System76 and Wayland

[mbidewel]

As I consider a System76 machine, One concern I have is the future support of Wayland. I realize that the switch is a few years away but I buy hardware to last a few years :). System76 machines use NVidia cards which have awesome X support, but Wayland support is up in the air. Should this be a concern looking at the current laptop lineup?

Thanks.

[cascade9]

Wayland is years away. Even Shuttleworth has said-


Timeframes are difficult. I’m sure we could deliver *something* in six months, but I think a year is more realistic for the first images that will be widely useful in our community. I’d love to be proven conservative on that http://www.markshuttleworth.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif but I suspect it’s more likely to err the other way.

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/551

That would mean that even if 1 year is realistic (which I think is majorly optomistic), 12.04 would be the 1st ubuntu version with wayland. IMO there is no way that ubuntu could move to 'nothing but wayland' by 12.04, even if its ready then. Its more likely there would be a crossover period of at least 1-2 years.

It would only be an issue with a laptop anyway (though for laptops with the ability to change video card there is a way around that...not that many laptops can do that). Changing video cards on a desktop is a 5 minute job.

[imhavoc]

Future support has proven to be an intractable problem for humans. In the past 20,000 years, no one has managed to pull it off with much success. In general, modern companies attempt to support planned versions, but never state support for unreleased systems or subsystems.

My first rule of computer purchasing: You can buy it today or you can buy it tomorrow, but you can't buy's tomorrow's computer today.