X Window System boot stipple

[Retrograde]

From the «early days are best days» department:
Title: Iconography of the X Window System: the boot stipple
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:22:49 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/140211/iconography-of-the-x-window-system-the-boot-stipple/


For the uninitiated, what are we looking at? Could it be the Moiré Error[1]
from Doom? Well, no. You are looking at (part of) the boot up screen for the
X Window System[2], specifically the pattern it uses as the background of the
root window[3]. This pattern is technically called a stipple[4].

What you’re seeing is pretty important and came to symbolize a lot for me as
a computer practitioner.
↫ Matt T. Proud[5]

The X bootup pattern is definitely burnt onto my retina, as it probably is for
a lot of late ’90s, early 2000s Linux users. Setting up X correctly, and more
importantly, not breaking it later, was almost an art at the time, so any time
you loaded up your PC and this pattern didn’t greet you, you’d get this
sinister feeling in the pit of your stomach. There was now a very real chance
you were going to have to debug your X configuration file, and nobody –
absolutely nobody – liked doing that, and if you did, you’re lying.

Matt T. Proud dove into the history of the X stipple, and discovered it’s been
part of X since pretty much the very beginning, and even more esoteric X
implementations, like the ones used by Solaris or the various commercial
versions, have the stipple. He also discovered several other variants of the
stipple included in X, so there is a chance your memory might be just a tiny
bit different.

The stipple eventually disappeared at around 2008 or so, it disappeared as part
of the various efforts to modernise, sanitise, and speed up the Linux boot
process on desktops. On modern distributions still using X, you won’t encounter
it anymore by default, but in true X fashion, the code is still there and you
can easily bring it back using a flag specifically designed for it, -retro,
that you can use with startx or your X init file.

There’s a ton more information in Proud’s excellent article, but this one
paragraph made me smile:

I will remark that in spite of my job being a software engineer, I had never
spent a lot of time looking at the source code for the X Server (XFree86 or
X.Org) before. It’s really nuts to see that a lot of the architecture from
X10R3 and X11R1 still persists in the code today, which is a statement that
can be said in deep admiration for legacy code but also disturbance from the
power of old decisions. Without having looked at the internals of any Wayland
implementation, I can sympathize sight unseen with the sentiments that some
developers have toward the X Window System: the code is a dead end. I say
that with the utmost respect to the X Window System as a technology and an
ecosystem. I’ll keep using X, and I will be really sad when it’s no longer
possible for me to do so for one reason or another, as I’m extremely attached
to it quirks. But it’s clear the future is limited.
↫ Matt T. Proud[5]

We all have great – and not so great – memories of X, but I am really, really
happy I no longer have to use it.

Links:
[1]: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_error (link)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System (link)
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_window (link)
[4]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stipple (link)
[5]: https://matttproud.com/blog/posts/x-window-system-boot-stipple.html (link)

[Oregonian Haruspex]

Post by Retrograde
Title: Iconography of the X Window System: the boot stipple
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:22:49 +0000
https://www.osnews.com/story/140211/iconography-of-the-x-window-system-the-boot-stipple/
For the uninitiated, what are we looking at? Could it be the Moiré Error[1]
from Doom? Well, no. You are looking at (part of) the boot up screen for the
X Window System[2], specifically the pattern it uses as the background of the
root window[3]. This pattern is technically called a stipple[4].
What you’re seeing is pretty important and came to symbolize a lot for me as
a computer practitioner.
↫ Matt T. Proud[5]
The X bootup pattern is definitely burnt onto my retina, as it probably is for
a lot of late ’90s, early 2000s Linux users. Setting up X correctly, and more
importantly, not breaking it later, was almost an art at the time, so any time
you loaded up your PC and this pattern didn’t greet you, you’d get this
sinister feeling in the pit of your stomach. There was now a very real chance
you were going to have to debug your X configuration file, and nobody –
absolutely nobody – liked doing that, and if you did, you’re lying.
Matt T. Proud dove into the history of the X stipple, and discovered it’s been
part of X since pretty much the very beginning, and even more esoteric X
implementations, like the ones used by Solaris or the various commercial
versions, have the stipple. He also discovered several other variants of the
stipple included in X, so there is a chance your memory might be just a tiny
bit different.
The stipple eventually disappeared at around 2008 or so, it disappeared as part
of the various efforts to modernise, sanitise, and speed up the Linux boot
process on desktops. On modern distributions still using X, you won’t encounter
it anymore by default, but in true X fashion, the code is still there and you
can easily bring it back using a flag specifically designed for it, -retro,
that you can use with startx or your X init file.
There’s a ton more information in Proud’s excellent article, but this one
I will remark that in spite of my job being a software engineer, I had never
spent a lot of time looking at the source code for the X Server (XFree86 or
X.Org) before. It’s really nuts to see that a lot of the architecture from
X10R3 and X11R1 still persists in the code today, which is a statement that
can be said in deep admiration for legacy code but also disturbance from the
power of old decisions. Without having looked at the internals of any Wayland
implementation, I can sympathize sight unseen with the sentiments that some
developers have toward the X Window System: the code is a dead end. I say
that with the utmost respect to the X Window System as a technology and an
ecosystem. I’ll keep using X, and I will be really sad when it’s no longer
possible for me to do so for one reason or another, as I’m extremely attached
to it quirks. But it’s clear the future is limited.
↫ Matt T. Proud[5]
We all have great – and not so great – memories of X, but I am really, really
happy I no longer have to use it.
[1]: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_error (link)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System (link)
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_window (link)
[4]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stipple (link)
[5]: https://matttproud.com/blog/posts/x-window-system-boot-stipple.html (link)

Ideally, anti-X11 advocates should be deported, or processed into stem
cells.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Oregonian Haruspex
Ideally, anti-X11 advocates should be deported, or processed into stem
cells.

