# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Ubuntu Community Discussions > Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat >  Mir vs. Wayland & effect on Linux "Ecosystem"?

## neu5eeCh

So, a question for those more knowledgeable. If Ubuntu develops MIR for its display server and the rest of the Linux ecosystem goes with Wayland (as apparently Mint, KDE and Gnome intend to do) isn't that a fairly serious split? Am I right in thinking that this could seriously marginalize every distribution that uses Wayland? -- or is the choice of display server fairly seamless (meaning, for instance, that game developers wouldn't have to develop two separate versions of a game). With this make twice as much work for developers considering Linux? -- or not?

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## mr john

Shouldn't make much difference if there is a compatibility layer. The developers who are going to have to do more work will probably be the Mir developers. I don't really take the opinions of Mint or Gnome seriously. It's been known for a quite some time that some people in those groups don't like Ubuntu. Gnome Shell sucks and it's highly likely that UI will drive them into obscurity over the next few years. Linux Mint just like to say things to try and show that they aren't Ubuntu. They have a bit of an identity issue.

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## grahammechanical

"Splits" as you call it are part of the genetic make up of Free and Open Source Software. Richard Stallman had a serious difference of opinion about how softeware should be developed and distributed and now we have FOSS. From the beginning there have been divisions. If someone does not like the way things are being done or they have a disagreement with another developer then they split and "fork the code" as the saying goes. Why is Wayland being developed when we have Xserver? Why is KDE being developed when we have Gnome? Why have Linux Mint (based upon Debian and Ubuntu) when we have Ubuntu?

Apparently, anybody can do what they like but let Ubuntu go a different way and it is cursed into the outer darkness. The only way to avoid this apparent "twice as much work" is for developers to be employed by one massive corporation. In FOSS developers are free to work on whatever projects that interest them. If this were not true then we would not have a Linux kernel not even a Gnu/Linux kernel. We would still be waiting for a GNU kernel.

This is life in the Free and Open Source ecosystem.

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## neu5eeCh

Thanks Grahammechenical, can't say as I disagree with anything you've written. My question was more practical than political. I'm wondering how, if at all, two different display servers will affect development. 

Ubuntu is the 800 pound gorilla. Take Steam for instance. Steam has already chosen sides. From what I can tell, they picked Ubuntu. Steam will now run on Fedora (and Arch I think), but it's not as if Steam devs developed Steam _for_ Fedora. When Ubuntu switches to MIR, will this increasingly exacerbate the marginalization of non-Ubuntu distros (_there's Ubuntu and then there's the rest of them_)? Or is the difference between MIR and Wayland negligible?

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## 3rdalbum

The effect:

1. Wayland development will speed up to a furious pace to compete with Mir, which will benefit all distros that may ship Wayland in the future.

2. Mir has on-paper support from GPU makers such as AMD and Nvidia. Wayland has none. Wayland will become the geeky choice for the Ubuntu-haters, and Mir will become the choice for regular users who would prefer good 3D performance over "freedom".

3. You'll see other distros either adopt Mir as an option, or sink further into irrelevance. Either way, Mir will be THE display server for hip young Linux users  :Smile: 

*all this is assuming that Mir doesn't become abandonware, or that it doesn't end off being a total schmozzle.

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## montag dp

Lots of assumptions going on in this thread. No one really knows yet. Hopefully one will win out and become adopted by the whole community. I'm sick of this "us vs them" mentality that seems to be increasing lately (judging completely by forum posts).

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## lykwydchykyn

> Lots of assumptions going on in this thread. No one really knows yet. Hopefully one will win out and become adopted by the whole community. I'm sick of this "us vs them" mentality that seems to be increasing lately (judging completely by forum posts).


I agree; why is every project who supports wayland suddenly an "Ubuntu hater" motivated purely by anti-Canonical sentiment just because they don't drop 3+ years of development work the day Canonical announces a new display server that they've been developing in secret for six months?

.

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## llanitedave

> The effect:
> 
> 1. Wayland development will speed up to a furious pace to compete with Mir, which will benefit all distros that may ship Wayland in the future.
> 
> 2. Mir has on-paper support from GPU makers such as AMD and Nvidia. Wayland has none. Wayland will become the geeky choice for the Ubuntu-haters, and Mir will become the choice for regular users who would prefer good 3D performance over "freedom".
> 
> 3. You'll see other distros either adopt Mir as an option, or sink further into irrelevance. Either way, Mir will be THE display server for hip young Linux users 
> 
> *all this is assuming that Mir doesn't become abandonware, or that it doesn't end off being a total schmozzle.


2.  If Mir is open source, wouldn't its supporting code for AMD and Nvidia be free for the Wayland developers to use or adapt?  Seems like there might be a door for compatibility between the two.

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## Gyokuro

Wayland/Weston is already a working system whereas MIR is far away from a working system. In my opinion some people have the impression that Canonical is leading the further development of Linux (in this case desktop) but it is not (it is louder as the rest) and if you compare the posted specification of MIR/UnityNext you will see it is somehow only a clone of Google's Chrome OS and much more developers are working for wayland and bring in support for wayland in various toolkits. If you can not attract developers outside of Ubuntu's universe how long can Canonical maintain all patches for various toolkits  outside of their upstream projects? Either you work with the community or against and fail.

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## neu5eeCh

> I agree; why is every project who supports wayland suddenly an "Ubuntu hater" motivated purely by anti-Canonical sentiment just because they don't drop 3+ years of development work the day Canonical announces a new display server that they've been developing in secret for six months?


Okay, I honestly don't know what's motivating your comment or *montag dp's*. Just to be clear, I didn't say anything about "Ubuntu hating" or even suggest the same. If I'm being too sensitive (and you're not suggesting that I did) then we're all happy.  :Wink: 

Moving on...

