >  
> >
> It is not that bad.  I tried starting firefox on a machine 
> 20km away, using a 5Mbps ADSL link from the "wrong" end.  (I 
> ssh'ed into my home pc from work.) Firefox started in 55s, 
> not 3min. Still bad, but that is a firefox problem, not a 
> generic X-tunneling problem.  I can start the lyx word 
> processor in 3s over the same link, and have decent 
> performance while using it too.

55 seconds to start an application... That´s not acceptable. Why do you
think it´s a Firefox problem? Did you try this with a Java application? 

I don´t wanna blame X in general, just saying it is useless if you´re
sitting in Hungary or Poland and want to work remotely - in comparision to
M$´s  RDP. 

The question for me is not "X or not X" - but how to enable people to start
e. g. "sam" on an HP-UX box without needing to wait minutes before the
application starts. It works - for sure, but the speed is for our needs not
acceptable. Additionally ~ 60 ssh sessions on a single box will but a lot of
CPU load on the system beside the fact, that you need a BIG BIG pipe.


-- 
Markus

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Helge Hafting]

Döhr, Markus ICC-H wrote:

>[...]
>  
>
>>>Did you actually do that? Starting Firefox over a 6 Mbit VPN takes 
>>>about 3 minutes on a FAST machine. That´s not acceptable - our users 
>>>want (almost) immediate response to an application, to clicking and 
>>>waiting 10 seconds until the app is doing something.
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>It is not that bad.  I tried starting firefox on a machine 
>>20km away, using a 5Mbps ADSL link from the "wrong" end.  (I 
>>ssh'ed into my home pc from work.) Firefox started in 55s, 
>>not 3min. Still bad, but that is a firefox problem, not a 
>>generic X-tunneling problem.  I can start the lyx word 
>>processor in 3s over the same link, and have decent 
>>performance while using it too.
>>    
>>
>
>55 seconds to start an application... That´s not acceptable. Why do you
>think it´s a Firefox problem? Did you try this with a Java application? 
>  
>
I say it is a firefox problem because other apps don't have this delay!
So clearly, firefox is doing something stupid here that other apps
doesn't do.  Waiting 3 seconds isn't that painful.

I haven't tried with a java app - I don't think I have any of those.
Are they special in any way?

>I don´t wanna blame X in general, just saying it is useless if you´re
>sitting in Hungary or Poland and want to work remotely - in comparision to
>M$´s  RDP. 
>  
>
It all depends on what latency and bandwith you have.
5-6 Mbps is enough to have a decent experience, except for
some stupid apps.  Firefox is certainly slow in starting, and
somewhat slow later too.  But one doesn't have to run firefox,
there are other browsers.  And usually, the webbrowser is
something you _can_ run locally.  At least if you're simply
trying to read webpages.

>The question for me is not "X or not X" - but how to enable people to start
>e. g. "sam" on an HP-UX box without needing to wait minutes before the
>application starts. It works - for sure, but the speed is for our needs not
>acceptable. Additionally ~ 60 ssh sessions on a single box will but a lot of
>CPU load on the system beside the fact, that you need a BIG BIG pipe.
>  
>
60 sessions - sure.  The more users, the more resources you need .  .  .

Helge Hafting

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Al Boldi]

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 12:40:56AM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> > I think the discussion should move to X.Org ?
>
> The whole discussion is pointless anywhere as long as you are not
> writing the code to implement your proposal.
>
> If you think you could send an idea and other people would implement it
> you are misunderstanding how open source software works.
>
> You have your idea.
>
> It is YOUR job to write the code implementing your proposal.
>
> Then there's a basis for a technical discussion of the advantages and
> disadvantages of your ideas.

Implementing an idea before discussing it's feasibility?

Kind of stupid, don't you think?

> Otherwise, you are only wasting your (and our) time since there's
> exactly a 0% probability that someone else will implement your ideas.

Maybe not 0% exactly.

Not that I would agree with the in-Kernel X idea per se, but it does raise 
the issue of a stable API once more, as it would allow more freedom to 
create a module against a version line w/o fear of being rejected.

Thanks!

--
Al

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Adrian Bunk]

On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 07:33:08AM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 12:40:56AM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> > > I think the discussion should move to X.Org ?
> >
> > The whole discussion is pointless anywhere as long as you are not
> > writing the code to implement your proposal.
> >
> > If you think you could send an idea and other people would implement it
> > you are misunderstanding how open source software works.
> >
> > You have your idea.
> >
> > It is YOUR job to write the code implementing your proposal.
> >
> > Then there's a basis for a technical discussion of the advantages and
> > disadvantages of your ideas.
> 
> Implementing an idea before discussing it's feasibility?
> 
> Kind of stupid, don't you think?

Sure, it does make sense to ask for comments before starting with an 
implementation.

But discussing possible patches also becomes kind of stupid if you
aren't willing to implement it yourself.

There have already been more than enough discussions regarding this 
issue - if he still considers his idea worth it HE must start with the 
implementation NOW.

He seems to be the kind of troll who wants to convince other people of 
his "great" ideas without writing a single line of code himself.

> > Otherwise, you are only wasting your (and our) time since there's
> > exactly a 0% probability that someone else will implement your ideas.
> 
> Maybe not 0% exactly.

In this case, 0% exactly.

> Not that I would agree with the in-Kernel X idea per se, but it does raise 
> the issue of a stable API once more, as it would allow more freedom to 
> create a module against a version line w/o fear of being rejected.

It does not raise the issue of a stable kernel API:

The solution is to work on getting the module included into the kernel. 
All problems with changing kernel APIs vanish as soon as your module is 
included. This is independent from what the module in question is doing.

Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt explains the advantages of not 
having a stable API.

> Thanks!
> Al

cu
Adrian

BTW: Don't drop people from the Cc.

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Al Boldi]

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 07:33:08AM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > Not that I would agree with the in-Kernel X idea per se, but it does
> > raise the issue of a stable API once more, as it would allow more
> > freedom to create a module against a version line w/o fear of being
> > rejected.
>
> It does not raise the issue of a stable kernel API:
>
> The solution is to work on getting the module included into the kernel.
> All problems with changing kernel APIs vanish as soon as your module is
> included. This is independent from what the module in question is doing.

Yes, but the question is:
	What's the trick to get the module into the kernel?

It seems that we are currently under the mercy of the few, who have the power 
to control this.  And forking isn't really a solution.

With a stable API, I can just implement whatever w/o caring whether it is 
included into the kernel.  Now that's freedom!

Thanks!

--
Al

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Neil Brown]

On Saturday May 20, a1426z@gawab.com wrote:
> Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 07:33:08AM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > > Not that I would agree with the in-Kernel X idea per se, but it does
> > > raise the issue of a stable API once more, as it would allow more
> > > freedom to create a module against a version line w/o fear of being
> > > rejected.
> >
> > It does not raise the issue of a stable kernel API:
> >
> > The solution is to work on getting the module included into the kernel.
> > All problems with changing kernel APIs vanish as soon as your module is
> > included. This is independent from what the module in question is doing.
> 
> Yes, but the question is:
> 	What's the trick to get the module into the kernel?

The 'trick' is to write well designed, maintainable code, and accept
all criticism with good grace. (It helps if the code works too)

By far the best approach is to incrementally improve what is already
in the kernel.  In this case, that probably means fbdev and/or DRI.
If you get them to play nicely together and gradually enhance them to
provide the functionality you need, I think you would make a lot of
people happy.

> 
> It seems that we are currently under the mercy of the few, who have the power 
> to control this.  And forking isn't really a solution.

It is true that a thick skin helps.  But if you demonstrate (with
code) that you know what you are talking about, and respond
intelligently to all feedback (even when you don't feel the feedback
itself is intelligent) people will listen to you.

The coin of this realm is very much code.  That is one of the reasons
to start with small patches to existing code: it increases your
credibility with less investment than creating a great big slab of
code. 

> 
> With a stable API, I can just implement whatever w/o caring whether it is 
> included into the kernel.  Now that's freedom!
> 

That's userspace. 

Improve what is in the kernel so that it presents to userspace
whatever API you need, and write stuff in userspace to your hearts
content.  I'm sure that there is no need for the entire 'X' server to
be in the kernel, and I'm equally sure that there are advantages in
the kernel providing more services for an X server than it currently
does.  You need to find that balance.  It may be hard, but there are
people here who will help.  You add bits of functionality - people
will question them and require you to justify them. Some will make it,
some won't.  Bit by bit you will arrive at a workable solution.

As a sort of example: were I to start writing an NFS server for Linux
today, I wouldn't put it all in the kernel.  I would figure out the
minimum services I needed from the kernel and add them one at a time,
at each step modifying the userspace NFS server to use this
functionality.  Some of it would be quite tricky - particularly
achieving zero-copy reads and single-copy writes.  But I'm sure it is
possible, and I'm sure there are people here who would help point me
in the right direction.

NeilBrown

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > With a stable API, I can just implement whatever w/o caring whether it is 
> > included into the kernel.  Now that's freedom!
> > 
> 
> That's userspace. 
> 
> Improve what is in the kernel so that it presents to userspace
> whatever API you need, and write stuff in userspace to your hearts
> content.  I'm sure that there is no need for the entire 'X' server to
> be in the kernel, and I'm equally sure that there are advantages in
> the kernel providing more services for an X server than it currently
> does.  You need to find that balance.  It may be hard, but there are
> people here who will help.  You add bits of functionality - people
> will question them and require you to justify them. Some will make it,
> some won't.  Bit by bit you will arrive at a workable solution.
> 
> As a sort of example: were I to start writing an NFS server for Linux
> today, I wouldn't put it all in the kernel.  I would figure out the
> minimum services I needed from the kernel and add them one at a time,
> at each step modifying the userspace NFS server to use this
> functionality.  Some of it would be quite tricky - particularly
> achieving zero-copy reads and single-copy writes.  But I'm sure it is
> possible, and I'm sure there are people here who would help point me
> in the right direction.

I'm sure it is still possible to rewrite knfsd into userspace
:-). With splice & friends, maybe it is now easier to do 0-copy...

								Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

RE: replacing X Window System !

["Döhr, Markus ICC-H"]

> > No, not necessarily. It´s very possible to run only a single 
> > application from an RDP serving system (as you do with X), the 
> > application gets executed on the server and the display is 
> pushed to the client.
> 
> AFAIK, only ICA allows running single applications 
> (publishing), not RDP. And, BTW, they _do_ consume a complete 
> user session, so they're pretty a resource hog.

No - with RDP 5.2 this is possible as it is with Citrix. 

Doing this creates three processes on the system, a login process, a "shell"
(explorer) - and the process I'm executing/calling.

The main difference is - you can't "publish" applications, you need to know
how to call them (path). Everything else is pretty much the same as in
Citrix.

