From mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  Tue Aug 23 11:08:04 2016
From: mjhammel at graphics-muse.org (Michael J. Hammel)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:08:04 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
Message-ID: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>

Does anyone know if it will be possible to upgrade to F25 without
enabling Wayland?  I simply don't need what it provides - I have more
need to remotely display windows (as with ssh -X, not RDP) than I have
to do 3D or even video (which works fine for me under X.org anyway). 

I've heard that there will be a fallback to X.org but I'm wondering if
an upgrade will force the switch and then require me to fallback.  I'd
rather not have it installed at all.  I'm not interested in testing
Wayland.

I'm wondering if it might be time to switch distros.  Bleeding edge
isn't really necessary anymore for me.  Systemd has not been pleasant.
And now wayland.  It's getting to be like Microsoft was - forcing
updates for the sake of updating.  For some of us, it's not broken.
Don't fix it.

I think CentOS or maybe Debian may provide what I need.  Or maybe do
something more dramatic, like Arch or roll my own.

Unless I can upgrade to F25 without Wayland getting in my way.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org>


From kevin at scrye.com  Tue Aug 23 11:22:14 2016
From: kevin at scrye.com (Kevin Fenzi)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:22:14 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
Message-ID: <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:08:04 -0600
"Michael J. Hammel" <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org> wrote:

> Does anyone know if it will be possible to upgrade to F25 without
> enabling Wayland?  I simply don't need what it provides - I have more
> need to remotely display windows (as with ssh -X, not RDP) than I have
> to do 3D or even video (which works fine for me under X.org anyway). 

Yes. 

> I've heard that there will be a fallback to X.org but I'm wondering if
> an upgrade will force the switch and then require me to fallback.  I'd
> rather not have it installed at all.  I'm not interested in testing
> Wayland.

It will not. You will get 2 gnome choices after upgrading at the login
screen: "Gnome" which will be with wayland, and "Gnome on X11" which
will be Gnome with no wayland.

If you install the gnome-session-wayland-session in any current Fedora
release, you will get a similar but opposite setup where you will have
"Gnome" which is with X11, and a "Gnome on wayland" choice. So, if you
want to go try it out (all be it with out all the fixes in f25+), you
can easily do so. 

All other desktops will be unaffected and you will still have X there. 
 
> I'm wondering if it might be time to switch distros.  Bleeding edge
> isn't really necessary anymore for me.  Systemd has not been pleasant.
> And now wayland.  It's getting to be like Microsoft was - forcing
> updates for the sake of updating.  For some of us, it's not broken.
> Don't fix it.

There's a vast pile of advantages for wayland, and you can still use X
just fine, so no one is "forcing" anything on you here. 

It's pretty old now (about 3 years or so) but this is a pretty good
laundy list of why a bunch of X developers went and made wayland: 
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=x_wayland_situation
 
> I think CentOS or maybe Debian may provide what I need.  Or maybe do
> something more dramatic, like Arch or roll my own.
> 
> Unless I can upgrade to F25 without Wayland getting in my way.

You completely can. 

kevin
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From zlynx at acm.org  Tue Aug 23 11:27:17 2016
From: zlynx at acm.org (Zan Lynx)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:27:17 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
Message-ID: <62c931cb-819e-7f4a-bc92-1a722887a22c@acm.org>

On 08/23/2016 11:08 AM, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> Does anyone know if it will be possible to upgrade to F25 without
> enabling Wayland?  I simply don't need what it provides - I have more
> need to remotely display windows (as with ssh -X, not RDP) than I have
> to do 3D or even video (which works fine for me under X.org anyway). 
> 
> I've heard that there will be a fallback to X.org but I'm wondering if
> an upgrade will force the switch and then require me to fallback.  I'd
> rather not have it installed at all.  I'm not interested in testing
> Wayland.

> 

Well, as far as I can tell if you were using F24 and your session is set
to Gnome, it will stay in X.org. Although since I switch back and forth
there might be a difference between set to X and never set.

If it does default you to Wayland you should be able to log out back to
the GDM login screen and choose an X session instead of Wayland. It will
stick to it in the future.

I predict that since Gnome's Wayland session includes XWayland you'll
never notice the difference. X is still there, it is just drawing X
clients to Wayland instead of drawing them to the hardware.

> I'm wondering if it might be time to switch distros.  Bleeding edge
> isn't really necessary anymore for me.  Systemd has not been pleasant.
> And now wayland.  It's getting to be like Microsoft was - forcing
> updates for the sake of updating.  For some of us, it's not broken.
> Don't fix it.
>
> I think CentOS or maybe Debian may provide what I need.  Or maybe do
> something more dramatic, like Arch or roll my own.

Well, if you don't enjoy using the new things I don't think you should
be running Fedora. Debian stable, Ubuntu LTS or CentOS do sound like
better options for "not broken, don't fix it".

Although after enough time, five to seven years, you're going to need to
change anyway or do extra work on papering over whatever security bugs
show up in that time. I mean, there's still companies running Windows XP
in locked down, immutable virtual machines.

New hardware gets iffy too although you might be able to cheat with
hacking in a new kernel on an old distro. Ten years from now new
hardware will probably have non-volatile RAM as primary storage and 64
GB of HBM3 mounted with the CPU/GPU driving dual 8K per eye VR displays.
Which will probably require a future version of Wayland.

From mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  Tue Aug 23 12:33:50 2016
From: mjhammel at graphics-muse.org (Michael J. Hammel)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:33:50 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <62c931cb-819e-7f4a-bc92-1a722887a22c@acm.org>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
 <62c931cb-819e-7f4a-bc92-1a722887a22c@acm.org>
Message-ID: <1471977230.13373.25.camel@graphics-muse.org>

On Tue, 2016-08-23 at 11:27 -0600, Zan Lynx wrote:
> Well, if you don't enjoy using the new things I don't think you
> should
> be running Fedora. Debian stable, Ubuntu LTS or CentOS do sound like
> better options for "not broken, don't fix it".

There's a difference between "enjoy" and "need".  I build my own distro
for Raspberry Pi (mostly as a lesson in how systems are built from the
ground up).  That often requires new tools.  For example, that build
currently works fine on Fedora 24 but is now having problems on CentOS
6 (haven't updated to 7 yet).  I can patch the build.  But it works on
the more recent stuff better right now.

So while I need newer stuff, I don't necessarily want it all.  I
currently have no need to change X.org because it doesn't get in my way
of doing what I do.

> Although after enough time, five to seven years, you're going to need
> to
> change anyway or do extra work on papering over whatever security
> bugs
> show up in that time. 

I do the system updates for Fedora, CentOS and Debian (and Ubuntu at
work until I can get them to stop using it).  My custom distro gets
rerolled with current releases or git as needed.  I don't mind the
updates (mostly).  I don't always want the brand new architectures.  At
least not right away.

> New hardware gets iffy too although you might be able to cheat with
> hacking in a new kernel on an old distro. 

I do this alot at work.

> Ten years from now new
> hardware will probably have non-volatile RAM as primary storage and
> 64
> GB of HBM3 mounted with the CPU/GPU driving dual 8K per eye VR
> displays.

Ugh.  I really don't want any VR displays.  My eyes can't see that 3D
stuff very well.  Gives me headaches.  Storage I'm not worried about at
the moment - I work for WD doing firmware, and my group needs Linux
support for those systems.

> Which will probably require a future version of Wayland.

When wayland is stable and provides what I need I'll be happy (mostly,
but when am I completely happy with anything?) to switch.  It
currently, as far as google is concerned, appears to offer remote
display via RDP (pixel based event handling) and not ssh -X (x
protocols over ssh).  I also don't want to fiddle with this particular
new tech before the rest of the world has wrung it out thoroughly.  I
just want my display to work they way I need it to work. And currently,
it does.


From mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  Tue Aug 23 12:50:50 2016
From: mjhammel at graphics-muse.org (Michael J. Hammel)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:50:50 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
 <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>
Message-ID: <1471978250.13373.38.camel@graphics-muse.org>

On Tue, 2016-08-23 at 11:22 -0600, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> All other desktops will be unaffected and you will still have X
> there. 

Excellent.  That's what I needed to know.  I run XFce on my desktops.
 
> > There's a vast pile of advantages for wayland, and you can still use
> X
> just fine, so no one is "forcing" anything on you here. 

Likely true, but I heard that about systemd, so I'm a bit skiddish
about architectural changes in my distros.

> It's pretty old now (about 3 years or so) but this is a pretty good
> laundy list of why a bunch of X developers went and made wayland: 
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=x_wayland_situatio
> n

Yeah, I've heard these before.  X is old and it's code base is
problematic.  Very true.  Fonts are a problem too.  But the rest of the
arguments for a new architecture (and not just a rewrite) are not
compelling to me.  I prefer mechanism over policy and the arguments
against have not convinced me to change yet.  One of the other
arguments in the phoronix article seemed to focus on the screensaver. 
 Odd. Screensavers are far less meaningful with modern monitors.  I
never use them.  Most of the rest of the arguments seem to favor a
rewrite instead of a new architecture.

Anyway, I still see the primary reasons as deriving from "I want to
play more games".  So I'm not convinced it's a benefit to me.  I'm
willing to keep an open mind to new architectures.  But I reserve the
right to be a crotchety old guy until then.  :-)
-- 
Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org>


From stimits at comcast.net  Tue Aug 23 14:35:19 2016
From: stimits at comcast.net (stimits at comcast.net)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 20:35:19 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
 <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>
Message-ID: <913111631.3494691.1471984519080.JavaMail.zimbra@comcast.net>

...
>  All other desktops will be unaffected and you will still have X there.
...

So does that mean Fedora will still have the usual "spins"? E.g., I've used KDE spin for awhile, I don't plan to change without a reason.
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From kevin at scrye.com  Tue Aug 23 15:23:54 2016
From: kevin at scrye.com (Kevin Fenzi)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:23:54 -0600
Subject: [lug] Fedora 25 wayland
In-Reply-To: <913111631.3494691.1471984519080.JavaMail.zimbra@comcast.net>
References: <1471972084.13373.13.camel@graphics-muse.org>
 <20160823112214.10235a91@sheelba.scrye.com>
 <913111631.3494691.1471984519080.JavaMail.zimbra@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20160823152354.687fce06@sheelba.scrye.com>

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 20:35:19 +0000 (UTC)
stimits at comcast.net wrote:

> ...
> >  All other desktops will be unaffected and you will still have X
> > there.  
> ...
> 
> So does that mean Fedora will still have the usual "spins"? E.g.,
> I've used KDE spin for awhile, I don't plan to change without a
> reason.

yes. 

kevin
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