I still don't get a sense for whether, practically speaking, MIR and Wayland will lead to two different development environments (which really _would_ divide the Linux ecosystem _from a software developer's perspective_). If Ubuntu is the Llinux distro of choice, then am I mistaken in thinking that any future third party software makers (such as another Steam) would exclude other distros simply by virtue of being "coded for MIR"?

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## monkeybrain2012

> So if you can call Ubuntu (or the future of Ubuntu) Linux, why do we not call OSX BSD?  After all, it IS based on the Mach kernel, but no one in their right mind would use anything with "Apple" and "BSD" in the same sentence!  Just because it's _technically_ Linux doesn't mean it will carry any of the same philosophy as Linux.


Well I for one would not want to see Ubuntu becomes to Linux as OSX to BSD. For one thing, except for the UI, most of Ubuntu is still Debian (which is not ashamed of calling itself Linux) and all software that run on Linux would run on Ubuntu and vice versa (at least in principle), that I think is good. BTW, I like the Linux philosophy and I am sure many of us who currently use Ubuntu do too.

Edited: Not following much about the saga of Wayland and Mir, but as long as it is FOSS I don't have a philosophical problem with it. But if Canonical decides to close sourced it in the future a la Apple I am leaving.

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## mJayk

> So if you can call Ubuntu (or the future of Ubuntu) Linux, why do we not call OSX BSD?  After all, it IS based on the Mach kernel, but no one in their right mind would use anything with "Apple" and "BSD" in the same sentence!  Just because it's _technically_ Linux doesn't mean it will carry any of the same philosophy as Linux.



Its where it started and the fact that it is still open source

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## Roasted

> Well I for one would not want to see Ubuntu becomes to Linux as OSX to BSD. For one thing, except for the UI, most of Ubuntu is still Debian (which is not ashamed of calling itself Linux) and all software that run on Linux would run on Ubuntu and vice versa (at least in principle), that I think is good. BTW, I like the Linux philosophy and I am sure many of us who currently use Ubuntu do too.
> 
> Edited: Not following much about the saga of Wayland and Mir, but as long as it is FOSS I don't have a philosophical problem with it. But if Canonical decides to close sourced it in the future a la Apple I am leaving.


I agree with your edit considerably. While I love many aspects of different Linux distros, I also like using a distro that does what I need. I've tried others but Ubuntu really hits the nail on the head for my uses. I personally don't think Ubuntu will ever close their source. I think their reliance on the Linux kernel will make that exponentially more difficult (well, somewhat impossible) to do as opposed to what OSX did with BSD. I was reading the About Ubuntu page the other day where they indicate open source is at the heart and soul of Ubuntu. That is really powerful, and I hope (and expect) that their dedication to retaining the open source model will continue on indefinitely, despite whatever closed source proprietary drivers and other bits they may package out of the box.

Come the day where Ubuntu decides to close off code and lock everything down Apple style, I will absolutely hit the road as well. That said, I would feel that same way with any other OS. Mint, Fedora, Debian. If I'm on any one of them and they lock the gates, they'll be written off as an OS I would no longer support or use. I just don't ever see that happening by any stretch of the imagination, so it's a crossroads I don't ever anticipate hitting.

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## neu5eeCh

Some fairly new information. Interesting and confirms what I thought might happen. NVIDIA has apparently (and strongly) indicated that they have zero interest in developing drivers for Wayland. That means that, as far as NVIDIA is concerned, a DE like KDE will be at a disadvantage in certain situations.

On the other hand, NVIDIA appears to be cooperating with Canonical on the development of MIR.

Seems to me that KDE is at a turning point. I can't see how KDEs insistence on using Wayland (if the current trend holds) will result in anything other than their future marginalization. If they want to reach beyond linux enthusiasts (in the future) this doesn't seem the way to do it, but maybe they don't care.

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## lykwydchykyn

VTPoet, I think you've been victimized by some sloppy journalism at Ostatic.  The "developer" who said NVidia couldn't care less about wayland support is just a member of the Nvidia forums, there's no indication that he/she/it is a developer or NVidia employee.  In fact, looking at some of this person's other posts on the forum, it's clear they are not.

Read a few of the comments (especially the first one by a KDE developer) as it dismisses a lot of the errors and FUD in that article.

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## hainen

Besides that he speaks about egl  backend. Both Mir and Wayland use that. I suspect if Nvidia support either Mir or Wayland  they support both in the end. If not, they support  neither. They have probably not decided what they do yet. It's probably not very important for Nvidia at the moment.

also the other part of article about KDE was apperently wrong. Greasslin wrote a long article about it
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blo...t-inside-kwin/

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## neu5eeCh

> VTPoet, I think you've been victimized by some sloppy journalism at Ostatic.


Well then... caveat emptor. Glad to know KDE won't be left in the cold.

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## Gyokuro

> Well then... caveat emptor. Glad to know KDE won't be left in the cold.


Here is more information where KDE is heading: http://dot.kde.org/2013/04/24/plasma...ce-convergence

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## Bill Tetzeli

> However, if I had to make a prediction, I expect that Ubuntu's move (if Ubuntu defaults to MIR) will marginalize the rest of the linux ecosystem (if the rest stubbornly refuse to follow suit). Then again, they're all largely irrelevant *anyway* (sorry Arch, Debian, Fedora, PCLOS, Redhat, etc...) Ubuntu is the only distro (and Canonical is the only company) that has a chance in the larger scheme of things. All the other distros just don't matter (and they're not in it for that reason anyway) so an extra layer of irrelevance shouldn't bother them (until and unless certain video drivers only work with certain display servers). That's when all the little wheels will start squeaking very loudly.