We make heavily use of this with the "Sun Global Desktop" software. That
software acts as middleware between the client and the server, they use
either Java or an AIP protocol to get the application to the desktop.
Working over that in X is as if you were sitting right in front of the
console.

-- 
Markus

RE: replacing X Window System !

["Döhr, Markus ICC-H"]

> > Microsoft´s RDP protocol does a much better job there. However, 
> > there´s NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) and other products 
> but out of 
> > the box X11 it´s quite slow over higher latency connections.
> 
> RDP is more like VNC, AFAIK.  It serves a different purpose.

No, not necessarily. It´s very possible to run only a single application
from an RDP serving system (as you do with X), the application gets executed
on the server and the display is pushed to the client.


Greetz,


SIEGENIA-AUBI KG
Informationswesen
 
i.A.
 
Markus Döhr
SAP-CC/BC, SAPDB-DBA

Tel.:	 +49 6503 917-152
Fax:	 +49 6503 917-7152
E-Mail: markus.doehr@siegenia-aubi.com
Internet: http://www.siegenia-aubi.com 
  

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

> > RDP is more like VNC, AFAIK.  It serves a different purpose.
>
> No, not necessarily. It´s very possible to run only a single application
> from an RDP serving system (as you do with X), the application gets executed
> on the server and the display is pushed to the client.

AFAIK, only ICA allows running single applications (publishing), not
RDP. And, BTW, they _do_ consume a complete user session, so they're
pretty a resource hog.

RE: replacing X Window System !

["Döhr, Markus ICC-H"]

> > First of all, your assumptions are incorrect.  Modern versions of X 
> > are not old, unoptimised, will do remote sessions, etc.
> 
> Remote sessions have been there as long as the DISPLAY 
> environment variable - I think even X10.4, 2 decades and more 
> ago, could do that.  I know that it worked just fine 18 years 
> ago with X11R1 (aah... building that from source on a 25mz
> Sun3 took a little while). (Anybody know when the first 
> instance of pointing 'xmelt' at another user's machine for 
> amusement was? :)
[...]

Although one has to admit that working with remote X terminals over a
SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull, Microsoft´s RDP protocol does a
much better job there. However, there´s NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) and
other products but out of the box X11 it´s quite slow over higher latency
connections.


Just my EUR 0.02


SIEGENIA-AUBI KG
Informationswesen
 
i.A.
 
Markus Döhr
SAP-CC/BC, SAPDB-DBA

Tel.:	 +49 6503 917-152
Fax:	 +49 6503 917-7152
E-Mail: markus.doehr@siegenia-aubi.com
Internet: http://www.siegenia-aubi.com 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Måns Rullgård]

"Döhr, Markus ICC-H" <Markus.Doehr@siegenia-aubi.com> writes:

>> > First of all, your assumptions are incorrect.  Modern versions of X 
>> > are not old, unoptimised, will do remote sessions, etc.
>> 
>> Remote sessions have been there as long as the DISPLAY 
>> environment variable - I think even X10.4, 2 decades and more 
>> ago, could do that.  I know that it worked just fine 18 years 
>> ago with X11R1 (aah... building that from source on a 25mz
>> Sun3 took a little while). (Anybody know when the first 
>> instance of pointing 'xmelt' at another user's machine for 
>> amusement was? :)
> [...]
>
> Although one has to admit that working with remote X terminals over
> a SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull,

It depends on what programs you run.  Emacs runs perfectly fine over a
slow modem.  Firefox is usually very unhappy even on a fast LAN.  In
general, applications that render an image locally and send that to
the X server for display will run badly over a remove connection.
Apps that send text and drawing commands to the server, and let it
take care of rendering run quite well.

> Microsoft´s RDP protocol does a much better job there. However,
> there´s NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) and other products but out of
> the box X11 it´s quite slow over higher latency connections.

RDP is more like VNC, AFAIK.  It serves a different purpose.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Peter Gordon]

> Although one has to admit that working with remote X terminals over a
> SSH/WAN/VPN-connection is far from usefull, [...]
You can tunnel just about anything X11 over SSH/VPN/etc.; even things
like a whole desktop GUI; not just plain X terminals.

> However, there´s NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) and
> other products but out of the box X11 it´s quite slow over higher latency
> connections.
One good way to reduce latency (at least when using X11 over SSH) is
to tell SSH to compress its connection tunnel ("ssh -C ...").

replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

hi,

I know it may not be the best place, sorry for that.

X Window System is old, not optimized, slow, not
secure (uses root much), accesses the video hardware
directly (thats the kernel's job !), it cannot do VNC,
etc.

The question is : what are your ideas to make a system
remplacing X Window System ?

I think that linux kernel should contain a very basic
and universal Window System module (which could also
work on Unixes and BSDs) to replace X, X.org etc.

What do you think about this ?

Thanks









	

	
		
___________________________________________________________________________ 
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Michal Piotrowski]

Hi,

On 16/05/06, linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> wrote:
> hi,
>
> I know it may not be the best place, sorry for that.
>
> X Window System is old, not optimized, slow, not
> secure (uses root much), accesses the video hardware
> directly (thats the kernel's job !), it cannot do VNC,
> etc.
>
> The question is : what are your ideas to make a system
> remplacing X Window System ?
>
> I think that linux kernel should contain a very basic
> and universal Window System module (which could also
> work on Unixes and BSDs) to replace X, X.org etc.
>
> What do you think about this ?
>
> Thanks

It's a bit off topic here.
Please try on Linux Visionaries Mailing List
http://blackwhale.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lvml

Regards,
Michal

-- 
Michal K. K. Piotrowski
LTG - Linux Testers Group
(http://www.stardust.webpages.pl/ltg/wiki/)

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Måns Rullgård]

linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> writes:

> hi,
>
> I know it may not be the best place, sorry for that.
>
> X Window System is old,

Still being around might suggest that it has some merit, no?

> not optimized,

Wrong.

> slow,

Wrong.

> not secure (uses root much),

Would you prefer to give any random user direct access to the hardware?

> accesses the video hardware directly (thats the kernel's job !),

Debatable.

> it cannot do VNC, etc.

Most programs can't do VNC.

> The question is : what are your ideas to make a system
> remplacing X Window System ?

Pointless.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Tuesday 16 May 2006 22:57, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> writes:
[snip]
>
> > it cannot do VNC, etc.
>
> Most programs can't do VNC.

I must also note that this is wrong. Many VNC implementations come with the 
Xvnc server (a drop-in replacement for X, headless) and there's the xf4vnc 
project which provides a few pseudo-devices for a regular X session and hooks 
into the video updates (which are then sent via VNC as well as directly to 
your video hardware).

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

Third year Computer Science undergraduate.
1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[alan]

On Tue, 16 May 2006, linux cbon wrote:

> hi,
>
> I know it may not be the best place, sorry for that.
>
> X Window System is old, not optimized, slow, not
> secure (uses root much), accesses the video hardware
> directly (thats the kernel's job !), it cannot do VNC,
> etc.
>
> The question is : what are your ideas to make a system
> remplacing X Window System ?
>
> I think that linux kernel should contain a very basic
> and universal Window System module (which could also
> work on Unixes and BSDs) to replace X, X.org etc.
>
> What do you think about this ?

This is a topic that comes up every year or so.  Every year the result is 
the same.  It is not going to happen.

First of all, your assumptions are incorrect.  Modern versions of X are 
not old, unoptimised, will do remote sessions, etc.

There are a couple of very hard problems here.

First you have to come up with a design that is better than X.  That is 
pretty hard.  Next you have to convince all the programmers to port their 
code over to use your new spiffy API.  That is even harder.

Until you have a working model, or at least a design, you can blue-sky all 
you want.  It won't get anywhere and just waste other people's electrons.

-- 
"Waiter! This lambchop tastes like an old sock!" - Sheri Lewis

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

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On Tue, 16 May 2006 15:19:16 PDT, alan said:

> First of all, your assumptions are incorrect.  Modern versions of X are 
> not old, unoptimised, will do remote sessions, etc.

Remote sessions have been there as long as the DISPLAY environment variable - I
think even X10.4, 2 decades and more ago, could do that.  I know that it worked
just fine 18 years ago with X11R1 (aah... building that from source on a 25mz
Sun3 took a little while). (Anybody know when the first instance of
pointing 'xmelt' at another user's machine for amusement was? :)

It's interesting that almost every attempt to devise something "better than X"
always seems to get as far as an Xterm-alike, an XClock-alike, a primitive
window manager, and 2 or 3 toy demo programs.  Then, unless you're Microsoft
or Apple, you discover that doing a complete window system is *hard*.....

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[alan]

On Tue, 16 May 2006, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

> On Tue, 16 May 2006 15:19:16 PDT, alan said:
>
>> First of all, your assumptions are incorrect.  Modern versions of X are
>> not old, unoptimised, will do remote sessions, etc.
>
> Remote sessions have been there as long as the DISPLAY environment variable - I
> think even X10.4, 2 decades and more ago, could do that.  I know that it worked
> just fine 18 years ago with X11R1 (aah... building that from source on a 25mz
> Sun3 took a little while). (Anybody know when the first instance of
> pointing 'xmelt' at another user's machine for amusement was? :)

Yep. I know. Most people don't seem to know that X was designed to do 
remote connections very early on.

> It's interesting that almost every attempt to devise something "better than X"
> always seems to get as far as an Xterm-alike, an XClock-alike, a primitive
> window manager, and 2 or 3 toy demo programs.  Then, unless you're Microsoft
> or Apple, you discover that doing a complete window system is *hard*.....

"Those who do not learn the lessons of X are doomed to reimpliment them 
badly."

-- 
"Waiter! This lambchop tastes like an old sock!" - Sheri Lewis

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

hi,

X Window System has many problems affecting directly
the kernel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Limitations_and_criticisms_of_X
-Many current implementations of X manipulate the
video hardware directly.
-X deliberately contains no specification as to user
interface or most inter-application communication.
-The X protocol provides no facilities for handling
sound,
-Until recently, X did not include a good solution to
print screen-displays. 
-One cannot currently detach an X client or session
from one server and reattach it to another.

I would add :
-X needs to be root so it opens many security holes.
-X has more code than the kernel and it is almost an
OS in itself.
-if a "closed-source" graphical card driver has
security holes, what do you do ?
etc.

Some people are working on replacement like Y windows
:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/projects/Distinguished03/MarkThomas.pdf
http://www.y-windows.org/

There are some questions like :
- should the next generation window versions Y,Z etc.
remain backward compatible with X ?
I think they should start something better and simpler
from scratch and not backward compatible.
- should the kernel remain pure "shell" or include
some basic universal graphical universal window system
?
I think second answer.


Regards.












	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

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On Wed, 17 May 2006 13:47:22 +0200, linux cbon said:

> - should the next generation window versions Y,Z etc.
> remain backward compatible with X ?

