X11 programming is the sucks

12/31/2010 2:23:31 AM

By RetroRalph

I'm not used to programming on Linux, and I guess most Linux developers aren't either. How can I say such a thing? Well you take a look at the core Linux APIs and they are a bit like a 300 page manual on how to make toast.

Most Linux devs tell you "don't use X11, use something like SDL". X11 is the core windowing system for Linux and compared to Microsoft Windows it sucks. And it's not like MS Windows is that fantastic itself, but my god, it is no surprise no one recommends you to touch something like X11. Take a look over the SDL source and how it interacts with X11 and you'll see most of it spattered with comments describing the madness. As to why I'm not using something like SDL to save myself this headache, using SDL limits the effectiveness of the multicore design of RetroCopy.

But oh well, after wrangling with X11 for 8 hours or so I have it working, I believe. It works for me anyhow and one tester that has Linux. There were some small issues I had with lowercasing all the filenames internally that I had to fix for Linux as it is case sensitive. The Linux build should be out tomorrow.

3 responses to X11 programming is the sucks

panzeroceania wrote:

12/31/2010 4:44:31 PM

You should look into Wayland. It is replacing X11 in many Linux distros and is looking to be a serious contender. It might be more powerful for you

RetroRalph wrote:

12/31/2010 10:45:06 PM

Just quickly reading up on Wayland and that seems a lot better! Of course to RetroCopy that sort of power is irrelevant because the way Wayland works is how RC works internally with its own GUI. All I need is a frame buffer to blit to. It's just annoying dealing with all the little X11 issues simply to have a window that can accept input and draw some OpenGL. The API reference for X11 is a joke also, leaving you to look at what others have done to get the voodoo working.

If Wayland becomes the standard then composition at a Vista/Win7 level (Compiz isn't at that level currently, it's more like a 3D hack for Windows XP) will be possible, which should be nice for Linux provided the API is nice and clean. It will also be good removing that X-Window junk.

panzeroceania wrote:

1/1/2011 6:20:04 AM

look out for the next Ubuntu release, that'll be a sure sign of the way things are headed.

Add Comment
RetroCopy: Making emulation easy and fun.
  |   RetroCopy © 2011