2 min read

New X-Server for Linux

Wayland aims to address persistent issues in Linux desktop experiences, such as lag, tearing, and flickering during rendering. Despite advancements in Linux as a desktop OS, the outdated X-Server has hindered its appeal. Wayland promises a smoother, more visually cohesive experience, potentially enhancing user satisfaction and support for Linux as a viable desktop alternative.

New X-Server for Linux

X specifies what the end results of a series of rendering requests must look like, but how the display looks while it's in progress is not discussed. GTK+ and Qt works around this to some extent by using double buffering, but we still see lag between window decorations and window contents while resizing etc. The wayland tag line is "every frame is perfect", by which I mean that applications will be able to control the rendering enough that we'll never see tearing, lag, redrawing or flicker."
A step in the right direction. In the past years, Linux has considerably matured as a Desktop Operating System. Not only the innovation from Ubuntu, but also new technologies (i.e. Compiz) developed by Red Hat, SuSE, or others, helped Linux to gain awareness of Linux as desktop. One of the fundamental flaws, however, has always been the X-Server. It starts with the incredibly ugly mode-switches during the system boot (vga, text-mode, svga, text-mode, native solution) continues along the lines of dual monitor setup problems, and culminates in ugly redrawing/flicker problems with most window operations.

I do believe, that one of the key problems, holding Linux back from gaining a wider audience, lies (next to the casual users’ stumbling block of not being able to install standard Windows software) in the feeling of a buggy system determined by the visualy visible fragments of on-screen operations. Think about it: People don’t see the modern 2.6.x Kernel with all of it’s glory, people aren’t able to see the power that is a new O1 scheduler (or whatever), they can’t see the brilliance of the filesystem and neither the flexibility of all those new KDE4 / Qt4 API / technology layers. However, what they can see is a desktop that leaves ugly fragments and feels immature.

So, although the new Wayland kernel won’t suddenly bring Linux on par with Windows Vista or OS X it should tremendously help in achieving a higher state of satisfaction with the whole Desktop Experience. Often, it’s the little things, that can make a big difference.