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.

> I think they should start something better and simpler
> from scratch and not backward compatible.

Feel free to write it.  Keep in mind that X doesn't even try to do
widgets - those are done in userspace libraries.  Let us know when you
have enough functionality to make converting worth thinking about.

> - should the kernel remain pure "shell" or include
> some basic universal graphical universal window system

> I think second answer.

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.


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Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- 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 ?


> 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.






	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2667 bytes --]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 14:39:37 +0200, linux cbon said:

> If we have a new window system, shall all applications
> be rewritten ?

No.  /bin/cat and /bin/ls will survive unscathed.  However, if you
have a graphical application, it will need reworking.  That's a LOT
of code.

> My idea is that the kernel should include universal
> graphical support.

And if we discover the API is wrong, or there's a bug, what then?

Or if you just want to try a different window manager?

> And then we would NOT need ANY window system AT ALL.

And if Gnome is in the kernel, what do all the KDE and Enlightenment
users supposed to do?

> It would be faster, simpler, easier to manage etc.

It wouldn't be faster, and it wouldn't be simpler, and it wouldn't be
easier to manage.

Come back when you've examined all the code in libX11 (that's just *one*
of the libraries), and identified *all* the locking issues, put in
schedule() calls at all the right places to allow pre-emption, and converted
it to use only 16K of stack space (that's *generous* - if it were in the
kernel, it would have a lot less than 16K available).

And consider that currently, you can update your kernel and usually not
need to make much change to your Xorg source tree, and vice versa.  A bug
in Xorg doesn't force a kernel upgrade.  Now imagine that you hit a bug
in Xorg that's fixed in the 2.6.28 kernel - but releases after 2.6.26 don't
boot on your hardware because of a bug with the SATA disk controller you
have.

And if my X server dies on me, I don't usually need to wait for the
entire system to reboot.  If it was in the kernel, it just became a
panic/reboot rather than "init respawns gdm and life goes on".

I'm idly wondering how many years of actual system kernel hacking and
sysadmin experience you have - I know for a fact that I've been doing it
for a living since well before many frequent posters to this list were
even born (Hi, Kyle! :)  And the single most important point I've learned
in almost 30 years of making a living at it is:

There is *nothing* that ruins a sysadmin's entire week as badly as a
lengthy pre-req chain.  "We need to upgrade A, but that requires a new
release of B, which means we need to upgrade C as well, but the next
release of C won't work with hardware J of ours...".   People who
complain about Red Hat systems having "pre-req hell" with RPMs are
wimps - I've *never* seen a pre-req chain since Red Hat 7.0 that was more
than 5 or 7 RPM's deep.  IBM's AIX 3 often had pre-req chains over
100 deep - I once had a *single* bugfix against one /etc script replace
*literally* over 3/4 of /usr....)

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Panagiotis Issaris]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

>On Wed, 17 May 2006 14:39:37 +0200, linux cbon said:
>
>  
>
>>If we have a new window system, shall all applications
>>be rewritten ?
>>    
>>
>
>No.  /bin/cat and /bin/ls will survive unscathed.  However, if you
>have a graphical application, it will need reworking.  That's a LOT
>of code.
>  
>
Wouldn't porting GTK+ and Qt be enough for the majority
of the graphical applications?

With friendly regards,
Takis

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Ondrej Zary]

Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 17 May 2006 14:39:37 +0200, linux cbon said:
>>
>>  
>>
>>> If we have a new window system, shall all applications
>>> be rewritten ?
>>>   
>>
>> No.  /bin/cat and /bin/ls will survive unscathed.  However, if you
>> have a graphical application, it will need reworking.  That's a LOT
>> of code.
>>  
>>
> Wouldn't porting GTK+ and Qt be enough for the majority
> of the graphical applications?

And maybe some compatibility layer for the other?

-- 
Ondrej Zary

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Olivier Galibert]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 04:10:38PM +0200, Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> 
> >On Wed, 17 May 2006 14:39:37 +0200, linux cbon said:
> >
> > 
> >
> >>If we have a new window system, shall all applications
> >>be rewritten ?
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >No.  /bin/cat and /bin/ls will survive unscathed.  However, if you
> >have a graphical application, it will need reworking.  That's a LOT
> >of code.
> > 
> >
> Wouldn't porting GTK+ and Qt be enough for the majority
> of the graphical applications?

You'll need OpenGL/GLX and SDL too to stand a chance.

And in any case, porting gtk+ includes porting gdk, and gdk isn't much
more than a very thin layer over libX11 with some added functionality.
So in practice it is a better idea to have a libX11-compatible API
(and if possible ABI), which will give you gdk/gtk/Qt/Motif for "free"
(not GL/SDL though), and then change gtk/Qt where appropriate to use
your own features.

  OG.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Bob Copeland]

On 5/17/06, Olivier Galibert <galibert@pobox.com> wrote:
> So in practice it is a better idea to have a libX11-compatible API
> (and if possible ABI), which will give you gdk/gtk/Qt/Motif for "free"
> (not GL/SDL though), and then change gtk/Qt where appropriate to use
> your own features.

If only there was a way to get all of that for free without doing any
work at all :)

Bob

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 02:39:37PM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> If we have a new window system, shall all applications
> be rewritten ?

Unless you make your new system compatible with X, then all X
applications must be rewritten.

> 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.

So if I get a new video card I have to get a new kernel?  Why can't I
just get an updated display system if my kernel works just fine.  RIght
now I can boot any VGA compatible card (and many others) to text mode
and work on my system, while I figure out how to get X going on my new
card.  If it was all in the kernel I am screwed if the kernel doesn't
yet support doing graphics on my new card.  I know that problem from
using Windows, although at least it eventually got better at falling
back to VGA only mode if it couldn't work with a new card.

Len Sorensen

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Bob Copeland]

On 5/17/06, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 02:39:37PM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> > If we have a new window system, shall all applications
> > be rewritten ?
>
> Unless you make your new system compatible with X, then all X
> applications must be rewritten.

True for things written directly with Xlib, but hardly anything new is
written without a toolkit these days.  E.g. someone could port GDK to
the new windowing system of the week and all GTK+ applications would
work.  Though I won't disagree that the idea is pointless.

Bob

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Michal Piotrowski]

Hi,
On 17/05/06, Bob Copeland <me@bobcopeland.com> wrote:
[snip]
>  Though I won't disagree that the idea is pointless.

IMHO putting window system to monolithic kernel is mischievous idea.

> Bob

Regards,
Michal

-- 
Michal K. K. Piotrowski
LTG - Linux Testers Group
(http://www.stardust.webpages.pl/ltg/wiki/)

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jesper Juhl]

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

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> a écrit : 
> And when the windowing system crashes it'll take the
> kernel down with it - ouch.

It is already happening today with X, because :
X runs as root - ouch.
X can write into kernel memory - ouch.
X can mess with clocks - ouch.
X can mess with PCI bus - ouch.
etc.  - 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.

Is it so difficult to disable a module ? - 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.

We dont need 2 kernels like today.
All "dangerous code" should be in kernel.


> Do you really want to put all that complexity into
> the kernel?

Kernel is already complex, that wouldnt affect it.
But that would greatly simplify the whole system.







	
	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3556 bytes --]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 16:53:35 +0200, linux cbon said:

> It is already happening today with X, because :
> X runs as root - ouch.
> X can write into kernel memory - ouch.
> X can mess with clocks - ouch.
> X can mess with PCI bus - ouch.

You're confusing "X" with "One misdesigned implementation of X".  If
you actually checked the list archives, you'll see that there are steps
underway to drastically reduce the amount of stuff that X does...

> We dont need 2 kernels like today.
> All "dangerous code" should be in kernel.

Erm. No.  Dangerous code should remain out in userspace where it can't
cause as much damage.

> > Do you really want to put all that complexity into
> > the kernel?
> 
> Kernel is already complex, that wouldnt affect it.

% size /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-rc4-mm1/vmlinux /lib/modules/2.6.17-rc4-mm1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
3681149  893719  316992 4891860  4aa4d4 /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-rc4-mm1/vmlinux
2910736 1299276   10388 4220400  4065f0 /lib/modules/2.6.17-rc4-mm1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko

Wow, that one module is 75% of the size of my kernel...

OK.. Maybe I run a lot of modules?

% lsmod | grep -v nvidia | wc
     43     143    1793
% lsmod | grep -v nvidia | awk '{sum +=$2} END {print sum}'
627006

Nope, only another 600K or so. Puts us up to 4.2M or so kernel, plus 3M of nvidia..

But wait, there's more.  Let's look at the X server and all its shared libs.

# size `lsof -p 2087 | egrep 'mem.*REG' | awk '{print $9}'`
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  32711     448     480   33639    8367 /lib/libnss_files-2.4.90.so
  28347     668       8   29023    715f /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libramdac.so
 242306    2396      44  244746   3bc0a /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfb.so
 130662    1848     332  132842   206ea /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libextmod.so
   1087     160      32    1279     4ff /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1.0.8756
7983042  127036   17376 8127454  7c03de /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1.0.8756
   9457    1524      60   11041    2b21 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/kbd_drv.so
  38096    3352      16   41464    a1f8 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/mouse_drv.so
 578630   73544    3968  656142   a030e /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1.0.8756
 219189   89192       4  308385   4b4a1 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libpcidata.so
 434782   11352       4  446138   6ceba /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.8
1230342   10368   11312 1252022  131ab6 /lib/libc-2.4.90.so
  43260     420     292   43972    abc4 /lib/libgcc_s-4.1.0-20060512.so.1
 141605     336      64  142005   22ab5 /lib/libm-2.4.90.so
  71955     704       4   72663   11bd7 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3
  17096     368       4   17468    443c /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6.0.0
  16794    3776    1248   21818    553a /usr/lib/libfontenc.so.1.0.0
   6550     368      12    6930    1b12 /usr/lib/libXau.so.6.0.0
 439854   25036   47916  512806   7d326 /usr/lib/libXfont.so.1.4.1
   6814     400      48    7262    1c5e /lib/libdl-2.4.90.so
 154483    2376    1088  157947   268fb /usr/lib/liblbxutil.so.1.0.0
  27966     608    1064   29638    73c6 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/linux/libdrm.so
  28409     908      36   29353    72a9 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so
   1541     396       4    1941     795 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/fonts/libbitmap.so
  99149    2392     192  101733   18d65 /lib/ld-2.4.90.so

Totalling it up: 
11984127 359976   85608 12429711

Yowza.  124 *meg*.

> But that would greatly simplify the whole system.

Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will simplify it...


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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 362 bytes --]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:09:38 EDT, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu said:

> Totalling it up: 
> 11984127 359976   85608 12429711
> 
> Yowza.  124 *meg*.

12.4 (slipped a decimal pint). But still.