I strongly disagree.  These other distros carry a significance that vastly outweighs their adoption numbers, in that they can (theoretically) act as a curb on Ubuntu's darker impulses (if any).  Keep in mind that moving from Ubuntu to Debian or Mageia or Fedora isn't like moving from Windows to Linux.  Linux users are notorious distro-hoppers; just because they've settled on one distro doesn't mean they haven't tried a few others (most have).  I suspect that whichever distro is the EASIEST is the one that's going to be the top dog.  That's Ubuntu's strength right now (although with Unity some of that has passed off to Mint - I recently switched from Raring Ringtail to Mint 14 XFCE and Pear 6 on my netbook).  If Canonical gets too big for its britches, eventually it'll make a Windows 8-like, boneheaded, arrogant move that will turn everyone off.  The last thing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users will do with their Ubuntu volume is download a competing distro's ISO image and burn it to DVD before using it to whisk Ubuntu off to Never-Never Land.  Canonical has to be aware of this, especially with MS's woes right now.  They know that it's much easier to switch to a different distro than it is from Windows to Linux.  These "irrelevant" distros you mention are the reason why.  So while they may never have significant user share, they will continue to have significant effect.

Personally, though, I like by and large what Canonical's been doing.  The Linux success stories (server systems, Android, Roku, etc.) have all come from systems that know and are appropriate for the target user.  The reason Linux has failed in the desktop up till now is that it didn't address the target user, but the developer.  Canonical changed that.  Ubuntu and its derivatives are incredibly easy to install, set up, navigate, use (including program installation) and maintain.  That is what desktop users want - the minimum number of steps, the minimum (preferably zero) commands typed for the maximum effect and utility.  (It's funny how all the difficulties in Win 8 are pure bull, but all the difficulties in Linux have very good reasons, oh yes, yes they do.)  The computer was the province of geeks (in the worst sense of the word) till Apple popularized Mac's GUI.  That should have registered with Linux developers.  Instead, we got happy horse**** about philosophy and open-source purity, none of which meant a damn because the optical drive still won't work and the screen melts like film stuck in a projector every time I boot up.  Canonical changed that.  They made usability and ease their goal and have been the most successful at it.  If their success leads them away from that in the future, the alternative distros are chomping at their heels.  If it doesn't, I don't care how it gets accomplished.  Like 99% of all computer users, I just want the damn thing to work.  As far as Ubuntu becoming an open-source Windows - if by that one means a set standard with a large user base that software developers can target and get PAID for developing professional standard programs (and Linux multimedia ain't that - the pros all use Windows or Mac), then I'm all for it.  Like I said, as long as the OS is open source I don't care if the programs on it are open source or proprietary.  I just want them to work and live up to their billing.

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## hainen

> I strongly disagree.  These other distros carry a significance that vastly outweighs their adoption numbers, in that they can (theoretically) act as a curb on Ubuntu's darker impulses (if any).  Keep in mind that moving from Ubuntu to Debian or Mageia or Fedora isn't like moving from Windows to Linux.  Linux users are notorious distro-hoppers; just because they've settled on one distro doesn't mean they haven't tried a few others (most have).  I suspect that whichever distro is the EASIEST is the one that's going to be the top dog.  That's Ubuntu's strength right now (although with Unity some of that has passed off to Mint - I recently switched from Raring Ringtail to Mint 14 XFCE and Pear 6 on my netbook).  If Canonical gets too big for its britches, eventually it'll make a Windows 8-like, boneheaded, arrogant move that will turn everyone off.  The last thing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users will do with their Ubuntu volume is download a competing distro's ISO image and burn it to DVD before using it to whisk Ubuntu off to Never-Never Land.  Canonical has to be aware of this, especially with MS's woes right now.  They know that it's much easier to switch to a different distro than it is from Windows to Linux.  These "irrelevant" distros you mention are the reason why.  So while they may never have significant user share, they will continue to have significant effect.
> 
> Personally, though, I like by and large what Canonical's been doing.  The Linux success stories (server systems, Android, Roku, etc.) have all come from systems that know and are appropriate for the target user.  The reason Linux has failed in the desktop up till now is that it didn't address the target user, but the developer.  Canonical changed that.  Ubuntu and its derivatives are incredibly easy to install, set up, navigate, use (including program installation) and maintain.  That is what desktop users want - the minimum number of steps, the minimum (preferably zero) commands typed for the maximum effect and utility.  (It's funny how all the difficulties in Win 8 are pure bull, but all the difficulties in Linux have very good reasons, oh yes, yes they do.)  The computer was the province of geeks (in the worst sense of the word) till Apple popularized Mac's GUI.  That should have registered with Linux developers.  Instead, we got happy horse**** about philosophy and open-source purity, none of which meant a damn because the optical drive still won't work and the screen melts like film stuck in a projector every time I boot up.  Canonical changed that.  They made usability and ease their goal and have been the most successful at it.  If their success leads them away from that in the future, the alternative distros are chomping at their heels.  If it doesn't, I don't care how it gets accomplished.  Like 99% of all computer users, I just want the damn thing to work.  As far as Ubuntu becoming an open-source Windows - if by that one means a set standard with a large user base that software developers can target and get PAID for developing professional standard programs (and Linux multimedia ain't that - the pros all use Windows or Mac), then I'm all for it.  Like I said, as long as the OS is open source I don't care if the programs on it are open source or proprietary.  I just want them to work and live up to their billing.


Why can you not use a closed source os if it do what it is supposed to do. What is the point with using ubuntu over osx if osx work at least as good and has better support for the closed source program you say you need?

