RFC: Sunsetting XRender backend
Vlad Zahorodnii <[email protected]> Tue, 8 Jun 2021 18:39:43 +0300
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.kde.devel.kwin |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hi, The Xrender backend was added at the time when OpenGL drivers were not particularly known for being rock solid stable. So, having Xrender render backend as fallback did make a lot of sense back then. Nowadays though, it's not the case. OpenGL render backend has been the default one for many years. It's quite stable, and it allows implementing more features, e.g. wobbly windows effect, etc. Given that, the Xrender render backend is in a bitrotten state now. Many features are not tested with it; the only time when it gets noticed is when changes in other parts of kwin break build in the xrender backend. Another issue is that we would like to provide better integration between kwin's scene graph and qtquick's scene graph. QtQuick doesn't support and most likely will never support Xrender. This poses a problem as we would like to provide native thumbnail item support in qtquick and re-implement effects such as desktop grid and present windows using QML. Given the bitrotten state, our focus being shifted towards wayland, and no native Xrender support in qtquick, I propose to remove the xrender backend. Thoughts? Cheers, Vlad