> > But that would greatly simplify the whole system.

> Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will simplify it...

Still quadruples the size and even worse on complexity...

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux-os (Dick Johnson)]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

> On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:09:38 EDT, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu said:
>
>> Totalling it up:
>> 11984127 359976   85608 12429711
>>
>> Yowza.  124 *meg*.
>
> 12.4 (slipped a decimal pint). But still.
>
>>> But that would greatly simplify the whole system.
>
>> Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will simplify it...
>
> Still quadruples the size and even worse on complexity...
>


The X window system was an excellent design
that just isn't used properly if you really
need a high security environment. All you
need is a "display machine" that runs X.
The high-security machine doesn't run X,
it just runs the X-Window programs after
setting the proper DISPLAY environment string.
The I/O for these programs will run over
the network to your display machine. The
network can be a dedicated wire from dedicated
controllers if you are all freaked out about
security.

The combination of a display machine with
nothing important on it, plus the connected
high-security machine makes for a no-compromise
situation, but certainly more expensive than
running a single machine.


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.4 on an i686 machine (5592.89 BogoMips).
New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ http://www.LymanSchool.com/
_
\x1a\x04

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1118 bytes --]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:30:46 EDT, "linux-os (Dick Johnson)" said:

> The X window system was an excellent design
> that just isn't used properly if you really
> need a high security environment. All you
> need is a "display machine" that runs X.

But now your "display machine" is inside the security perimeter,
and as such, has to be treated as high security as well.

Otherwise, you're basically doing the equivalent of granting
insufficiently authenticated VPN access into the high security
part of the net.

A more deployable answer is for the X server to compartmentalize the clients,
be aware of their security classifications, and mediate interactions (for
instance, if a "cut" is done in a high-security window, only allow it to
be "paste" into other high-security windows).  The X Security Extension
was one effort to start doing this, and more recently, there have been
patches to allow SELinux mediation of the interactions.

Of course, there will still be those applications where the user ends
up with 2 computers, monitors, keyboards, and mice on their desk,
each connected to a different level network.

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu a écrit : 
> On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:09:38 EDT,
> Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu said:
> 
> > > But that would greatly simplify the whole
> system.
> 
> > Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will
> simplify it...
> 
> Still quadruples the size and even worse on
> complexity...


Are all those 124 meg *really* usefull ?
Thats why it should be rewritten from scratch or
better, redesigned...







	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Randy.Dunlap]

On Wed, 17 May 2006 17:53:25 +0200 (CEST) linux cbon wrote:

>  --- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu a écrit : 
> > On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:09:38 EDT,
> > Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu said:
> > 
> > > > But that would greatly simplify the whole
> > system.
> > 
> > > Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will
> > simplify it...
> > 
> > Still quadruples the size and even worse on
> > complexity...
> 
> 
> Are all those 124 meg *really* usefull ?
> Thats why it should be rewritten from scratch or
> better, redesigned...

so you should get started soon.

---
~Randy

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Stas Myasnikov]

Hi,

>>>> But that would greatly simplify the whole
>> system.
>>
>>> Yeah, adding 124 meg to a 4.2M kernel will
>> simplify it...
>>
>> Still quadruples the size and even worse on
>> complexity...
> 
> 
> Are all those 124 meg *really* usefull ?
> Thats why it should be rewritten from scratch or
> better, redesigned...

So, do it :-)

Stas

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Alan Cox]

On Mer, 2006-05-17 at 16:53 +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> We dont need 2 kernels like today.
> All "dangerous code" should be in kernel.

The kernel is even more privileged than the X server so putting
dangerous code there is counterproductive. Security comes about through
intelligent design decisions, compartmentalisation, isolation of
security critical code segments and the like. If you merely put shit in
a different bucket you still have a bad smell.

Alan

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> a écrit : 
> On Mer, 2006-05-17 at 16:53 +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> > We dont need 2 kernels like today.
> > All "dangerous code" should be in kernel.
> 
> The kernel is even more privileged than the X server
> so putting
> dangerous code there is counterproductive. Security
> comes about through
> intelligent design decisions, compartmentalisation,
> isolation of
> security critical code segments and the like. If you
> merely put shit in
> a different bucket you still have a bad smell.


With "dangerous code" I meant : code which *could be
potentially dangerous* like accessing directly the
hardware etc.
That code should be only in the kernel.











	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Stas Myasnikov]

Hi,

>>> We dont need 2 kernels like today.
>>> All "dangerous code" should be in kernel.
>> The kernel is even more privileged than the X server
>> so putting
>> dangerous code there is counterproductive. Security
>> comes about through
>> intelligent design decisions, compartmentalisation,
>> isolation of
>> security critical code segments and the like. If you
>> merely put shit in
>> a different bucket you still have a bad smell.
> With "dangerous code" I meant : code which *could be
> potentially dangerous* like accessing directly the
> hardware etc.
> That code should be only in the kernel.

It's your opinion only.

Stas

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Gábor Lénárt]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 04:53:35PM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
>  --- Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> a écrit : 
> > And when the windowing system crashes it'll take the
> > kernel down with it - ouch.
> 
> It is already happening today with X, because :
> X runs as root - ouch.
> X can write into kernel memory - ouch.
> X can mess with clocks - ouch.
> X can mess with PCI bus - ouch.

What? Check out Xnest or Xephyr, they won't mess up anything :) Sure you
will note here that they require another X server running on, but my point
is that you SHOULD NOT confuse X in whole with an x _implementation_ like
Xorg of XFree86 and even the OS counts they runs on. Sure, you can write an
X server (or port/modify eg Xorg) which does not require root privs, and
others. So you don't want to create a new windowing system if the only
problem you have is about the implementation done by Xorg and/or Linux
kernel, etc etc ...

-- 
- Gábor

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

> > 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.

Ey! That's very familiar to me and it's called Windows.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[grundig]

El Wed, 17 May 2006 19:17:12 +0200,
"Felipe Alfaro Solana" <felipe.alfaro@gmail.com> escribió:

> > 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.
> 
> Ey! That's very familiar to me and it's called Windows.

Windows XP and 2003 support headless mode. I don't think it's particulary
difficult to do it, just implement a /dev/null graphics driver.


Oh BTW, Windows is getting their graphics subsystem out of the kernel
(except the drivers of course) in Vista. The perfect time for people
to start useless rants on whether Linux should include a graphic subsystem
in the kernel. 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 07:33:57PM +0200, grundig wrote:
> Windows XP and 2003 support headless mode. I don't think it's particulary
> difficult to do it, just implement a /dev/null graphics driver.
> 
> Oh BTW, Windows is getting their graphics subsystem out of the kernel
> (except the drivers of course) in Vista. The perfect time for people
> to start useless rants on whether Linux should include a graphic subsystem
> in the kernel. 

Wasn't it back in NT4 they moved it into kernel space to speed things
up? :)

Len Sorensen

Re: replacing X Window System !

[grundig]

El Thu, 18 May 2006 11:42:15 -0400,
lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Lennart Sorensen) escribió:

> Wasn't it back in NT4 they moved it into kernel space to speed things
> up? :)

I suspect that moving everything back to userspace is not something that
they do because it's "The Right Thing", but because they need it. The
graphic subsystems that are people is starting to finish and that will
be used in the next years need to allow a huge amount of "personalization"
done by toolkits. XP already has some problems - you can only use "signed"
themes, themes probably have to be uploaded in the kernel and it's a
requeriment.


I wouldn't say that putting the graphic subsystem to speed things up was
an error - it had good sides. It _really_ speed up things, and it wasn't
that unstable - look at how high uptimes you can get with win2k/xp. In
Linux we also have a TCP/IP stack, filesystem, VT100 emulation...

It's certainly an error to do that today, but at that time it wasn't the
end of the world.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Helge Hafting]

linux cbon 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 ?
>  
>
All graphical applications - sure.

>My idea is that the kernel should include universal
>graphical support.
>  
>
You contradict yourself here.  You complained that
X runs too many things as root, and is therefore unsafe.

Now you want to move graphichs into the kernel???

Don't you know that the kernel is even more privileged than
root, so anything running in the kernel is way more
dangerous than a program running as the root user?


Also note that windows runs its graphics in the kernel,
and have exactly this problem. An error in the windows
graphichs system can therefore crash the machine.

X has a harder time crashing the machine because it
is not in the kernel, but of course the root privilege
is still somewhat dangerous as you mentioned.

The real security fix would be to run X as a non-root
user, except for a hw acceleration library that
should be in a kernel driver.  This can be done without
changing the apps too - wether it is doable without
performance loss is another issue.

>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.
>
Your solution does not mean "no window system at all"
You still got one, except now it is in the kernel and
therefore more dangerous.  We do not have 2 os now,
because X is _not_ an os.  Please look up what an os _is_,
and you'll see that. 

Also, please tell why this would be faster, simpler, or
easier to manage.  Stuff in the kernel is generally
harder to manage than userspace stuff, and definitely
not simpler.  Kernel code lives with all sorts of requirements
and limitations that an application programmer would hate
to have to worry about. 

Helge Hafting

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no> a
écrit : 

> All graphical applications - sure.

As already discussed here, not all graphical
applications should be rewritten, but only some
layers.
And none, if we can emulate X.


> Now you want to move graphichs into the kernel???

Unix was NOT designed for graphics.
Linux is supposed to be *modern*.

The kernel already drives the files system, the
network, the cdrom, the cpu, etc. Why not the graphics
?

Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?


> Your solution does not mean "no window system at
> all"
> You still got one, except now it is in the kernel
> and
> therefore more dangerous.  We do not have 2 os now,
> because X is _not_ an os.  Please look up what an os
> _is_,
> and you'll see that. 

I trust the linux kernel to command my hardware
correctly, so why not the graphical too ?


> Also, please tell why this would be faster, simpler,
> or
> easier to manage.  Stuff in the kernel is generally
> harder to manage than userspace stuff, and
> definitely
> not simpler.  Kernel code lives with all sorts of
> requirements
> and limitations that an application programmer would
> hate
> to have to worry about. 

Put X in the kernel, so we dont have 7924 bad written
incompatible implementations of it.
Even much better : put a replacement for X (and an X
emulation for old softwares), so we can have
simplicity, speed, 3D etc.

In my opinion, graphics do belong to the OS, like
sound, network and file system.


X implementations problems :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Limitations_and_criticisms_of_X
http://www.std.org/~msm/common/protocol.pdf
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2006-03/0987.html
http://cbbrowne.com/info/xbloat.html


How to improve/replace X :
http://keithp.com/~keithp/talks/xarch_ols2004/xarch-ols2004-html/
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/projects/Distinguished03/MarkThomas.pdf


What is your opinion ? 


Thanks











	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 357 bytes --]

On Thu, 18 May 2006 19:28:27 +0200, linux cbon said:

> Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?

