UBUNTU TO REPLACE X WINDOW SYSTEM WITH WAYLAND

Mark Shuttleworth keeps making surprising announcements regarding Ubuntu. Yesterday he announced Ubuntu would be ditching X Window System and going with Wayland for its GUI solution. Mark said "We don’t believe X is setup to deliver the user experience we want, with super-smooth graphics and effects. I understand that it’s *possible* to get amazing results with X, but it’s extremely hard, and isn’t going to get easier. Some of the core goals of X make it harder to achieve these user experiences on X than on native GL, we’re choosing to prioritize the quality of experience over those original values, like network transparency."

The aim of Wayland is to ensure “every frame is perfect, by which I mean that applications will be able to control the rendering enough that we’ll never see tearing, lag, redrawing or flicker.” It’s also important to note it uses OpenGL-ES.

Although still very young, Wayland has impressed Shuttleworth enough for him to commit early. Regarding timing of the switch Shuttleworth stated "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 but I suspect it’s more likely to err the other way. It might take four or more years to really move the ecosystem." [Geek]