Wayland: Linux's new XServer

Article title: Wayland: Linux's new XServer. Linux is a technology channel of the IT lab in China. Includes basic categories such as desktop applications, Linux system management, kernel research, embedded systems, and open source.

Anyone familiar with X Window knows that X Window (hereinafter referred to as X) was developed in 1984 and has a long history (many years earlier than Linux ).

Even the current X is based on the X11 protocol established in 1987, which is why we call X "X11.

Although X's architecture is flexible (using Server/Client mode), it inevitably brings latency and affects the efficiency of desktop graphics.

Recently, Kristian H from Red Hat? Gsberg opened a new project, Wayland, to provide a "new lightweight X Server ".

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As a public secret: X. Org Server is already quite old and sometimes bloated. While the Server/Client architecture treats the network/local images in the same way, rendering latency and image efficiency are affected. This is also the reason why Linux desktop graphics performance is inferior to Windows/Mac OS X.

Kristian's Wayland is simple: everything is directly drawn and synthesized! Instead of requesting the server from the client, the server sends a response and draws the corresponding part, as in X.

This means that with Wayland, desktop graphics will be very efficient and there will be no latency under mainstream display devices! In addition, because Wayland has a built-in merging manager, as long as the hardware supports, the desktop will support a wide range of merging visual effects. Of course, you can also replace the built-in merging manager with others (such as Compiz.

Because Wayland is a brand new project, it also needs some new technical support, such as kernel mode-setting and Graphics Execution Manager. The KMS and GEM technologies are not mature, and the kernel and video card are not yet officially supported.

In addition, Wayland is under early development and lacks some basic features of X. Therefore, it is too early to expect Wayland to replace the existing X, and in the near future, it is necessary to solve the support problems of various graphics libraries (such as GTK +) and display drivers.

No one can determine that Wayland will not be the standard X Server in the future. just like Linus, at the early stage of Linux kernel development, he will write Linux as a hobby and never expect such a success in the future.

I hope Kristian's Wayland can develop well and promote the development of Linux in the graphic field: as a simple X Server, Wayland is destined to be a desktop platform for a long time, it can also be an embedded field.

Additional reading:Wayland: A New X Server For Linux