Because people are too busy actually using total crap like OpenGL
to put any time into "good" 3D support.

Either that, or maybe there *is* already good 3D support, but you're
just so unfamiliar with X that you don't know what you're talking about.

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Thierry Vignaud]

linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> writes:

> Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?

no documentation how to program nvidia 3d chips?
or for the very latest ati chips?
or from the XYZ vendor?
....

> > Also, please tell why this would be faster, simpler, or easier to
> > manage.  Stuff in the kernel is generally harder to manage than
> > userspace stuff, and definitely not simpler.  Kernel code lives
> > with all sorts of requirements and limitations that an application
> > programmer would hate to have to worry about.
> 
> Put X in the kernel, so we dont have 7924 bad written
> incompatible implementations of it.

no, we now have 7924 kernels that have to implement each of these
drivers (linux, *bsd, other unices, macos x, ...)
ow! how do we do with macos x? or on windows?
no more X? (though i don't really care but...)

> In my opinion, graphics do belong to the OS, like
> sound, network and file system.

"belong to the OS" != "belong in the kernel"
and where do you put the boundary of the OS? most people don't say
that the OS is only the kernel...

> 
> How to improve/replace X :
> http://keithp.com/~keithp/talks/xarch_ols2004/xarch-ols2004-html/
> http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/projects/Distinguished03/MarkThomas.pdf

like if xorg wasn't trying to improve x11 status (slowly trying to
isolate priviliged stuff, introducing xcb, ...)

> What is your opinion ? 

stop troll^h^h^h^h^h thread?

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Thierry Vignaud <tvignaud@mandriva.com> a écrit :

> linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> writes:
> 
> > Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?
> 
> no documentation how to program nvidia 3d chips?
> or for the very latest ati chips?
> or from the XYZ vendor?
> ....


What do you think about this :

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114738577123893&w=2

But let me be clear -- the X developers are a bunch of
shameless vendor-loving lapdogs who sure are taking
their time at solving this > 10 year old problem! 
They spend way more time chasing the latest vendor
binary loaded device driver, than they do solving this
obvious
problem.  (Translation: They don't want to change how
X works, because it would break the vendor binary
drivers from ATI and NVIDIA.  That is part of what
happens when X developers get jobs at vendors).

They've had 10 years, and yet every year they get more
entrenched in the entirely insecure model of "gigantic
process running as root, which accesses registers like
mad".

This problem is ENTIRELY the X group's fault!  They
have failed us. Ten years ago they were laughing at
Microsoft for moving their video subsystem into their
kernel, but now the joke is on the X developers,
because what Microsoft did solved all these driver
security problems!

This is 100% an X server bug.  It is not a hardware
bug, and it is not an operating system bug.


and this

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114233317926101&w=2

Some of our architectures use a tricky and horrid
thing to allow X to run.  This is due to modern PC
video card architecture containing a large quantity of
PURE EVIL.  To get around this evil the X developers
have done some rather expedient things, such as
directly accessing the cards via IO registers,
directly from userland.  It is hard to see how they
could have done other -- that is how much evil the
cards contain.


> "belong to the OS" != "belong in the kernel"
> and where do you put the boundary of the OS? most
> people don't say
> that the OS is only the kernel...

Dont play with words. You know I meant graphics do
belong to the kernel. I didnt mean graphics belong to
gnu tools.


> like if xorg wasn't trying to improve x11 status
> (slowly trying to
> isolate priviliged stuff, introducing xcb, ...)

See above.


> > What is your opinion ? 
> 
> stop troll^h^h^h^h^h thread?

If I am a troll, then who are Theo or Linus ?




Thanks


	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[David Lang]

On Thu, 18 May 2006, linux cbon wrote:

when you don't even recognise that there is no ONE 'X group' it makes it 
impossible to take the rest of you accusations about what that group does 
seriously.

Nowdays there are two free implementations of X, the xfree group and the 
xorg group. In addition there are (or were as recently as a couple years 
ago) multiple commercial companies who write and sell X server software.

if you are leveling accusations about what a group does or doesn't care 
about you need to at lease devine who you are accusing, anything less _is_ 
just a troll

David Lang


-- 
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
  -- C.A.R. Hoare

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Gerhard Mack]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 4202 bytes --]


You have also just made it easy for the rest of us to tell that you don't 
actually follow linux GUI stuff very much at all.  If you had you would 
have known that the X folks finally went too far and forced a long needed 
fork of the X code so the real work is being done on X.org 
now and these days most of the good linux distros have changed over.  

This is *not* a recent event.

Welcome to my killfile, please find a less annoying hobby for yourself.

	Gerhard




On Thu, 18 May 2006, linux cbon wrote:

> Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 21:31:08 +0200 (CEST)
> From: linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr>
> To: Thierry Vignaud <tvignaud@mandriva.com>
> Cc: helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu,
>     linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: replacing X Window System !
> 
>  --- Thierry Vignaud <tvignaud@mandriva.com> a écrit :
> 
> > linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> writes:
> > 
> > > Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?
> > 
> > no documentation how to program nvidia 3d chips?
> > or for the very latest ati chips?
> > or from the XYZ vendor?
> > ....
> 
> 
> What do you think about this :
> 
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114738577123893&w=2
> 
> But let me be clear -- the X developers are a bunch of
> shameless vendor-loving lapdogs who sure are taking
> their time at solving this > 10 year old problem! 
> They spend way more time chasing the latest vendor
> binary loaded device driver, than they do solving this
> obvious
> problem.  (Translation: They don't want to change how
> X works, because it would break the vendor binary
> drivers from ATI and NVIDIA.  That is part of what
> happens when X developers get jobs at vendors).
> 
> They've had 10 years, and yet every year they get more
> entrenched in the entirely insecure model of "gigantic
> process running as root, which accesses registers like
> mad".
> 
> This problem is ENTIRELY the X group's fault!  They
> have failed us. Ten years ago they were laughing at
> Microsoft for moving their video subsystem into their
> kernel, but now the joke is on the X developers,
> because what Microsoft did solved all these driver
> security problems!
> 
> This is 100% an X server bug.  It is not a hardware
> bug, and it is not an operating system bug.
> 
> 
> and this
> 
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114233317926101&w=2
> 
> Some of our architectures use a tricky and horrid
> thing to allow X to run.  This is due to modern PC
> video card architecture containing a large quantity of
> PURE EVIL.  To get around this evil the X developers
> have done some rather expedient things, such as
> directly accessing the cards via IO registers,
> directly from userland.  It is hard to see how they
> could have done other -- that is how much evil the
> cards contain.
> 
> 
> > "belong to the OS" != "belong in the kernel"
> > and where do you put the boundary of the OS? most
> > people don't say
> > that the OS is only the kernel...
> 
> Dont play with words. You know I meant graphics do
> belong to the kernel. I didnt mean graphics belong to
> gnu tools.
> 
> 
> > like if xorg wasn't trying to improve x11 status
> > (slowly trying to
> > isolate priviliged stuff, introducing xcb, ...)
> 
> See above.
> 
> 
> > > What is your opinion ? 
> > 
> > stop troll^h^h^h^h^h thread?
> 
> If I am a troll, then who are Theo or Linus ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
> 	
> 
> 	
> 		
> ___________________________________________________________________________ 
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--
Gerhard Mack

gmack@innerfire.net

<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Gerhard Mack <gmack@innerfire.net> a écrit : 
> 
> You have also just made it easy for the rest of us
> to tell that you don't 
> actually follow linux GUI stuff very much at all. 
> If you had you would 
> have known that the X folks finally went too far and
> forced a long needed 
> fork of the X code so the real work is being done on
> X.org 
> now and these days most of the good linux distros
> have changed over.  
> 
> This is *not* a recent event.
> 
> Welcome to my killfile, please find a less annoying
> hobby for yourself.
> 
> 	Gerhard


Yes X.org has replaced Xfree86 because of licence and
internal disputes.

But in the links I sent, Theo's comments dates back to
Mars and May 2006. That's recent.

When he criticizes X, he criticizes especially Xfree86
or X.org implementations.












	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Martin Mares]

Hello!

> But in the links I sent, Theo's comments dates back to
> Mars and May 2006. That's recent.
> 
> When he criticizes X, he criticizes especially Xfree86
> or X.org implementations.

Then the kernel tree is a wrong tree to bark at, isn't it?

				Have a nice fortnight
-- 
Martin `MJ' Mares   <mj@ucw.cz>   http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/
Faculty of Math and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Rep., Earth
Only dead fish swim with the stream.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Adrian Bunk]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 09:31:08PM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> 
> What do you think about this :
> 
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114738577123893&w=2
>...
> and this
> 
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114233317926101&w=2
>...

If you want to hear negative things about X11 or Linux, you might find 
quotes from Theo.

If you want to hear negative things about BSD, you might find quotes 
from Linus.

> If I am a troll, then who are Theo or Linus ?

Theo and Linus are people who sometimes have controversal views, but who 
also have significantely contributed to open source software.

That's the difference between them and you.

It seems you are a troll.
If you want to prove me wrong, simply send an implementation of your 
ideas and there will be a basis for a technical discussion.

> Thanks

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 964 bytes --]

On Thu, 18 May 2006 21:31:08 +0200, linux cbon said:
> What do you think about this :

> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114738577123893&w=2
> and this
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114233317926101&w=2

I think it adequately demonstrates that you're unable to distinguish
between problems that *a specific implementation of X* has, and problems
that *the X system as a design* has.  If one particular X server has
a misfeature, the correct fix is to fix the server software.

And in particular, it's *not* even an X problem, as you'd know if you bothered
actually *reading* what you quoted:

"It is hard to see how they could have done other -- that is how much evil the
cards contain."

So if you want to fix the *problem*, go learn enough about graphics to
actually help design an open, non-evil chipset.  That's the *real* problem,
not whatever fantasized shortcomings of X itself you're trolling about.


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Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu a écrit : 
> I think it adequately demonstrates that you're
> unable to distinguish
> between problems that *a specific implementation of
> X* has, and problems
> that *the X system as a design* has.  If one
> particular X server has
> a misfeature, the correct fix is to fix the server
> software.

Didnt I already write about all this before ?
We should fix X.org (root, hardware access) problems.
But fixing only X.org is not enough.

X implementations problems :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Limitations_and_criticisms_of_X
http://www.std.org/~msm/common/protocol.pdf
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2006-03/0987.html
http://cbbrowne.com/info/xbloat.html


> So if you want to fix the *problem*, go learn enough
> about graphics to
> actually help design an open, non-evil chipset. 
> That's the *real* problem,
> not whatever fantasized shortcomings of X itself
> you're trolling about.

One example : Tech Source company is trying to do an
open-source graphic cards.
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics

I would be happy that Nvidia or ATI open their
drivers.


