The X Window System, past and future [LWN.net]

The X Window System, past and future

Posted Mar 27, 2003 11:42 UTC (Thu) by dmantione (guest, #4640)
Parent article: The X Window System, past and future

X is an excellent piece of engineering. For a desktop environment it does all
that's needed, efficient, and network transparent. Nothing beats it and I have
seen nothing better.

But there are a few situations where X is not the right choice. One of these are
for example embedded situations, where you really want Window systems in
as few K as possible.

Another problem is that people use X for something it's not designed for:
games. People, games should *not* run under X. Why? Because they need a
framebuffer and other *low level* access to graphics hardware. X is a *high
level* network transparent windowing system.

Why are games written for X? Well, the only reason is that for every video
card, there is an X driver. There is no other reason.

On what interface should games run then? A low level one and the most
suitable one is: FBDEV! But as of yet that's not possible; there's no 3D for
example. I would be very nice to see more projects to give the Fbdev interface
the drivers and tools it needs. Instead of bashing on X, people would better
spend there time on this.

Trying to adapt X to games is nonsense. Conflicting interrests. It doesn't work.
But for a window system, it's the best there is.

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The X Window System, past and future

Posted Apr 3, 2003 14:21 UTC (Thu) by obi (subscriber, #5784) [Link]

I agree with you.

Trouble is, the Xfree86 developers feel only Xfree86 "deserves" their drivers. There have been numerous attempts to leverage the XAA drivers without X, but it seems it's usually easier to rewrite them. Same thing with DRI, it's theoretically possible to use DRI without X (see fbdri.sf.net for instance), but it's a very low priority for the DRI developers.

I'd really like to see a system where the hardware layer is properly abstracted from the window and network layer. So that we'd be able to use the same drivers for graphic 2D/3D console programs, and X at the same time. That would allow other windowing environments to compete on a level playing field, and allow a lot of projects to bypass X completely when it's not needed (games come to mind, or something like blender).

KGI/GGI/XGGI tried to do just that, but when KGI didn't manage to get into the kernel, they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of improving GGI to make the interfaces more acceptable, alot of the interest in it waned, to the point it was comatose for quite a while. Recently, there's been activity (kgi-wip.sf.net) again, and I do hope that they'll make it eventually. (BTW: they also have a very nice input layer, GII)

I think the beef with X isn't that it's so terribly bad, but that it's the only choice, and holds everyone hostage because it controls the video drivers (not by design, I'm sure - they just have no interest in anything else)

If nothing else, I hope the fork, or the reorganisation or whatever, will bring more modularization in the code base. So other projects can atleast share drivers with it, and improve the drivers for all.