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## Jack Harper

Honestly I dont know why some people are hating Mir so much,if Canonical pulls it off great,another alternative to the aging X.org,it was about time Linux community make an alternative for it,Wayland,Mir,more alternatives is more competition and better features.If Wayland cant compete and ultimately loses so be it,some people in the Linux community believe that every single open source project must survive indefinitely,that is not always good,I always wondered as to why Linux community didnt start working on X.org replacement earlier.Linux must evolve and that means some things are meant to be changed.Whether other distributions will adopt Mir it remains to be seen,I am sure some will be stubborn enough to refuse to adopt it even if it turns out to be a brilliant piece of software.I like innovations and Mir and Unity on QT/QML,along with mobile/tablet/desktop compatible OS is very interesting to me,but haters are going to hate,and being a Linux user for about 12 years now I have seen my share of dinosaur attitudes of some people in the Linux community,they simply refuse to go along with innovations,still clinging to their very old ways.They are afraid of losing their precious toy because it will no longer be cool to use Linux if many people use it,you can see that happening even now as such people switch to Gentoo,Arch and similar distributions because they are for "advanced users" and Ubuntu and other "user friendly" distributions are for "beginners".It is not likely that Ubuntu will ever become a completely closed source project,that would make no sense,what Ubuntu will hopefully become is an integrated multipurpose OS that grows and is available for all devices,for personal and business use.I hope Canonical will succeed with Mir,Unity on QT/QML and multipurpose OS because that is where the future is.Dinosaurs that refuse to change will end up like Nokia that refused to adopt Android and is now on a steady decline.There is nothing wrong with an OS that can run on mobile phones,tablets,desktops and servers,in fact it is brilliant and I hope they succeed  :Smile:

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## zemega

The fact that Wayland is slow before Mir was announced shows that lack of competetion and option makes 'one' slow/dependant/not motivated/etc. 
Its important for the display server to be able to adapt to many things 'physically' in the future. When can I put displays on my refrigerator so that I can keep tracks of th things inside the fridge? I don't need a full size motherboard inside the fridge, I just need something like raspberry pi, and some advanced monitor on the fridge (OLED, transparent, plasma or whatever works). In fact getting a stock phone just to do that is great, but it will need stock OS that can do lots of things, and Ubuntu is headed that way. 

The future for me is that, almost everything will have display on it, from tables, fridge, walls, even simple electrical (light, fan, stuff) switch will use a display system (assuming that a small 5x5 cm display can control all the lights, fans, ventilation, aircond, valves, in the house/office). Can Wayland do that? Can X do that? Can Mir do that? Can it do it beautifully and smooth? There might not be anymore physical keys in keyboards, its all a display sytem with touch input, you just touch them instead of hitting them. It might sound to scifi, but thats one of the possible feature. I dont see or hear Wayland going to do something about this, Wayland probably will just be a desktop display server, instead of an all-around you can put anywhere.

It seems Mir is going that way, seemless intergration between display output and touch input (well its not just Mir, but the OS as well). Ubuntu and Mir is going to break the touch input barrier, not counting Android of course they did a great job in that, but they just have different phylosophy compared to desktop Linux. 

I can see that I can just put one Ubuntu device in the kitchen and be able to have multiple touch display on the fridge, table top, cabinets and stuff. One Ubuntu device in my office, have multiple displays to it, have multiple inputs to it, and many other functions. Instead of an OS for a tablet, server, phone and desktop, it can be an OS that can run the house or office environments. Assuming people will not put in an overzealous A.I. into it and give birth to SkyNet.

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## lykwydchykyn

Nobody I know of is "hating Mir", unless "hate" means "everyone isn't dropping their plans and years of work to move to a display server project which was just announced out of nowhere".    If you don't understand the reasons why non-Ubuntu projects aren't jumping up and down to support it, here is a breakdown of the reasons from a KDE developer:

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blo...ir-in-kubuntu/

I invite you to read and contemplate some of these reasons and point of view rather than just conclude that all non-ubuntu free software developers are small-minded haters.

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## Jack Harper

> Nobody I know of is "hating Mir", unless "hate" means "everyone isn't dropping their plans and years of work to move to a display server project which was just announced out of nowhere".    If you don't understand the reasons why non-Ubuntu projects aren't jumping up and down to support it, here is a breakdown of the reasons from a KDE developer:
> 
> http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blo...ir-in-kubuntu/
> 
> I invite you to read and contemplate some of these reasons and point of view rather than just conclude that all non-ubuntu free software developers are small-minded haters.


I didnt mean people with objective concerns like the author of the blog post you mention,I meant a portion of Linux users,try reading comments on various articles on Mir around the Internet,plenty of hate,from Phoronix to other Linux related websites.Not that I am saying they dont have a right to voice their own opinion,they do but some are hating Mir because they apparently have a need to bash Canonical and Ubuntu just for the sake of it,they dont even bother to wait until the Mir is published to see how the whole situation will play out,and then make comments with some arguments.

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## Stonecold1995

> I didnt mean people with objective concerns like the author of the blog post you mention,I meant a portion of Linux users,try reading comments on various articles on Mir around the Internet,plenty of hate,from Phoronix to other Linux related websites.Not that I am saying they dont have a right to voice their own opinion,they do but some are hating Mir because they apparently have a need to bash Canonical and Ubuntu just for the sake of it,they dont even bother to wait until the Mir is published to see how the whole situation will play out,and then make comments with some arguments.


People don't bash Canonical "just for the sake of it".  They/we bash them because they pulled out a dirty trick that one would expect only something like Microsoft or Apple to do.  I mean, developing a display driver is fine, and developing a competing display driver is fine, but the way the presented it, after lying publically to everyone, is just wrong.  Especially considering Mir's purpose and limitations.

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## smellyman

lying?

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## Stonecold1995

> lying?