Regards






	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Al Viro]

> Didnt I already write about all this before ?
> We should fix X.org (root, hardware access) problems.
> But fixing only X.org is not enough.
> 
> X implementations problems :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Limitations_and_criticisms_of_X
> http://www.std.org/~msm/common/protocol.pdf
> http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2006-03/0987.html
> http://cbbrowne.com/info/xbloat.html

<yawn>

	You do realize that this is not splashsnot, don't you?  Since you
appear to be so fond of references, go and google for Kipling+Tomlinson...

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Stefan Smietanowski]

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Hi.

> because what Microsoft did solved all these driver
> security problems!

Then why are MS moving it out of the kernel with Vista?

>>stop troll^h^h^h^h^h thread?
> 
> 
> If I am a troll, then who are Theo or Linus ?

They're the guys that put their code where their
mouth is instead of discussing stuff they have no
clue about.

// Stefan

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Helge Hafting]

linux cbon wrote:

> --- Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no> a
>écrit : 
>
>  
>
>>All graphical applications - sure.
>>    
>>
>
>As already discussed here, not all graphical
>applications should be rewritten, but only some
>layers.
>And none, if we can emulate X.
>  
>
Well, sure.  You have some work to do though, all that rewriting of yours.

>
>  
>
>>Now you want to move graphichs into the kernel???
>>    
>>
>
>Unix was NOT designed for graphics.
>Linux is supposed to be *modern*.
>  
>
There is nothing "modern" about graphichs in the kernel.

You did not answer my question - because you couldn't.  You
are trapped in a logic flaw of your own.  A sane person would
admit it - you answer with meaningless talk about "being modern".

1. You dislike X for running stuff as root - that's dangerous.
    The obvious solution then, is to run X (or that rewritten X)
    in a less dangerous fashion - the only choice then is
    to run as a non-root user.

2. You want to run the graphichs in the kernel. But that is stupid,
    because it is even more dangerous than running as root.
    So you're trying to "solve" a problem by making it WORSE.
    Pretty dumb, actually.


>The kernel already drives the files system, the
>network, the cdrom, the cpu, etc. Why not the graphics
>?
>  
>
See above!  I also explained that in the previous email.
But since you are slow at getting things,
here it is again:

Kernel graphichs are more dangerous than root graphichs, so
you only make the security flaws worse by moving it into the kernel.

Don't bother arguing for "kernel graphichs" on the grounds that
it is "modern".  First, it isn't modern.  Vendors who use in-kernel
graphichs are moving away from it. The modern (and safe) approach
is graphichs separated from the kernel.  This is one of the many
things that unix got right from the very start.

Second - who cares what is "modern" or "fashionable"???
Nobody, except people buying clothes.  For computer
software, we care about stability and performance.

>Why dont we have "good" 3D support in X ?
>  
>
Wrong question - we have excellent 3D support in X.  It is called opengl,
and is really good!  Sure, it is only available for a handful of cards, 
there
are lots of good 3D cards without linux 3D support.

This problem is trivially solvable by writing drivers for the cards in
question.  A rewrite of X now, will make that process much slower,
as people will be tied up rewriting X instead of writing 3D drivers.

The problem with writing those 3D drivers is not complexity
or "historic baggage" in the X codebase.  It is the fact that
only the vendors know how the cards work, and most of them
won't tell us.

To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest.
Or raise enough money to purchase specs without NDA.  A rewrite of X,
or stupidly moving graphichs into the kernel won't help with this
_at all_, the specs will still be in the dark. So you'll do all that work,
perhaps improving X a little, perhaps making it more unsafe,
and you still won't have 3D drivers for more than a handful of cards.

>>Your solution does not mean "no window system at
>>all"
>>You still got one, except now it is in the kernel
>>and
>>therefore more dangerous.  We do not have 2 os now,
>>because X is _not_ an os.  Please look up what an os
>>_is_,
>>and you'll see that. 
>>    
>>
>
>I trust the linux kernel to command my hardware
>correctly, so why not the graphical too ?
>  
>
Code does not magically become "correct"  once it gets into
the kernel.  Shifting an X graphichs driver into the kernel
won't improve code quality at all, so nothing to gain there.
If you think a rewrite will get you better code - well maybe,
but then there is no reason to stick it in the kernel.

Stuff doesn't go into the kernel because it is a nifty place to stick it.
Stuff ends up in the kernel when it absolutely have to, and this is
not the case for graphichs.  Well, perhaps a very small part,
such as the direct manipulation of hardware registers could
go in the kernel.  All the rest, i.e. higher level stuff like handling
"images", "windows", "fonts", "3D surfaces" definitely belongs
in userspace where the _inevitable_ bugs in any large piece of
software won't kill the box.

>>Also, please tell why this would be faster, simpler,
>>or
>>easier to manage.  Stuff in the kernel is generally
>>harder to manage than userspace stuff, and
>>definitely
>>not simpler.  Kernel code lives with all sorts of
>>requirements
>>and limitations that an application programmer would
>>hate
>>to have to worry about. 
>>    
>>
>
>Put X in the kernel, so we dont have 7924 bad written
>incompatible implementations of it.
>  
>
We don't have a bunch of incompatible implementations of X.
We have a single version, the newest version of x.org.
Of course there exist many older
versions (including xfree86).  Surely you can't complain
that older versions exist - that is the case for any software, including
the linux kernel.

There aren't many other X implementations for linux, certainly
none of importance.  You're mistaken here.

>Even much better : put a replacement for X (and an X
>emulation for old softwares), so we can have
>simplicity, speed, 3D etc.
>  
>
I repeat - putting software in the kernel does not magically
make it faster, simpler, or easier to manage.  It won't even
stamp out any "incompatible implementations".
There is, for example, an userspace nfs server even though
we have had kernel nfs for a long time now.

>In my opinion, graphics do belong to the OS, like
>sound, network and file system.
>  
>
That's your opinion.  As for graphichs, it is your opinion _alone_,
because it is not founded on reason.  You have failed to
provide even one example of why it'd be useful,
all your arguments either comes down to meaningless
busswords like "modern" or "your own opinion."
That won't _ever_ work here, and if you can't do better, quit!

Or show us all that you are right by rewriting a kernel X yourself.

Too much work or not interested? Neither are we!  You see, anyone
cabable of undertaking this sort of work is also capable of
visionary planning, so we _don't need you_ to provide _ideas_.

Helge Hafting

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Panagiotis Issaris]

Hi,

Helge Hafting wrote:

> [...]
> The problem with writing those 3D drivers is not complexity
> or "historic baggage" in the X codebase.  It is the fact that
> only the vendors know how the cards work, and most of them
> won't tell us.
>
> To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest. 

Just out of curiosity: Do you know any currently sold cards that support
XVideo, OpenGL and for which open source drivers are available?

With friendly regards,
Takis

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Helge Hafting]

Panagiotis Issaris wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Helge Hafting wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> The problem with writing those 3D drivers is not complexity
>> or "historic baggage" in the X codebase.  It is the fact that
>> only the vendors know how the cards work, and most of them
>> won't tell us.
>>
>> To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest. 
>
>
> Just out of curiosity: Do you know any currently sold cards that support
> XVideo, OpenGL and for which open source drivers are available?

I don't know much about XVideo.
For DRI support, look at:
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Status?action=highlight&value=CategoryHardware

Many of the cards listed there are a few years old, but several of them
are still available as cheap alternatives in shops.  I had no problem buying
a radeon 9200 and a matrox G550 for example.

Also, the VIA graphichs chips found on current mini-itx motherboards
have both opengl and mpeg2-acceleration.  A mini-itx thing is hardly what
you use as a power desktop machine, but the small size and fanless operation
means they're popular for homemade media player/entertainment boxes.

I got one in my car; mostly for playing CDs and gps navigation. But
it will also play DVDs, play tuxracer using opengl, as well as
the usual web surfing and word processing.

Helge Hafting

Re: replacing X Window System !

[David Greaves]

Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Helge Hafting wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> The problem with writing those 3D drivers is not complexity
>> or "historic baggage" in the X codebase.  It is the fact that
>> only the vendors know how the cards work, and most of them
>> won't tell us.
>>
>> To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest. 
>
> Just out of curiosity: Do you know any currently sold cards that support
> XVideo, OpenGL and for which open source drivers are available?
>
> With friendly regards,
> Takis
Almost all ATI cards :)

What you mean is 'that use hardware acceleration to achieve useful
results' (like playing NeverWinter Nights or watching MythTV).

I think the ATI Radeon 9250 is the best graphics card still available
that has an open source driver (X.org radeon r250/r280 driver). This
works nicely with the 2.6.16 kernels. The 9250 isn't actually mentioned
in Google results very much and it seems to be more widely available
than the slightly older 9200.

I recently bought 2 for exactly this reason.

Then one failed and the supplier kindly sent me an upgraded version, a
9600 IIRC - but the r300 driver isn't out yet - in X.org 7 maybe - and
it seems incomplete anyway - so I had to send it back and ask for a
'downgrade' which confused them.

HTH

David

PS My wife removed her shiny new (expensive) ATI 9800 card and replaced
it with a 9250 and although the performance dropped she found that
having a driver that let her machine run accelerated graphics for over 5
minutes at a time was a serious benefit. The open source driver was
simply *much* more stable.
Anyone want a spare ATI 9800 :)
(just kidding - I'll test the r300 driver as soon as I get the chance!)

-- 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Xavier Bestel]

On Fri, 2006-05-19 at 16:34, David Greaves wrote:
> Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Helge Hafting wrote:
> >
> >> [...]
> >> The problem with writing those 3D drivers is not complexity
> >> or "historic baggage" in the X codebase.  It is the fact that
> >> only the vendors know how the cards work, and most of them
> >> won't tell us.
> >>
> >> To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest. 
> >
> > Just out of curiosity: Do you know any currently sold cards that support
> > XVideo, OpenGL and for which open source drivers are available?
> >
> > With friendly regards,
> > Takis
> Almost all ATI cards :)

BEWARE !! None of the "Avivo" series (ATI X1000 and later) will work.
Only the readon (Radeon 7xxx, Radeon 8xxx, Radeon 9xxx, X600, X700,
X800) have drivers.

See DRI homepage for more information.

	Xav

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr> a écrit : 
> BEWARE !! None of the "Avivo" series (ATI X1000 and
> later) will work.
> Only the readon (Radeon 7xxx, Radeon 8xxx, Radeon
> 9xxx, X600, X700,
> X800) have drivers.
> 
> See DRI homepage for more information.
> 
> 	Xav


Hi,

does DRI access hardware *directly* ?
How does DRI compare with other drivers ?

