Canonical Announces Mir Display Server
New X replacement will support the Unity desktop in future Ubuntu releases.
Canonical has announced development of a new open source display server called Mir. This server is intended as "a replacement for the X Window server system to unlock next-generation user experiences for devices ranging from Linux desktop to mobile devices powered by Ubuntu."
According to the Mir spec page, the purpose of Mir is to enable the development of the next generation Unity and, contrary to some previous speculation, it will not be based upon the Wayland display server and protocol, which has received attention recently as a possible X replacement.
The Mir specification page gives three principal reasons why Canonical wants to replace the venerable X Window, which has served the Linux and Unix communities for 30 years:
- X Window shares too much system state across process boundaries.
- The complexity of X Window leaves room for applications to spoof input events they don't own.
- The compositor hierarchy ends on the session level. (The graphical shell starts after boot, with no ingrataion of the shell from boot time).
Canonical's grand vision of a single platform for mobile and desktop systems has already led to the development of the homegrown Unity desktop; Mir now takes that integration down deeper into the system.
The roadmap states that, by May 2013, the project intends to integrate "Unity Next with Mir and provide enough facility to start iterating the actual shell development, providing developers with a solid platform and designers with means for rapid prototyping." By October 2013, Unity Next and Mir window management should be completely integrated to support an Ubuntu Phone product. According to the spec, the developers want to fully replace X in user sessions and provide a legacy mode to support X clients. By April 2014, they plan to achieve "complete convergence across the form factors."
The Mir project will produce the libmir-server and libmir-client libraries.
Issue 268/2023
Buy this issue as a PDF
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
-
Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers
A Linux vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 has been found to affect SMB servers and can lead to remote code execution.
-
Linux Mint 21.1 Now Available with Plenty of Look and Feel Changes
Vera has arrived and although it is still using kernel 5.15, there are plenty of improvements sure to please everyone.