Announcing that they'll work on Wayland and that NVidia is willing to work with Wayland but secretly developing Mir, and then suddenly announcing "just kidding, we weren't actually planning on using Wayland at all".

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## montag dp

> Announcing that they'll work on Wayland and that NVidia is willing to work with Wayland but secretly developing Mir, and then suddenly announcing "just kidding, we weren't actually planning on using Wayland at all".


Didn't they also publish some falsehoods about Wayland in their original post explaining why they were going to develop Mir?  From what I've read, that didn't go over well either.

I should mention that I'm also fine with it if they want to develop their own display server, but I think they owe it to the community to be a bit more up-front about they are doing, and not try to mislead people.

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## smellyman

saying you didn't eat a cookie when in fact you did is lying.

I guess I lie all the time when I change plans

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## lykwydchykyn

Changing plans wasn't lying, but spreading falsehoods about Wayland was.  They later apologized, but I'm still seeing the same memes floating around as if they were fact.

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## Stonecold1995

> Changing plans wasn't lying, but spreading falsehoods about Wayland was.  They later apologized, but I'm still seeing the same memes floating around as if they were fact.


What's the point of appoligizing if they don't do anything about it?  Just because you can say sorry doesn't make it right, especially if you still go ahead and do it.

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## Perfect Storm

> What's the point of appoligizing if they don't do anything about it?  Just because you can say sorry doesn't make it right, especially if you still go ahead and do it.


About what? Not starting on the Mir project. Doesn't make sense. Done is done, apology is given. People need to start to move on.

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## Stonecold1995

> About what? Not starting on the Mir project. Doesn't make sense. Done is done, apology is given. People need to start to move on.


But they're continuing to work on Mir and are continuing their plans after lying about Wayland to everyone, that's the whole point.

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## Perfect Storm

> But they're continuing to work on Mir and are continuing their plans after lying about Wayland to everyone, that's the whole point.


and....?

It's common in the linux world if you're unhappy with something you fork or make your own stuff for whatever reasons.

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## Stonecold1995

> and....?
> 
> It's common in the linux world if you're unhappy with something you fork or make your own stuff for whatever reasons.


There's nothing wrong with forking something or creating something, it's HOW they did it, how they severely messed up plans for OTHER distros to use Wayland as well, jeopardizing distros like Kubuntu and damaging chances that Wayland will have a working Nvidia driver (which both them and Nvidia had lied about, all the while working on their OWN project behind closed doors).

And it wasn't just a "mistake" either, so appologizing and moving on is not fixing the problem.

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## llanitedave

They can't "unHow" it.  So what you prefer?  Tarring and feathering?  Public lynchings?  Honor suicides?  Burn all Mir builds and fire the developers?  Ubuntu cease to exist?  Pinin' for the fjords?

Or maybe you can actually make a positive contribution on your own account to whatefer you think the right solution is?  Otherwise, you just seem to be drinking the cup of bitterness and savoring the flavor.

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## Bazon

the effect it had on me: i love the flexibility of gnome-shell and i don't use any ubuntu specific developments at all. so my consequence was: goodbye ubuntu. i moved to arch on my main computer, it is great, my other computers will follow.

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## Leuchten

The mir stuff didn't push me from Ubuntu, but if I was still using kubuntu it would've, and not just because KDE says they won't support mir. It's ridiculous how insular ubuntu is becoming.

Oh, and by the way, steam is not ubuntu only. I have steam working perfectly fine on fedora 18.

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## dodo3773

> and....?
> 
> It's common in the linux world if you're unhappy with something you fork or make your own stuff for whatever reasons.


Why "and..?"? Does it not concern you that the upstream developers would lie or mislead the community with respects to development? Not at all? Not even with a public apology / admission of guilt? I do not understand your position clearly I don't think. Mir / Wayland / foobarbaz doesn't matter. Not the point. At least that's not how I took the comment that was responded to.   

On to the original topic: Reading the motivation behind Mir reasons on the wiki Mir/Spec it seems like Mir would be something that would help out more for mobile platforms to me. If that's it then it makes enough sense I guess. I can't imagine it making any huge difference for my use case either way though since I don't run Ubuntu or keep up with the newest commercial/closed applications and games and steam and stuff. My opinion is that a more collaborated effort would have a more beneficial "effect on Linux "Ecosystem"". As far as I can tell Mir source code is up on launchpad either way. If they do something truly great I don't see why wayland couldn't use some of the codebase if they wanted to or take a look at it at least. So, in that respect it may not be so bad for the ecosystem. But, I still think it's more bad than good at this point (I admit I still know little about the mir / wayland thing from a technical standpoint (no shortage of opinionated articles to read on the internet though I'm sure)).  Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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## mips

> Does it not concern you that the upstream developers would lie or mislead the community with respects to development? Not at all?


I don't think people are to worried about things like lying & ethics, just the way people are.

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## hainen

> Why "and..?"? Does it not concern you that the  upstream developers would lie or mislead the community with respects to  development? Not at all? Not even with a public apology / admission of  guilt? I do not understand your position clearly I don't think. Mir /  Wayland / foobarbaz doesn't matter. Not the point. At least that's not  how I took the comment that was responded to.   
> 
> On to the original topic: Reading the motivation behind Mir reasons on  the wiki Mir/Spec it seems like Mir would be something that would help  out more for mobile platforms to me. If that's it then it makes enough  sense I guess. I can't imagine it making any huge difference for my use  case either way though since I don't run Ubuntu or keep up with the  newest commercial/closed applications and games and steam and stuff. My  opinion is that a more collaborated effort would have a more beneficial  "effect on Linux "Ecosystem"". As far as I can tell Mir source code is  up on launchpad either way. If they do something truly great I don't see  why wayland couldn't use some of the codebase if they wanted to or take  a look at it at least. So, in that respect it may not be so bad for the  ecosystem. But, I still think it's more bad than good at this point (I  admit I still know little about the mir / wayland thing from a technical  standpoint (no shortage of opinionated articles to read on the internet  though I'm sure)).  Guess we'll just have to wait and see.


