[GTALUG] X servers [was Re: Has the graphics-card world gone mad?]

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 06:49:04PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> It seems that network transparent graphics is no longer a thing.
> 
> Scott Sullivan has explained this in our last meeting.  Here's what I 
> absorbed (Scott may consider this a distortion).
> 
> - performance is crap because the X protocol doesn't express things in a 
>   way that engages the capabilities of modern GPUs
> 
> - security was poor.  (Surely that could have been fixed.)
> 
> - network bandwidth just doesn't match CPU to GPU bandwidth
> 
> - latencies annoy folks.  TCP/IP Networking makes no latency guarantees
> 
> - the demand for network transparent desktops is very low among the folks 
>   that actually develop the software
> 
> On the other hand, I like network transparent graphics.  I used it a lot.  
> I laughed at Windows for not having it.  I laughed at the hackiness of VNC 
> as a solution.  Well, the last laugh is on me.
> 
> Evan said that the idea that the thing on your desk was a server was 
> confusing and stupid and that it was good that it is gone.  I don't agree.  
> After all, the internet is a network of peers (except for those behind 
> NAT).  The thing on your desk can run a server (process or service) -- 
> mine runs a lot.

Wayland has certainly declared that remote access is not within scope
of the project and is something to be solved elsewhere (with vnc or rdp
or similar).  Perhaps that also solves the security problem of X11.

-- 
Len Sorensen