Thanks







	
	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Xavier Bestel]

On Fri, 2006-05-19 at 17:13, linux cbon wrote:
>  --- Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr> a écrit : 
> > BEWARE !! None of the "Avivo" series (ATI X1000 and
> > later) will work.
> > Only the readon (Radeon 7xxx, Radeon 8xxx, Radeon
> > 9xxx, X600, X700,
> > X800) have drivers.
> > 
> > See DRI homepage for more information.
> > 
> > 	Xav
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> does DRI access hardware *directly* ?

Yes it does.

> How does DRI compare with other drivers ?

DRI is not finished for r300 cards (radeon 9600 => X700 IIRC), but it
kind of works. The only other driver I know for r300 is Xorg's radeon,
and it's dead slow.

	Xav

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr> a écrit : 
> On Fri, 2006-05-19 at 17:13, linux cbon wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > does DRI access hardware *directly* ?
> 
> Yes it does.
> 
> > How does DRI compare with other drivers ?
> 
> DRI is not finished for r300 cards (radeon 9600 =>
> X700 IIRC), but it
> kind of works. The only other driver I know for r300
> is Xorg's radeon,
> and it's dead slow.
> 
> 	Xav


Are "DRIs" the best available open-source drivers for
old ATI cards ? Done by reverse engineering ?
And not all functions are usable :-(.
What about newer ATI or Nvidia cards ? A hope for
something better ?

What do you think of using binary drivers (blobs)
instead ?
I think thats sad to use them, in an open-source
kernel like Linux.

By the way : did you know of this project about an
"open source graphic card" ?
Hardware specs are open, so no need of DNA and
open-source drivers coding easier :
http://opengraphics.gitk.com/open_graphics_spec.pdf
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics
(still a project).


Regards







	
	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Peter Gordon]

On 5/19/06, linux cbon <linuxcbon@yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Are "DRIs" the best available open-source drivers for
> old ATI cards ?
Yes.

> Done by reverse engineering ?
Nope. As I understand it, the R200 drivers and earlier are written
from actual specs submitted to the X.org/Mesa/DRI hackers by ATi
(under some NDAs).
The R300/R400 stuff is being reverse-engineered.

> And not all functions are usable :-(.
Most of it is there: hardware video scaling (XVideo), OpenGL hardware
acceleration where available, DDC/I2C support, MergedFB/Xinerama
(multi-head setups), Render acceleration (yay for EXA!) etc. The only
major thing that isn't to my knowledge is the S3TC texture compression
(due to patents?).

> What about newer ATI or Nvidia cards ? A hope for
> something better ?
Intel's published specs and open source drivers for their integrated
video chips (which can do cool things like XvMC, etc.). From speaking
with a couple of X.org hackers, the GMA 900/950 stuff is supposed to
have nearly equivalent performance to a Radeon 9500 or so. (Thanks,
Intel!)

> By the way : did you know of this project about an
> "open source graphic card" ?
> Hardware specs are open, so no need of [NDA] and
> open-source drivers coding easier :
> http://opengraphics.gitk.com/open_graphics_spec.pdf
> http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics
> (still a project).
I'm hoping to be able to buy one Real Soon Now(TM). :)

--Peter

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Xavier Bestel]

Le samedi 20 mai 2006 à 00:09 +0200, linux cbon a écrit :
> What about newer ATI or Nvidia cards ? A hope for
> something better ?

No.

> What do you think of using binary drivers (blobs)
> instead ?

Not on my system.

	Xav

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jeff Carr]

On 05/19/06 08:18, Xavier Bestel wrote:

>>> See DRI homepage for more information.

That page should be wiki'fied as it doesn't seem to be keeping pace with
the improvements in X.

>> How does DRI compare with other drivers ?
> 
> DRI is not finished for r300 cards (radeon 9600 => X700 IIRC), but it
> kind of works.

3D acceleration is working well on my portable's ATI Technologies Inc
RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]. ppracer runs well. Lots of
improvements have been made with xorg; a trend I'm sure everyone would
like to see continue.

X Window System Version 7.0.0
Release Date: 21 December 2005
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.0
Build Operating System:Linux 2.6.12-1-686 i686
Current Operating System: Linux jcarr 2.6.17-rc2-g6b426e78 #3 SMP Mon
Apr 24 15:46:38 PDT 2006 i686
Build Date: 16 March 2006

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Sander]

David Greaves wrote (ao):
> Panagiotis Issaris wrote:
> > Helge Hafting wrote:
> >> To which the solution is:  buy the cards that work, and screw the rest. 
> >
> > Just out of curiosity: Do you know any currently sold cards that support
> > XVideo, OpenGL and for which open source drivers are available?
>
> Almost all ATI cards :)

A few years ago you could say that, but ATI is not OSS friendly anymore.

These days NVidia supports the OSS community much more than ATI does,
while NVidia used to be the dark side. There is still a lot of space for
improvement though :-)

	With kind regards, Sander

-- 
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jan Engelhardt]

>
>These days NVidia supports the OSS community much more than ATI does,
>while NVidia used to be the dark side. There is still a lot of space for
>improvement though :-)
>

	RFC 1925
	Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two; you can't have all three.

Something similar (opensource, speed, support for newest hardware) goes for 
today's graphics cards.



Jan Engelhardt
-- 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[David Lang]

On Sat, 20 May 2006, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

>> These days NVidia supports the OSS community much more than ATI does,
>> while NVidia used to be the dark side. There is still a lot of space for
>> improvement though :-)
>>
>
> 	RFC 1925
> 	Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two; you can't have all three.
>
> Something similar (opensource, speed, support for newest hardware) goes for
> today's graphics cards.

true for nVidia and ATI, not true for many other hardware vendors (most of 
which do not make graphics cards), so this isn't a general trueism like 
RFC 1925, just the current broken state among the current graphics 
leaders.

David Lang

-- 
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
  -- C.A.R. Hoare

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jan Engelhardt]

>> The kernel already drives the files system, the
>> network, the cdrom, the cpu, etc. Why not the graphics
>> ?
>> 
> See above!  I also explained that in the previous email.
> But since you are slow at getting things,
> here it is again:
>
> Kernel graphichs are more dangerous than root graphichs, so
> you only make the security flaws worse by moving it into the kernel.

What about framebuffer, dri and agpgart? Does that belong to 
"graphics"? Because it's "in" the kernel... (or am I just missing 
something?)


Jan Engelhardt
-- 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no> a
écrit : 

>There is nothing "modern" about graphichs in the
kernel.

It depends on the meaning of graphics :
If it is direct card access, then kernel job.
If it is higher level like window system etc, then it
can be discussed...


>The modern (and safe) approach
>is graphichs separated from the kernel.  This is one
of the many
>things that unix got right from the very start.

Unix was not designed for graphics.


>Second - who cares what is "modern" or
"fashionable"???
>Nobody, except people buying clothes.  For computer
>software, we care about stability and performance.

Is X so stable and performant ?
For instance, X is not precise enough to make
compatible implementations.
X.free and X.org are not compatible.
Some graphic drivers work only with special versions
of X.org.
Gnome and KDE are not compatible.
etc.
Other example : can X follow new graphic progress ?


>but then there is no reason to stick it in the
kernel.

Usual reasons : Reusability, portability, ease of
maintenance, speed, etc.

What do you think of solutions using framebuffers like
directfb or fbui ?
It is in the kernel, the hardw access is direct, it is
fast and stable.

Why X.Org puts so many layers between the hardware and
the screen ? It adds complexity and slowness to the
project.

I think the discussion should move to X.Org ?


Regards












	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Adrian Bunk]

On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 12:40:56AM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
>...
> I think the discussion should move to X.Org ?

The whole discussion is pointless anywhere as long as you are not 
writing the code to implement your proposal.

If you think you could send an idea and other people would implement it 
you are misunderstanding how open source software works.

You have your idea.

It is YOUR job to write the code implementing your proposal.

Then there's a basis for a technical discussion of the advantages and 
disadvantages of your ideas.

Otherwise, you are only wasting your (and our) time since there's 
exactly a 0% probability that someone else will implement your ideas.

> Regards

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Willy Tarreau]

Hi Adrian,

On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 03:02:20AM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 12:40:56AM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> >...
> > I think the discussion should move to X.Org ?
> 
> The whole discussion is pointless anywhere as long as you are not 
> writing the code to implement your proposal.
> 
> If you think you could send an idea and other people would implement it 
> you are misunderstanding how open source software works.
> 
> You have your idea.
> 
> It is YOUR job to write the code implementing your proposal.
> 
> Then there's a basis for a technical discussion of the advantages and 
> disadvantages of your ideas.
> 
> Otherwise, you are only wasting your (and our) time since there's 
> exactly a 0% probability that someone else will implement your ideas.

I 100% agree with you. However, given the posts I've read from the same
person on some french forums, I can assure you that we'll never see one
line of code, not even any useful advice ! Since he's only wasting our
time, we should stop feeding this troll.


         +-------------------+             .:\:\:/:/:.            
         |                   |            :.:\:\:/:/:.:           
         |   PLEASE DO NOT   |           :=.' -   - '.=:          
         |                   |           '=(\ 9   9 /)='          
         |  FEED THE TROLLS  |              (  (_)  )             
         |                   |              /`-vvv-'\             
         +-------------------+             /         \            
                 |  |        @@@          / /|,,,,,|\ \           
                 |  |        @@@         /_//  /^\  \\_\          
   @x@@x@        |  |         |/         WW(  (   )  )WW          
   \||||/        |  |        \|           __\,,\ /,,/__           
    \||/         |  |         |          (______Y______)          
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
==================================================================

> > Regards
> 
> cu
> Adrian

Regards,
Willy

Re: replacing X Window System !

[jerome lacoste]

> >The modern (and safe) approach
> >is graphichs separated from the kernel.  This is one
> of the many
> >things that unix got right from the very start.
>
> Unix was not designed for graphics.

What is this supposed to mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Graphics

Jerome

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

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On Sat, 20 May 2006 00:40:56 +0200, linux cbon said:

> Unix was not designed for graphics.

Rather amusing, given that Dennis Ritchie has a different memory of it:

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html

He seems to think that one of the original motivating forces for Unix
was to provide a development environment for a PDP-7, so that they
could support the graphics terminal for a game called 'Space Travel'.

So if anything, Unix was designed specifically *for* graphics.

Now who should I believe here, dmr or an apparent troll?

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Re: replacing X Window System !

[linux cbon]

 --- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu a écrit : 
> On Sat, 20 May 2006 00:40:56 +0200, linux cbon said:
> 
> > Unix was not designed for graphics.
> 
> Rather amusing, given that Dennis Ritchie has a
> different memory of it:
> 
> http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html
> 
> He seems to think that one of the original
> motivating forces for Unix
> was to provide a development environment for a
> PDP-7, so that they
> could support the graphics terminal for a game
> called 'Space Travel'.
> 
> So if anything, Unix was designed specifically *for*
> graphics.
> 
> Now who should I believe here, dmr or an apparent
> troll?


hi,

unix only provided the tools to write the game in
assembly.
No graphic system or environment.
Guis were invented in Xerox PARC and not in Unix.