Wayland has MIT licence and canonical use a gpl license. Canonical can reuse wayland stuff (as we have seen) but Wayland can not use MIR code.

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## hainen

I have a feeling it unlikely stuff like http://www.collabora.com/videos/rpi-...demo-720p.webm occurs to MIR

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## Perfect Storm

> Why "and..?"? Does it not concern you that the upstream developers would lie or mislead the community with respects to development? Not at all? Not even with a public apology / admission of guilt? I do not understand your position clearly I don't think. Mir / Wayland / foobarbaz doesn't matter. Not the point. At least that's not how I took the comment that was responded to.   
> 
> On to the original topic: Reading the motivation behind Mir reasons on the wiki Mir/Spec it seems like Mir would be something that would help out more for mobile platforms to me. If that's it then it makes enough sense I guess. I can't imagine it making any huge difference for my use case either way though since I don't run Ubuntu or keep up with the newest commercial/closed applications and games and steam and stuff. My opinion is that a more collaborated effort would have a more beneficial "effect on Linux "Ecosystem"". As far as I can tell Mir source code is up on launchpad either way. If they do something truly great I don't see why wayland couldn't use some of the codebase if they wanted to or take a look at it at least. So, in that respect it may not be so bad for the ecosystem. But, I still think it's more bad than good at this point (I admit I still know little about the mir / wayland thing from a technical standpoint (no shortage of opinionated articles to read on the internet though I'm sure)).  Guess we'll just have to wait and see.


Then people needs to go out more, if they get worked up by this. There are much worse crime in the world than this. It isn't the first time misleading/misinformation have apperared in the open source community or in IT generally. There are people behind these project afterall, and where people is mistakes etc. will happen. I don't underestand the vendetta in such cases, live and let live...

But I suspect because it's Canonical made a mistake, it needs to burn down to the ground and the ashes scattered into the void.

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## dodo3773

> I don't think people are to worried about things like lying & ethics, just the way people are.


Yeah, I suppose your right. No need to apologize then though. They should have just told the community to get bent instead since that's the truth. 




> Wayland has MIT licence and canonical use a gpl license. Canonical can reuse wayland stuff (as we have seen) but Wayland can not use MIR code.


Then I don't see how it could be good in any realistic way at all for the rest of the ecosystem. That should sum it all up there. But could you elaborate on this a little more?

Edit: Now that I think about it a little more I really don't think it's going to have a huge effect either way on the larger community. 




> Then people needs to go out more, if they get worked up by this. There are much worse crime in the world than this. It isn't the first time misleading/misinformation have apperared in the open source community or in IT generally. There are people behind these project afterall, and where people is mistakes etc. will happen. I don't underestand the vendetta in such cases, live and let live...
> 
> 
> 
> But I suspect because it's Canonical made a mistake, it needs to burn down to the ground and the ashes scattered into the void.



I simply meant that the whole thing is disconcerting to me as a human. Not as an end user / developer whatever. If it was a simple mistake then it wouldn't matter at all (although if it was a simple mistake surely it would have been justifiable and would have not required an apology (not that one is required anyways since apologies are a waste of time to begin with (I agree with Stonecold1995's sentiment on that absolutely))). I have no vendetta. The world will keep turning irrespective of which direction Canonical decides to take. Similar to when they started the Unity desktop thing. It does seem like Ubuntu is slowing becoming something that the community would no longer consider GNU/Linux though (in the free sense). At least that is my perceived direction that it is taking. They are becoming an island in my eyes. I do agree with you on other people in the community making mistakes or not following through on things. I have seen that a few times. The only argument I have read so far in favor of this being good to the community was by 3rdalbumn which stated "Wayland development will speed up to a furious pace to compete with Mir, which will benefit all distros that may ship Wayland in the future.".

Edit: I think the move has a bigger impact on how other people in the community perceive Ubuntu rather than the technical advantages or disadvantages.

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## hainen

> Yeah, I suppose your right. No need to apologize then though. They should have just told the community to get bent instead since that's the truth. 
> 
> 
> 
> Then I don't see how it could be good in any realistic way at all for the rest of the ecosystem. That should sum it all up there. But could you elaborate on this a little more?


I'm on extremly thin ice now as I really dont versed in licenses. But as I'm understands it. GPL  require linked code is under gpl, but double licensing is fine. Mit licence allow double licensing the code as  gpl/mit. The effect is you can take mit code and double license in a gpl project. But as gpl don't allow double licensing. If you take gpl code to your mit licensed project you need re-license the project as gpl.

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## dodo3773

> I'm on extremly thin ice now as I really dont versed in licenses. But as I'm understands it. GPL  require linked code is under gpl, but double licensing is fine. Mit licence allow double licensing the code as  gpl/mit. The effect is you can take mit code and double license in a gpl project. But as gpl don't allow double licensing. If you take gpl code to your mit licensed project you need re-license the project as gpl.


Okay so in this respect wouldn't the fault be with wayland upstream then rather than mir? Why not just gpl?

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## Stonecold1995

> I don't think people are to worried about things like lying & ethics, just the way people are.


Um, yes they are.  _Especially_ in the open source software community.

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## JDShu

> Okay so in this respect wouldn't the fault be with wayland upstream then rather than mir? Why not just gpl?


