from Hacker News

The Linux graphics stack in a nutshell, part 2

by zorgmonkey on 12/28/23, 11:57 PM with 48 comments

  • by sprash on 12/29/23, 2:31 AM

    Very opinionated article really.

    It starts with unsubstantiated claims that X suffers from "bloat" despite being capable of running on a 486 and dismissing the fact that the average Wayland compositor + necessary infrastructure is much more "bloated" than X ever was.

    It fails to distinguish between compositing and hardware accelerated blit operations that allow X to display multiple windows without the need for a compositor.

    It talks about hardware planes but fails to mention that no Wayland compositor so far is capable of using them whereas X is using them for the mouse for a long time (which avoids mouse stuttering on high GPU/CPU load).

    It proclaims that certain protocols are "commonly used" when they are really in a experimental phase or actually not commonly used.

    I get it. Linux userland graphics is huge a mess right now. Mostly because Wayland caused a huge amount of uncertainty and fragmentation. At least call it out as such and don't pretend otherwise.

  • by rkerno on 12/29/23, 1:09 AM

    Am I the only one who finds it ironic that this is Part 2 of an 'in a nutshell' document?

  • by resonious on 12/29/23, 5:57 AM

    It's crazy reading the back and forth in these comments. It seems each side (pro-X11, pro-Wayland) always gets something wrong about the other. Makes it hard as an outsider to figure out what's true.

    FWIW as a regular user of Linux desktops, fractional dpi scaling is very good on Wayland and sucks on X11. That's been the main thing driving me to want to use Wayland.

  • by flohofwoe on 12/29/23, 11:02 AM

    > On top of the application windows, the compositor draws its own user interface, such as a taskbar where the user can interact with the compositor itself.

    Isn't this exactly what the compositor is no longer guaranteed to provide (in case of Wayland)?

  • by shmerl on 12/29/23, 1:38 AM

    That's a pretty informative overview! It's funny that CRTC refers to cathode ray tube even for all modern displays.

    > This DRM fbdev emulation acts like a DRM client from user space, but runs entirely within the kernel

    I wish kernel's terminal emulation would allow more modern features like true color support and sixels. There is no reason it can't work? Though if the plan is to replace it with userspace one like the article suggests, may be it will be easier to use better terminals when switching to tty.