Re: Obsoleteness of X concept

Temoto wrote:

Further, by putting the hardware initialization in the kernel, it enables
graphical systems other than X to use the hardware.  Most of the non-X
windowing systems don't care all that much about 2D acceleration, so the
division doesn't hurt them.

What if we go more further and embed second layer into new kernel
drivers?
Not only initialization, but drawing too.
Bad idea as the complicated part is the drawing part. Kernel Code could not
be exchanged that easily as user mode (ok, there are kernel modules). But
much more important: code running in kernel mode is always much more
dangerous than user mode. There is definitly much better code isolation and
protection against bugs and wormholes for user mode. Keep the kernel as
simple as possible.

Compare this to the old printer driver model of windows which also had
kernel mode drivers. That's one of the biggest sources for BSOD's on
Windows!

That is also one of the reasons why I don't like nvidia and ATI drivers for
X11, as they pack much too much into kernel mode. But currently there is no
alternative, as they didn't open their sources/docs until recently. Things
are changing at least for ATI.

Just because YOU don't need it doesn't mean it isn't used.  There are
still places where you have a massive central server with inexpensive
display systems around the building.

Remote desktop can handle those.
Not always in the way you want. Think of a big multi user system. VNC is a
bad idea as it just copies the screen of the graphics card. So VNC is nice
for remote support of windows clients and for console display of virtual
machines.
RDP has nice compression, but is only avail for M$ Servers and how they got
it into their Windows Server is a big mess. Some programs do not work with
it or need much struggling with permissions and registry.

NX is very nice, but gee it uses X11 underneath!

This could be like separate process 'graphic driver'. Like on
microkernels.
And it could be even proprietary, supplied by videocard vendor. But
only a tiny driver, UNIX way. Not a all-in-one bloatware.
Better they open their source code, and or open their documentation. Both
ATI and NVIDIA proprietary drivers have big pitfalls and sometimes don't
even run with some kernels. Separation in a different process is already
the concept of X11. Also the X.Org Server is already modularized with an
API for connecting proprietary drivers.

Sincerly,
Klaus
.

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