Because it's really low down the stack - anything that uses Mir libraries may need to be GPL'd depending on the legal specifics and many important applications would need to use the display server libraries. This could make it hard for third parties to write applications using Mir. Specifically, Martin Graesslin argues that KWin would be unable to use Mir without switching the whole codebase to GPLv3. Whether GPLv3 only is an acceptable license is a different debate, but the point is that it limits the choices of people who want to develop using Mir.

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## dodo3773

> Because it's really low down the stack - anything that uses Mir libraries may need to be GPL'd depending on the legal specifics and many important applications would need to use the display server libraries. This could make it hard for third parties to write applications using Mir. Specifically, Martin Graesslin argues that KWin would be unable to use Mir without switching the whole codebase to GPLv3. Whether GPLv3 only is an acceptable license is a different debate, but the point is that it limits the choices of people who want to develop using Mir.


So would you say that this move may in a way actually be self defeating (on the desktop specifically not a phone)?

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## JDShu

> So would you say that this move may in a way actually be self defeating (on the desktop specifically not a phone)?


I personally think so. I think the realistic outcome is that Mir will miss the deadlines and hobble along until it dissipates under a mountain of technical debt and hard problems. It's not going to destroy the community like some say, but it's also very unlikely to succeed within a reasonable timeframe. But hey, I could be completely wrong... let's see if Canonical can surprise me  :Smile:

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## zemega

Can we talk about software or programs in Linux and how this situation is going to impact them? Would developer stop supporting Ubuntu just because of Mir. Would mainstream favourite developer such as Skype and Steam stop supporting Ubuntu? How about obscure scientific software, such as CDO and GrADS? If Ubuntu is no longer supported just because they're using Mir, that means some user will have to leave Ubuntu and go to other distros, or worse go back to Windows. Apart from the OS itself, software distribution is an important point in this Linux ecosystem.

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## LordDelta

My two cents:

Anti-Mir is nonsense. I think Wayland and Mir is just the right number (well, maybe room for one or two more display servers) of display servers.

X11 was the truly atrocious situation. Yes, it works fine now, but how long did that take? 30 years? 40? Why? Partly, because there was little competition. Partly, because there was only one system, there was only one system, and no way to change it.

This time, yeah, Wayland will be stable and working, years ahead of Mir. But, it also won't be able to respond to change as quickly - 4 years of development aren't going to change themselves overnight.

As long as there is some common interchange standard everyone can agree on, I think we'll be fine. I don't know what that will be, but I could forsee it being OpenGL, or some XML or JSON standard.

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## neu5eeCh

Just installed Xubuntu 13.04 and noted that my AMD Catalyst Drivers wouldn't have worked if I had chosen Unity as my DE. Glad I was able to revert to the pre-patched version of X. The only thing that stops tear-out when watching vids are the proprietary drivers. If not for the FLGRX drivers, I would probably revert to Windows on this laptop (VAIO 64bit with Radeon).

And that brings me to MIR. I assume, if Ubuntu switches to MIR, all those old proprietary drivers are no longer going to work. This means that I will probably have to give up Ubuntu at some point. I'm certain I'm not the only one whose going to have these issues. Once Ubuntu switches to MIR, is it reasonable to assume that thousands of users, like myself, who rely on older ATI drivers, will have to look for a distro that still uses X?

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## dodo3773

> Just installed Xubuntu 13.04 and noted that my AMD Catalyst Drivers wouldn't have worked if I had chosen Unity as my DE. Glad I was able to revert to the pre-patched version of X. The only thing that stops tear-out when watching vids are the proprietary drivers. If not for the FLGRX drivers, I would probably revert to Windows on this laptop (VAIO 64bit with Radeon).
> 
> And that brings me to MIR. I assume, if Ubuntu switches to MIR, all those old proprietary drivers are no longer going to work. This means that I will probably have to give up Ubuntu at some point. I'm certain I'm not the only one whose going to have these issues. Once Ubuntu switches to MIR, is it reasonable to assume that thousands of users, like myself, who rely on older ATI drivers, will have to look for a distro that still uses X?


I don't think this will be the case. As far as I know wayland has some sort of X emulation (reusing dri drivers at least (doesn't that apply to amd/ati drivers?)) I would be surprised if mir didn't have something similar. They seem like they would have to at least to some extent otherwise a lot of application compatibility would be lost I would think. Doesn't seem logical.

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## neu5eeCh

> I don't think this will be the case. As far as I know wayland has some sort of X emulation (reusing dri drivers at least (doesn't that apply to amd/ati drivers?)) I would be surprised if mir didn't have something similar. They seem like they would have to at least to some extent otherwise a lot of application compatibility would be lost I would think. Doesn't seem logical.


The current FGLRX drivers won't work on MIR unless AMD modifies them. I think it _extremely_ unlikely that AMD would spend time and money on such an undertaking. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, in it for them. While Wayland and MIR may have X-emulators, this is a different type of functionality.

It's particularly odd because Unity currently relies on 3D capable hardware (they've gotten rid of Unity 2D). So what the heck do they expect a million users to do when they switch to MIR and and all those proprietary 3D drivers no longer work? Am I not getting something?

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## deadflowr

> The current FGLRX drivers won't work on MIR unless AMD modifies them. I think it _extremely_ unlikely that AMD would spend time and money on such an undertaking. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, in it for them. While Wayland and MIR may have X-emulators, this is a different type of functionality.
> 
> It's particularly odd because Unity currently relies on 3D capable hardware (they've gotten rid of Unity 2D). So what the heck do they expect a million users to do when they switch to MIR and and all those proprietary 3D drivers no longer work? Am I not getting something?


I believe that neither mir or wayland can run closed-source drivers at this point.
At least with mir I know that it can only run open-source drivers, but I'm almost certain it's the same with wayland.

