[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

get rid of everything Xorg

I agree, all the apps I use run natively on Wayland, but I think there will always be some legacy X11 apps that won't get ported. So, I think I'll implement it, but it is definitely not a priority.

replace OpenGL with Vulkan

I think I can just add support for Vulkan. There is no need to get rid of GLES as it increases the range of supported devices.

not sure what is the state in smaller distros. Maybe it would be good to reach out to LinuxMint, lxqt and others to see what would it take for them to switch. If you could implement needed features easily…maybe they would switch.

I know that Linux Mint already has support for Wayland. I am not sure which library or base compositor they are using, but I am always willing to support anyone using Louvre. Right now, I want to focus on developing my own compositor, which I'll name Crystals.

RDP?

That's an important feature, which I'll add at some point.

Html? E.g. https://greenfield.app/

Looks very interesting! I wonder how it works, so I definitely will check it out.

consider moving to codeberg?

Why?

Another question came to my mind: how is video processing handled? There were some changes in Mutter and/or gtk4 so it would be efficient, any chance for louvre to have it?. E.g. https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-46-Beta-Released

Currently, the only type of buffers that are directly scanned out are cursors. I want to add an API to allow the use of other types of buffers soon. It is a bit complicated because overlay planes are very hardware-dependent and limited, and they support a few specific formats/modifiers. So, you also need to negotiate that with the client and so on.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 19 points 5 months ago

Louvre is less modular but handles a lot of tedious tasks behind the scenes, providing a simple API (the enjoyable/creative part I'd say) without sacrificing much flexibility. On the other hand, Wlroots is excellent and highly modular, which is good, but it also means it places all the responsibility on you. You must invest time to fully understand each protocol and implement many tedious tasks yourself, which naturally takes quite some time. Additionally, Louvre is multi-threaded, as seen in the benchmark results in the repository, resulting in higher and more stable FPS compared to single-threaded designs when rendering complex scenes.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago

Thank you :)

what about Vulkan instead GL? Should be more performant and use less battery. Especially if it is meant to also work on mobile.

Yes, I believe I could create a renderer using Vulkan without much difficulty. Initially, I chose GLES2 for compatibility reasons.

is Louvre drawing those window decorations?

Yes, only the decorations with macOS style.

there is some overlap with https://github.com/winft/theseus-ship - any idea for a collaboration there?

Well, that's a compositor (which uses COMO) and Louvre is a library, so sure, I could collaborate with COMO.

there seems to be a company behind, while I didn’t investigate, are there plans for further development that you would publish, is there a way to influence those plans (suggestions, donations, some other way)

Cuarzo Software is just a name I use to release my open source projects, it’s not a real company. Everyone is welcome to suggest ideas or contribute to the development of these projects, and I genuinely appreciate that.

any plans to make a shell around it?

If time allows me, of course.

it is mentioned that this is a library, but obviously there is a working compositor. Regardless if this is a technology demonstrator, would it be possible to publish a compositor with decent theming and a few distinct layer modes (classic windows with taskbar, windows 8 like, Mac, gnome, ubuntu). I guess many smaller Linux DEs would consider it then…

Absolutely, you're free to build a compositor however you like, whether it's in 2D, 3D, or any other style. Essentially, it's akin to creating a game, with window applications acting as textures.

how does it compare to kwin/mutter?

Those are compositors and Louvre is just a library, so I don't know how to compare them. As you noticed, the compositor in the video is just one of the examples I made with Louvre.

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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share with you (once more) the release of Louvre v2.0.0 (C++ library for building Wayland compositors) #linux .

Demo Video.

Highlights of the new features:

  • Screencasting: Now compatible with PipeWire via xdg-desktop-portal-wlr.
  • Session Lock Protocol: Allows for the display of login windows.
  • Layer Shell Protocol: For wallpapers, panels, notifications, etc.
  • New Input Events API: Enhanced with support for touch events, pointer gestures, and pointer constraints.

Release Details.

If there's any protocol or functionality you would like to see added, please feel free to suggest it or contribute to its development!

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not yet, I mean, XWayland rootful mode has always been supported. But in this mode, all X application windows are rendered within a single Wayland window, enabling functionalities such as running an entire X Desktop Environment within the compositor. However, what hasn't been implemented yet is the rootless mode. In rootless mode, each X window is treated as a separate Wayland window, enabling better integration with the compositor.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

Do you mean Desktop Environment? If so, the screenshot is from one of the library's example compositors named louvre-views. You can find more details about it here.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

Thank you for the advice :)

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 29 points 9 months ago

My apologies for any confusion. I have now updated the post. Thank you!

172
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Hello, yesterday we released Louvre 1.2.0 (C++ library for building Wayland compositors):

Main New Features:

  • Fractional Scaling (with optional oversampling)
  • VSync control (with optional refresh rate limiting)
  • Gamma Correction

New Wayland Protocols:

  • Viewporter
  • Fractional Scale
  • Tearing Control
  • Wlr Gamma Control

See the GitHub Release

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

The idea of single, double, and triple buffering revolves around how many framebuffers we use for display rendering. Typically, we go with double buffering, displaying one framebuffer while rendering happens on the other. Swap them, and the cycle continues. The goal is to prevent screen tearing and glitches from popping up on the screen.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Thanks! While I may have nailed server-side decorations in that example, as you know, there is too much other stuff to take into account to make a DE actually functional. So, I respect a lot what KDE and GNOME do and the innovations they make. I actually want to create a macOS clone, hahaha. That is one of the reasons I started this project. I will soon continue working on a library for exposing global menus in Wayland/X11. Qt allows defining a custom platform plugin, enabling us to plug external systems for managing global menus. Sadly, I think GTK4 no longer supports that, so I believe an approach would be to display a standard menu with basic functions for apps that don't support it.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I completely agree. I invest time in implementing protocols within the library, allowing it to handle many tasks autonomously, thus relieving developers from manually wiring everything themselves—without compromising flexibility oc. Regarding "later shell," did you mean "layer shell"? Developers can certainly still implement protocols not included with Louvre on their own, but that's not quite the intended approach.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

The dock is rendered directly by the compositor in one of the examples; it's not an external application as it ideally should be. It doesn't rely on any intricate protocols or systemd services to monitor the states of apps. I added it solely for demonstration purposes.

[-] ehopperdietzel@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes (kinda), that is a screenshot of one of the example compositors I included called "louvre-views" which implements server side decorations for apps that support the XDG Decoration protocol.

230

Hello, yesterday I officially released Louvre v1.0.0, a C++ library designed for building Wayland compositors with a primary focus on ease of development. It provides a default method for handling protocols, input events, and rendering, which you can selectively and progressively override as required, allowing you to see a functional compositor from day 1.

It supports multi-GPU setups, multi-session (TTY switching), and offers various rendering options, including a scene and view system that automatically repaints only the damaged (changing) regions during a frame. Because it uses multiple threads, it can maintain a high FPS rate with v-sync enabled when rendering complex scenarios. In contrast, single-threaded compositors often experience a rapid drop in FPS, for example, from 60 to 30 fps, due to "dead times" while waiting for a screen vblank, leading to the skipping of frames.

The library is freely available, open source, thoroughly documented, includes examples, and features a detailed tutorial.

You can find it here: https://github.com/CuarzoSoftware/Louvre

I hope it proves useful for you. If you decide to use it and encounter any doubts or wish to contribute to its development, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Greetings!

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ehopperdietzel

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