Upto: Table of Contents of full book "Programming Wayland Clients"

This project hasn't been updated since mid-2017. Wayland has moved on since then, so the information here may be out of date, and there is no guarantee the programs still work. You are recommended to look at The Wayland Protocol for more up-todate information, or at A better way to read Wayland documentation . .

Introduction

This chapter gives a brief overview of the book

Resources

Introduction

The X Window System has been the window system of choice for Unix/Linux systems for about 30 years. This makes it one of the oldest and generally most stable parts of Unix/Linux. It hasn't stayed still, but has continually evolved over its lifetime. This is in response to changes in hardware, changes in user models and changes in user interface design and expectations.

While software can and does evolve, often there comes a time when its "use by date" is up. Then it becomes feasible to expend the effort (and often upheaval) to replace the software with a newer design.

Many people feel that time is due for X. The original API, Xlib, is not used much any more. Desktop hardware as PCs has grown tremendously in power, and the distributed model of X is perhaps not so relevant. Also, the rise in GPUs has led to a shift in processing from CPU to GPU. In addition, systems like "wobbly windows" are hard for the X model.

Wayland is one of the proposed replacements. Mir is another, but hasn't made much traction outside of Ubuntu so far. This book is about Wayland.

There isn't much so far, but the intention is to keep adding bits to this book until it finally becomes book length and book scope. In the meantime, you may find something useful.

If you like this book, please contribute using Flattr
or donate using PayPal