Who wrote "The X server has to be the biggest program
I've ever seen that doesn't do anything for you."

Regards









	

	
		
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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Manu Abraham]

linux cbon wrote:
> Usual reasons : Reusability, portability, ease of
> maintenance, speed, etc.
>
> What do you think of solutions using framebuffers like
> directfb or fbui ?
>   



DirectFB is indeed a nice solution, the last i heard of it, many vendors 
were looking at it in a very positive manner, for commercial products. 
As usual, every project can use more hands. :-)



Manu

Re: replacing X Window System !

[D. Hazelton]

Linux does provide a system in kernel for accessing the graphics cards. This 
includes both the DRM system and the framebuffer drivers. If the hardware 
drivers, such as the DRM drivers and system and the framebuffer drivers, were 
extended to allow a bit more utility, perhaps by providing a documented API 
(in the framebuffer case) it should be a simple matter to rewrite X so that 
it doesn't require root access. That this *hasn't* been done is both a 
problem with the kernel documentation and the X developers - more the X 
developers than anything.

In the case of the DRM drivers, I, personally, feel they should implement the 
accelerated drawing commands, or perhaps have a passthrough method similar to 
the SG system, then X and Mesa could easily access all features of the 
hardware through the userspace side of the DRM driver, which itself could 
provide the API as a wrapper around an IOCTL interface, or perhaps a sysfs 
interface.

For the Framebuffer drivers I, personally, would like to see its userspace 
accessable bits documented. This is, of course, assuming that there is more 
to it than an interface for setting the video mode and writing the graphics 
data to the device file. Now, if the framebuffer device was extended to 
provide some sort of interface, either via IOCTL or via a set of sysfs files, 
to the full capabilities of the device, then all problems of X needing to be 
root once more disappear.

Note that I am not advocating putting the windowing system in-kernel, just 
expanding the kernel interface to the various graphics devices so that future 
versions of X will not be required to have direct access to the hardware. 

I have no experience with kernel-level programming and no experience in 
graphics programming beyond some simple DOS applications I wrote in the days 
of just using a pointer to 0xB000 and 0xC000. Despite that I would be willing 
to set aside all my private projects and lend any assistance required to make 
any of these suggestions happen if anyone wishes to pick them up.

DRH

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 01:47:22PM +0200, linux cbon wrote:
> X Window System has many problems affecting directly
> the kernel.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Limitations_and_criticisms_of_X
> -Many current implementations of X manipulate the
> video hardware directly.

Not a problem with X, just with some implementations.

> -X deliberately contains no specification as to user
> interface or most inter-application communication.

Why should it?  Let someone else deal with that.  X has no business
getting involved in applications talking to each other.

> -The X protocol provides no facilities for handling
> sound,

True.  It is a display/input protocol.  There are other protocols
that handle remote sound.  There isn't really a reason they need to
be combined.  X is event driven.  Audio tends to require streams.  Very
different tasks.

> -Until recently, X did not include a good solution to
> print screen-displays. 

Hmm, I guess I never noticed.  Was this missed by anyone?  Screen
captures were just fine as far as I can tell.

> -One cannot currently detach an X client or session
> from one server and reattach it to another.

Some people have worked on ways to do that.  Given things like DGA and
shared memory and such, some applications simply can't be detached
unless the application was written to support some kind of shutdown the
gui and then go connect to another X server and start the gui again.

> I would add :
> -X needs to be root so it opens many security holes.

Some implementations need to be root.  I think it may be possible to run
a framebuffer based X without root, although you would also have to do
something about the keyboard and mouse drivers I imagine.

> -X has more code than the kernel and it is almost an
> OS in itself.

So?  That doesn't make it bad, it just has a lot of features and
includes a lot of utilities.

> -if a "closed-source" graphical card driver has
> security holes, what do you do ?
> etc.

Same as with anything else closed source.  This is not a flaw in X.

> Some people are working on replacement like Y windows
> :
> http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/teaching/projects/Distinguished03/MarkThomas.pdf
> http://www.y-windows.org/
> 
> There are some questions like :
> - should the next generation window versions Y,Z etc.
> remain backward compatible with X ?
> I think they should start something better and simpler
> from scratch and not backward compatible.

Lack of application support (which requires backwards compatibility) is
what dooms projects.  If you don't want to be backwards compatible (just
through emulation is fine) then don't bother.  Other than a fun hobby it
won't go anywhere ever.  I think ALSA might have been doomed had it not
emulated OSS.  By allowing emulation it slowly has gained support from
applications as they were ready to start taking advantages of the new
and improved interface.  Linux evolves, which is why it's still here.
Starting from scratch almost never succeeds.

> - should the kernel remain pure "shell" or include
> some basic universal graphical universal window system
> ?
> I think second answer.

It should very much stay purely text based.  Lots of systems have no
graphics abilities at all, and run linux very well.  The simpler the
better for the kernel interface.  The less special hardware support it
needs to show stuff to the user the easier it is to fix problems.

Windows is majorly annoying and broken that way.  You can't really fix
anything if you can't boot as far as starting the GUI.

Len Sorensen

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Jan Engelhardt]

>> hi,
>> 
>> I know it may not be the best place, sorry for that.
>> 
>> X Window System is old, not optimized, slow, not
>> secure (uses root much), accesses the video hardware
>> directly (thats the kernel's job !), it cannot do VNC,
>> etc.
>> 
>> The question is : what are your ideas to make a system
>> remplacing X Window System ?
>> 

For great justice, a cookie quote:

On Sat, 13 May 2006 22:43:57 -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:

     +----------+
     |  PLEASE  |
     |  DO NOT  |
     | FEED THE |
     |  TROLLS  |
     +----------+
         |  |    
         |  |    
       .\|.||/..



Jan Engelhardt
-- 

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

> X Window System is old

Yep, but works pretty good. It allows for very smart and useful
things, like separating execution from presentation.

> not optimized

I wouldn't say so.

> slow

Slow? Have you ever seen Xgl?

> not secure (uses root much), accesses the video hardware
> directly (thats the kernel's job !)

> it cannot do VNC, etc.

What? You must be kidding. There's an X.org module which adds support
for VNC. It's built-in an I haved used it in the past to remotely
control some of my machines.

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Ondrej Zary]

Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
 >> slow
 >
 > Slow? Have you ever seen Xgl?

It is slow. Just take any older machine (Pentium class), open any longer 
web page in Firefox and scroll it up and down. Or open some other 
window, move it around the screen on top of the Firefox window and see 
how "fast" it really is. Then repeat the same in Windows.
How can Xgl help here?

-- 
Ondrej Zary

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Carlos Silva]

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On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 10:46 +0200, Ondrej Zary wrote:
> Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
>  >> slow
>  >
>  > Slow? Have you ever seen Xgl?
> 
> It is slow. Just take any older machine (Pentium class), open any longer 
> web page in Firefox and scroll it up and down. Or open some other 
> window, move it around the screen on top of the Firefox window and see 
> how "fast" it really is. Then repeat the same in Windows.
> How can Xgl help here?

It helps! I hope that by "Windows" you ment Windows XP, cause Windows XP
on a pentium class machine, the box hardly boots, so i guess comparing
XGL and Windows XP on a current machine with a decent graphics card,
it's a good comparison. But not on a old machine, neither for windows or
Xgl.


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Re: replacing X Window System !

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 10:46:57AM +0200, Ondrej Zary wrote:
> It is slow. Just take any older machine (Pentium class), open any longer 
> web page in Firefox and scroll it up and down. Or open some other 
> window, move it around the screen on top of the Firefox window and see 
> how "fast" it really is. Then repeat the same in Windows.
> How can Xgl help here?

Would a pentium class machine even run firefox on windows?

I think there is something very wrong with how firefox manages it's page
rendering and scrolling.  It certainly eats a ton of ram with whatever
it is doing.

Len Sorensen

RE: replacing X Window System !

[David Schwartz]

> Would a pentium class machine even run firefox on windows?
>
> I think there is something very wrong with how firefox manages it's page
> rendering and scrolling.  It certainly eats a ton of ram with whatever
> it is doing.

	My sister can testify that it's possible but there's really no point. She
has a P60 with 128MB of RAM (the max her mobo can take) and it takes about 2
minutes to launch firefox. She uses gmail, and it's basically unusable on
her machine. Almost once every day I send her another configuration for a
machine I recommend she should buy to end her suffering. She says she uses
her machine so little it's not worth it. I point out that she uses it so
little because it is useful for so little.

	DS

RE: replacing X Window System !

[alan]

On Wed, 17 May 2006, David Schwartz wrote:

>
>> Would a pentium class machine even run firefox on windows?
>>
>> I think there is something very wrong with how firefox manages it's page
>> rendering and scrolling.  It certainly eats a ton of ram with whatever
>> it is doing.
>
> 	My sister can testify that it's possible but there's really no point. She
> has a P60 with 128MB of RAM (the max her mobo can take) and it takes about 2
> minutes to launch firefox. She uses gmail, and it's basically unusable on
> her machine. Almost once every day I send her another configuration for a
> machine I recommend she should buy to end her suffering. She says she uses
> her machine so little it's not worth it. I point out that she uses it so
> little because it is useful for so little.

The P60s are just bad to begin with.  That is the one where the floating 
point error appeared.

Gmail requires a current browser.  To support it you need a machine made 
in this century, not the last.

Just because Linux will run on that machine does not mean it is a good 
idea.

But we have gone WAY off topic for the kernel list.

-- 
"Waiter! This lambchop tastes like an old sock!" - Sheri Lewis

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Gábor Lénárt]

On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 10:46:29AM -0700, alan wrote:
> The P60s are just bad to begin with.  That is the one where the floating 
> point error appeared.
> 
> Gmail requires a current browser.  To support it you need a machine made 
> in this century, not the last.

Hmm, I'm using Gmail with Elinks which is a text based browser and it works
(OK, ugly and sometimes buggy). So the problem is not the content itself in
general but the browser (sure, I can't browse flash or AJAX powered site
with Elinks very well though :). I may try to use Gmail on a real Commodore
64 with Contiki it would be a very interesting experiment :)


-- 
- Gábor

Re: replacing X Window System !

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

>  > Slow? Have you ever seen Xgl?
>
> It is slow. Just take any older machine (Pentium class), open any longer
> web page in Firefox and scroll it up and down. Or open some other
> window, move it around the screen on top of the Firefox window and see
> how "fast" it really is. Then repeat the same in Windows.
> How can Xgl help here?

Yeah! Windows 3.0 is lightning fast on a Pentium-class machine.
However, Windows XP is dog slow. However, XFCE on the same machine is
much more usable. I don't see the problem, then.