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## dodo3773

> I believe that neither mir or wayland can run closed-source drivers at this point.
> At least with mir I know that it can only run open-source drivers, but I'm almost certain it's the same with wayland.


Oh I see. well that's a bummer then. There is a number of other great distros though.

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## deadflowr

> Oh I see. well that's a bummer then. There is a number of other great distros though.


I should clarify that's on the desktop.

Not sure about phones or tablets.

But we will have nice front row seats when the closed source drivers choose which side they will support, or if they shun both and we have to use X forever on the desktop.

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## neu5eeCh

> I should clarify that's on the desktop.
> 
> Not sure about phones or tablets.
> 
> But we will have nice front row seats when the closed source drivers choose which side they will support, or if they shun both and we have to use X forever on the desktop.


I find it hard to believe that Canonical would seriously leave behind a major portion of its user base. Really? I'm willing to go out on a limb and assert that the vast majority of Ubuntu installs are on older hardware. Is Shuttleworth really going to give all these people the finger?  

And what about the burgeoning game market on Ubuntu? Are all these gamers going to give up their proprietary drivers for MIR? That's insanity. Well... I've got my front row seat and my popcorn. Looks like it's going to be an exciting movie.  :Popcorn:

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## monkeybrain2012

> I find it hard to believe that Canonical would seriously leave behind a major portion of its user base. Really? I'm willing to go out on a limb and assert that the vast majority of Ubuntu installs are on older hardware. Is Shuttleworth really going to give all these people the finger?  
> 
> And what about the burgeoning game market on Ubuntu? Are all these gamers going to give up their proprietary drivers for MIR? That's insanity. Well... I've got my front row seat and my popcorn. Looks like it's going to be an exciting movie.


I think this will be ironed out when Mir makes its appearance. Canonical works with Steam to bring gaming to Linux (supports Ubuntu first) I am sure they are aware of that.

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## deadflowr

I read this last night/this morning (twas late)

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/05/m...-unity8-future

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## neu5eeCh

> I think this will be ironed out when Mir makes its appearance. Canonical works with Steam to bring gaming to Linux (supports Ubuntu first) I am sure they are aware of that.


Translation: "No, really, the ship is unsinkable."  :Wink:

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## monkeybrain2012

> I read this last night/this morning (twas late)
> 
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/05/m...-unity8-future


"The current plan is to stretch for Unity 8 in 14.04 LTS, but we are  confident we can have Unity 7 running there just fine. We already  support Unity 7 and its getting faster and cleaner as we go,.."

So does this mean that there will still be an option to use x in 14.04? If that is the case I am not too worry, it will be another 6 years before Mir becomes the only option.

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## deadflowr

> "The current plan is to stretch for Unity 8 in 14.04 LTS, but we are  confident we can have Unity 7 running there just fine. We already  support Unity 7 and it’s getting faster and cleaner as we go,.."
> 
> So does this mean that there will still be an option to use x in 14.04? If that is the case I am not too worry, it will be another 6 years before Mir becomes the only option.


Being that they're pressing hard just to get something into the repos for testing on 13.10 tells me that they won't make it to a full switch by 14.04.

And if by some chance they did make it and a change happens, you can expect an even larger migration from Ubuntu to other flavors or distros.

I think moving to mir as the default display server, in less than a year, would be more disastrous then when they switched to unity for 11.04.

But adding it for 14.10 and beyond seems like a better, more rational direction.

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## monkeybrain2012

> Being that they're pressing hard just to get something into the  repos for testing on 13.10 tells me that they won't make it to a full  switch by 14.04.


Yeah to make a full switch to Mir in the LTS without full blown testing in a productive environment (13.10 ) first is utterly insane. But I don't think Mark Shuttleworth has completely lost his marbles, so I interpret his answer to OMG to mean "We set the high (perhaps not realistically  attainable) goal of getting Unity 8 and Mir into a workable state by 14.04 but it will not be the only option, Unity 7 (hence X) will still be supported in 14.04 and we have made many improvement there as well"

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## neu5eeCh

> And if by some chance they did make it and a change happens, you can expect an even larger migration from Ubuntu to other flavors or distros.


Many flavors and distros seem to be moving toward Wayland. This will also render 3rd party video drivers (designed for X), perfectly useless. It may turn out to be a tough situation for many linux users. One of the long-vaunted advantages of Linux has been the ability to use it on older hardware. This may no longer be the case and many users, on older machines, might well be driven back to windows (_if_ they want to take full advantage of their video cards) or increasingly niche-y linux distributions based on Ubuntu (perhaps) but running X.

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## lykwydchykyn

> One of the long-vaunted advantages of Linux has been the ability to use it on older hardware.


I think we've already entered an era where "normal" mainstream distros don't do any better on older hardware than Windows, and only specialized "lightweight" distros are aimed at older hardware.

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## zemega

Its certainly true some harware is old now. And I do think its time to upgrade your computer/laptop for cheap now. Look at Asus future model, 2x1GHz cpu, intergrated graphic (probably ati radeon or intel), and 2gb ram (hopefully upgradeable) for less than 300USD. The price of Windows 7 is more than half of the laptop price. And if distros want to move forward, it got to keep up and use the potential of current technology while maintaining support for technology a few years before. A distro won't be popular if it can only use half of the technology or capability of the technology/spec of the user. Its also means Linux user must also let go of really old hardware, and change/upgrade to latest or slightly new/old.
Edit: Although I don't mind if Ubuntu/Canonical release a remix for old hardware, like the netbook remix before. Simple Unity (no fancy blur, depth or transparency), simple browser and other stuffs, and probably uses X. Although If they can make Mir to be lightweight, and better than X, that would be a better choice.

Isnt X can do many things, but a user don't really need that much. Would not that means Mir might just be lighter than X?

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