Ubuntu
ratpoison package

Port from legacy Xlib to modern XCB

Bug #1030022 reported by Fred
14
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
9wm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
aewm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
aewm++ (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
afterstep (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
amiwm (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Lenin
blackbox (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
cairo (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
compiz (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Wishlist
Unassigned
ctwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
dwm (Ubuntu)
Opinion
Undecided
Unassigned
enlightenment (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
fvwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
fvwm1 (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
gtk+3.0 (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
icewm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
jwm (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Samuel Henrique
larswm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
lwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
matchbox-window-manager (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
metacity (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
miwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
muffin (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
mutter (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
pekwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
ratpoison (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
sapphire (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
sawfish (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
spectrwm (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
tinywm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
tritium (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
twm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
vtwm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
w9wm (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
windowlab (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
wm2 (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
wmaker (Ubuntu)
Opinion
Undecided
Unassigned
xmonad (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Port/rewrite the window manager to use the modern XCB (X C Binding) library instead of the old legacy Xlib.

See original description
Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) wrote :

Deleted the kdebase-workspace task since this is an upstream issue and we don't track upstream KDE issues in Launchpad. Users interested in getting issues resolved in KDE packages should file bugs at bugs.kde.org.

no longer affects: kdebase-workspace (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Mathias Gumz (akira-9) wrote :

upstream issue, fluxbox.org has it's own bugtracker as well:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=35398&atid=413963

Changed in fluxbox (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Paul Tagliamonte (paultag) wrote :

Deleted the Fluxbox entry. It's upstream and borderline absurd. Xlib is not deprecated. The gains from XCB are not worth the instability in porting it.

no longer affects: fluxbox (Ubuntu)
Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)
no longer affects: xfwm4 (Ubuntu)
Christoph Egger (christoph-egger)
Changed in herbstluftwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)
no longer affects: herbstluftwm (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad) wrote :

herbstluftwm developer is using Xlib on purpose and considers it a feature.

Changed in herbstluftwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Clarified bug description. Xlib is asynchronous already, by design. The real difference with XCB is mentioned here: http://xcb.freedesktop.org/

Changed in compiz (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Triaged
description: updated
description: updated
Changed in compiz:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Christoph Kappel (unexist) wrote :

There's just no gain in porting subtle from xlib to xcb and I personally don't like the concept behind xcb at all.

Changed in subtle (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Ronny Cardona (rcart) wrote :

Hello,

Spectrwm has moved from Xlib to XCB in upstream. Debian Maintainer is a little busy right now and will update it as soon as he can.

I think that Spectrwm 2.X (XCB version) will not reach Quantal Quetzal, but I'm thinking to keep it updated in my PPA (or request a merge for it).

Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)
Changed in spectrwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad) wrote :

Kwin (KDE)

Fredrik merged in the initial port from XLib to XCB. This is an important step on the road towards Qt 5 support inside KWin and will probably require still quite some work during the 4.11 cycle.

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/11/this-week-in-kwin-2012-week-44-45/

Revision history for this message
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad) wrote :

Fredrik merged in the initial port from XLib to XCB.

Changed in kdebase-workspace (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Committed
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)
affects: gtk (Ubuntu) → gtk+3.0 (Ubuntu)
affects: qt5 (Ubuntu) → qt4-x11 (Ubuntu)
Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)
Changed in qt4-x11 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Won't Fix
Harald Sitter (apachelogger)
no longer affects: qt4-x11 (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: kdebase-workspace (Ubuntu)
Paul Tagliamonte (paultag)
no longer affects: wmii (Ubuntu)
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)
no longer affects: subtle (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Mateusz Łukasik (mati75) wrote :

It's total stupid idea.

Changed in evilwm (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Mateusz Łukasik (mati75)
status: New → Opinion
assignee: Mateusz Łukasik (mati75) → nobody
status: Opinion → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
raboof (arnouten) wrote :

Xlib is not deprecated and XCB is not obviously superior.

'This bug affects 1 person.'

Removing notion from the list - shouldn't this bug report be removed entirely?

Changed in notion (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Revision history for this message
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad) wrote :

Xlib is synchronous.
XCB is asynchronous.

Asynchronous is superior to synchronous because it executes things in parallel without waiting hence is faster, has less delay/latency and is more responsive.

Mateusz Łukasik (mati75)
Changed in evilwm (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
Changed in openbox (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Revision history for this message
Axel Beckert (xtaran) wrote :

flwm does not use xlib directly but through FLTK. Hence flwm is the wrong place to file such a bug report.

Changed in flwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Albin Tonnerre (lutin) wrote :

This bug is not applicable to dvtm: it's a terminal-only program

Changed in dvtm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
affects: dvtm (Ubuntu) → ubuntu
Albin Tonnerre (lutin)
affects: ubuntu → dvtm (Ubuntu)
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)
no longer affects: dvtm (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: notion (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: herbstluftwm (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: openbox (Ubuntu)
Mathew Hodson (mhodson)
affects: libcairo (Ubuntu) → cairo (Ubuntu)
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)
no longer affects: evilwm (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: flwm (Ubuntu)
no longer affects: clutter (Ubuntu)
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)
Changed in spectrwm (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Hugo Lefeuvre (hlef)
Changed in dwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Revision history for this message
Alberts Muktupāvels (muktupavels) wrote :

Not planned.

Changed in metacity (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)
summary: - Port from legacy Xlib to to modern XCB
+ Port from legacy Xlib to modern XCB
Revision history for this message
Samuel Henrique (samueloph) wrote :

See discussion at:
https://github.com/joewing/jwm/issues/194

Changed in jwm (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Samuel Henrique (samueloph)
status: New → Invalid
Doug Torrance (profzoom)
Changed in wmaker (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Lenin (gagarin)
Changed in amiwm (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Lenin (gagarin)
Lenin (gagarin)
Changed in amiwm (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Joshua Peisach (itzswirlz) wrote :

It looks like this was already changed more recently in 2019/2020 with 4.4 - 4.6

Changed in muffin (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Mutter already uses XCB. And even if it didn't this is probably not the right place to request that projects make such large changes.

Changed in mutter (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Alberts Muktupāvels (muktupavels)
no longer affects: compiz
Changed in compiz (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

This bug has been open for 10 years now and I don't think it's reasonable to ask that legacy apps be redesigned, if those apps even have developers anymore. They may well use "legacy" Xlib but also XCB is "legacy" now too. Please focus on Wayland for new projects.

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