On Wed, 02 Jul 2025 19:40:13 +0100 "Artur Manuel" <amad@atl.tools> said:
> Hello, hope this email comes in good faith. > > I was thinking of any benefits that could arise from moving the X11 > socket from /tmp/.X11-unix to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/.X11-unix and I thought > of a few. This thought was inspired by Wayland and their approach for > sockets, and from how I see it, it may benefit XWayland. > > - Moving the X11 socket to XDG_RUNTIME_DIR makes Xorg seem as if it is > willing to adopt the XDG specification (which it already does with > Xorg logs going to ~/.local/share/Xorg), but I feel as if this change > would cement that further. you'd break compat for any binaries that statically compiled xlib etc. in. they would have no idea where to find the socket for DISPLAY=:0 ... > - I think that the X11 socket being so easy to access (as it is 0777, > and in /tmp) is a security flaw which shouldn't exist even in terms of > backwards compatibility. I think this can be resolved by > symlinking, but if most programs work fine without needing to symlink > then that's amazing. so do you propose the xserver sets up these symlinks? if x is running as $USER then putting it in the xdg runtime dir makes sense. but then... you have issues with multiple users fighting over /tmp/.X11-unix for the compat symlinks (in the in the case of 2 x sessions running as 2 users on different vt's etc.). > - You wouldn't run into unpredictability issues regarding where the X11 > socket is on many systems, as most systems now use XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. As > for Windows, they can keep %TEMP% or %TMP% or whatever it is called. > I also believe some of the Windows-specific functions could benefit > from a rewrite, so moving the socket may bring that closer. i agree in principle a xorg running as $USER (not root) would be a cleaner/better solution with the socket where you propose... but changing this has implications for compatibility. this is a choice of "keep compat" or "improve things and maybe break a few things on the way". i PERSONALLY would vote for small breaks like this as being acceptable for their improvements, as i would also vote in general for improvements to xorg and protocols if they broke things in clever and well through out ways to make it a better place. i'm just pointing out that there is an issue that comes along with this. > I thought of these for a while and was thinking of where I could ask > about it to but I want to ask about it here before taking any bigger > steps. I admittedly am not the greatest fan of Xorg but I need to wait > for the Wayland situation to improve on FreeBSD before I make the > switch. It is okay now but not amazing in it's current state, while Xorg > is just good enough on here for me to use it. > > I look forward to your (plural) views. > > Cheers, > -- > Artur Manuel (amadaluzia) > -- ------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" -------------- Carsten Haitzler - ras...@rasterman.com