+1

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Retrograde
For the uninitiated, what are we looking at?

Wasn’t it just the 25% grey pattern copied from the Apple Macintosh from
1984?

[Javier]

Post by Retrograde
Title: Iconography of the X Window System: the boot stipple
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:22:49 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/140211/iconography-of-the-x-window-system-the-boot-stipple/
(...)
implementation, I can sympathize sight unseen with the sentiments that some
developers have toward the X Window System: the code is a dead end.
(...)
I’ll keep using X, and I will be really sad when it’s no longer
possible for me to do so for one reason or another

OSnews and other media are publishing these articles to push the idea
that X11 is going to fade as a memory. OSnews published another article
recently about twm. And in my YouTube feed I'm also getting recommendations
with videos about the history of X11 (from the channel RetroBytes).

It's quite subtle, but this is a marketing campaign to promote Wayland and to
stop devs from writing applications for X11 (which is the most stable
and portable API).

In any case, reading about the history of X11 is an interesting topic.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

... this is a marketing campaign ...

Who is paying for it?

[Javier]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... this is a marketing campaign ...

Who is paying for it?

There is very little money involved with these marketing campaigns.
The campaign is just moved by a few people working at some foundation
(possibly freedesktop.org), and what they get paid is peanuts. They
mostly do it to advance their careers or to get invited at conferences.
And the journalists and content creators are not being paid anything.
They just do these articles/videos because they get their ideas of what
to publish from somewhere else.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Javier

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... this is a marketing campaign ...

Who is paying for it?

There is very little money involved with these marketing campaigns.

With any conspiracy theory, the question to ask is “cui bono?” (“whose
benefit?”). Or, if you prefer, “follow the money”.

Nobody wastes their time on running expensive advertising campaigns unless
they hope to get something out of it.

[Oregonian Haruspex]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... this is a marketing campaign ...

Who is paying for it?

MS, IBM/RedHat, and the NSA.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Oregonian Haruspex

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

... this is a marketing campaign ...

Who is paying for it?

MS, IBM/RedHat, and the NSA.

What do they get out of it? You think they will make loadsamoney from
Wayland-based products?

[John McCue]

Javier <***@invalid.invalid> wrote:
<snip>

Post by Javier
OSnews and other media are publishing these articles to push
the idea that X11 is going to fade as a memory.

I doubt they are doing it on purpose, how many new pro-X11
articles are being published. None to very few, I think
if some were being written, you would see it on OSNews.

Post by Javier
OSnews published another article recently about twm. And
in my YouTube feed I'm also getting recommendations
with videos about the history of X11 (from the channel
RetroBytes).

Case in point, someone put out an article about twm(1) and
it ended up on OSNews. I cannot get to OSNews because the
captha check freezes my browser right now, but I thought
I saw another X11 article there too.

Post by Javier
It's quite subtle, but this is a marketing campaign to promote
Wayland and to stop devs from writing applications for X11
(which is the most stable and portable API).

Personally, I think Wayland is being pushed because that
is where the action is right now. Also, people have yet
to bring this up, the main developer of Wayland is also
one of the main developers for Xorg.

Post by Javier
In any case, reading about the history of X11 is an interesting topic.

Yes

Right now, I am hoping the BSDs would get together to keep
X current, but I kind of doubt that will happen.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Right now, I am hoping the BSDs would get together to keep X current,
but I kind of doubt that will happen.

The code doesn’t write itself.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by John McCue
Right now, I am hoping the BSDs would get together to keep
X current, but I kind of doubt that will happen.

What's "current"? The biggest issue would be changes to the
operating systems that break old X code, and then obviously that
will be easy for the BSDs to fix/avoid because they're the ones
making the changes.

The other would be compiler changes breaking builds, but again such
people working on other big projects shouldn't struggle to tackle
that.

There's also graphics drivers, but then the X developers didn't
have the muscle to keep up with them on their own before anyway,
hence the widespread use of proprietary Nvidia drivers. Personally
my modest graphics needs are served by the VESA or framebuffer
drivers (I'm not sure if the latter exists on BSD), so I don't
really care whether X is "current" driver-wise.

Perhaps long-term the issue might be whether it's ported to new CPU
architectures like RISCV? That's a long way off though, there might
even be a replacement for Wayland by then.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
Perhaps long-term the issue might be whether it's ported to new CPU
architectures like RISCV? That's a long way off though, there might even
be a replacement for Wayland by then.

Linux already runs on RISC-V.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
Perhaps long-term the issue might be whether it's ported to new CPU
architectures like RISCV? That's a long way off though, there might even
be a replacement for Wayland by then.

Linux already runs on RISC-V.

That itself doesn't imply much because X.org has its own
architecture-dependent code, but I see that Debian does have
riscv64 package for X.org so I guess it does work.

The current development version of the release notes document
still doesn't mention it though, so possibly unofficial?

"Xorg currently has support for Linux, Solaris, and some BSD OSs on
Alpha, PowerPC, IA-64, AMD64, Intel x86, Sparc, and MIPS
platforms."
https://lab.vern.cc/gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/doc/xorg-docs/-/blob/master/general/ReleaseNotes.xml

[Retrograde]

Post by Javier
OSnews and other media are publishing these articles to push the idea
that X11 is going to fade as a memory. OSnews published another article
recently about twm. And in my YouTube feed I'm also getting recommendations
with videos about the history of X11 (from the channel RetroBytes).

Anyone who's read OSNews for a while (I began in around 2002 I think)
know that website is basically a labor of love, and Mr. Holwerda drifts
from one interest to another, as his articles track his interests.
There was a series of articles about Palm at one point. I highly doubt
they were promoting anything other than his own curiosity.

I enjoyed the allegation that the NSA is behind this though.