Wayfire

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On 2020-05-19 22:57, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-05-19 at 12:28 -0400, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
>> I *REALLY REALLY LIKE* network transparency, and don't believe
>> Wayland cares about it at all
> 
> Tell me what network transparency is and why Wayland doesn't have
> it... 

The nutshell is that it means running remote apps locally.  E.g.,
ssh -X remotehost "wireshark & xterm&"
and lo!  You now have a Wireshark window and an xterm, both executing on 
the remote host.  Not simply ssh'd into it, but actually *executing on 
it*, and exporting their windows back to your desktop.  From an admin 
standpoint, this can be really handy -- though it's something I don't 
use too often, because X was never fast with displaying remote stuff, 
and over a VPN, a complex app can be really slow.

Why didn't Wayland have it?  Because, apparently, nobody thought it was 
a useful feature; instead, there were RDP-like solutions.  But I rarely 
want a whole remote desktop when I want something from a remote host -- 
it's vastly more elegant to simply have another window open for a given 
remote app, and have it play well with my local windows.

Now, however -- as my last e-mail pointed out -- someone's done the hard 
work of enabling network transparency, and, even better, has put thought 
into how to make it more efficient than X, which was sorely needed, 
indeed.  I'm pretty freakig happy with this thinking, and am about to 
see if I can't get it going.

That's 'bout it...

-Ken