[HN Gopher] Greenfield - The In-Browser Wayland Compositor
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       Greenfield - The In-Browser Wayland Compositor
        
       Author : cunidev
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2021-11-16 12:33 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | hbogert wrote:
       | After 15y of Linux I have pretty good understanding of the kernel
       | subsystems. If I hit an issue I have pretty good first hunch on
       | where to look.
       | 
       | But the graphical stack, it's just so opaque. DRM, mesa, X and
       | all its extensions and userspace drivers, Wayland and its
       | compositors, DRI, RADV. Is there any good read or a video which
       | ties all these concepts together?
        
         | evmar wrote:
         | Missing the most recent developments but still mostly accurate:
         | http://neugierig.org/software/blog/2011/11/graphics-stack.ht...
        
       | modeless wrote:
       | Every web project ought to have a hosted demo, but I couldn't
       | find one here.
        
         | zubnix wrote:
         | There used to be one for about half a year I believe, but I
         | found 280 dollars a month (gpu cloud is crazy expensive) too
         | costly for just a demo.
        
         | billconan wrote:
         | because it is costly to scale a video streaming app.
        
           | modeless wrote:
           | Seems like it ought to be possible to run the client in the
           | browser too and do everything locally for a demo.
        
       | charwalker wrote:
       | Greenfield is an existing tech buzzword. Does this leverage the
       | same mentality or just a name?
        
         | zubnix wrote:
         | Greenfield is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Just like
         | Wayland.
        
       | ComputerGuru wrote:
       | This is very nice to see, as someone that hasn't made the Wayland
       | jump for both pragmatic and philosophical reasons. It looks like
       | it needs more security and locking down, but that's doable with
       | existing web tech.
        
         | mcbuilder wrote:
         | Yeah, I'm in the same boat in that I haven't made the jump.
         | Wayland feels very wild west at the moment, but full of cool
         | tech. It's great that we have so much choice in Linux land, you
         | can be just as productive with a "stable" system, or have some
         | fun and switch to experimental or seldom used solutions
        
         | zubnix wrote:
         | Absolutely, that's why I am integrating it with kubernetes so
         | each app is locked down and containerised while you as a user
         | don't even notice it.
        
       | CyberRabbi wrote:
       | To the authors, is it possible to have a "local mode" that
       | doesn't use gstreamer to encode the application frame from the
       | server to the client and instead passes a gpu memory reference
       | from the application to the browser? Like the way wayland
       | compositors generally work. There must be some GL extension that
       | can enable that functionality.
        
       | m33k44 wrote:
       | > It can run native Wayland applications remotely
       | 
       | Have we come full circle?
       | 
       | Also, similar interesting, but old, project is:
       | https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/tree/master/gdk/broadway
        
         | FreeFull wrote:
         | One difference is that while broadway only works with GTK
         | programs, Greenfield theoretically should work with any
         | Wayland-supporting program (including apps using GTK 3 or 4). I
         | wonder what options there are for running an X11 server in a
         | browser..
        
           | funcDropShadow wrote:
           | Wasn't getting rid of the network transparency the proclaimed
           | reason to switch from X to Wayland?
        
             | solarkraft wrote:
             | No, not at all. It was just a FUD argument.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | There was an X initiative, also called Broadway, to remote X
           | applications over relatively slow internet links. I seem to
           | recall a browser plugin X server as part of this.
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | > I wonder what options there are for running an X11 server
           | in a browser..
           | 
           | Xpra can do something like that, or you can run a headless X
           | server with x11vnc, or just Xvnc, and then front it with
           | Apache Guacamole or such.
        
       | zubnix wrote:
       | Author here. If you want to know a bit more about the history of
       | greenfield, I've written a bit about it on twitter:
       | https://mobile.twitter.com/FriedChicken/status/1420671685485...
        
         | macinjosh wrote:
         | Does it run games? :)
        
           | zubnix wrote:
           | Not tested but it could although rather slowly as currently
           | the proxy compositor does not expose OpenGL capabilities for
           | doing zero copy application buffer passing. With enough time
           | you could completely integrate it with steam though...
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-16 23:02 UTC)