[members at lugog] Introduction

[Ian Dickinson]

Hi MJ,

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 11:18 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> Mark Fraser wrote:
>> On Sunday 21 Nov 2010 08:19:36 Sean Miller wrote:
>> > http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/11/unity-to-embrace-wayland-display-server/
>> >
>> > For those "more in the know" what would this mean to the non-techy
>> > user?  Would they see much difference in terms of "user experience"
>> > (barring "less flicker" or whatever) or is this just similar to the
>> > various different sound drivers that exist or proFTP vs. ANO?
>>
>> The only thing that concerns me at the moment is that Wayland is incompatible
>> with the proprietary drivers from Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia have also said that
>> they have no plans to make drivers compatible with Wayland.
>
> I'm not so concerned about that.  Proprietary drivers are a bug.
> What does concern me is the idea of running X applications through
> a compatibility layer.  Won't that be slower, or does the better
> performance of the lighter-weight Wayland compensate for it?
>
> I found this interesting in the quote from Mark Shuttleworth: "We
> don't believe X is setup to deliver the user experience we want, with
> super-smooth graphics and effects."  It says "we want".  I'm not so
> sure most users care about graphic bling as long as the user interface
> doesn't suck.
I call false premise. Smoother graphics performance for "most users"
(and we have to be careful about how we measure that group) isn't
about operating system graphic bling. At that level of description, I
don't think most users care - or even notice. Indeed, there was a
report earlier this year (but I can't find the citation, sorry) that a
majority of people surveyed did not actually know the difference
between an operating system, a web browser and Google. In terms of
behaviour, what "most people" want is - in my view - (i) smooth
streaming video when they're watching youtube videos or TV/movies on
demand, and (ii) games that play well (noting that gaming is a bigger
market than movies now [1]). I read between the lines that
Shuttleworth et al are saying that the architecture of X Windows -
which is pretty ancient now - doesn't allow them to optimise for the
things the mass market care about. We can argue about whether *we*
form part of the mass market, but it's hard to blame a company for
looking to broaden the market appeal of its core product.

> And good as the user interface is, even the most
> enthusiastic supporter should admit it still sucks in a few ways (but
> sucks less than alternatives).
I love my Linux desktop, but I'm not sure that, on the whole, it sucks
less than the Mac interface. Pound-for-pound it wins hands down, of
course :)

But again, what sucks for one community may be just right for another, and vv.

Ian

[1] e.g. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6852383/Video-games-bigger-than-film.html