Nova🐧✨

ace agender autistic dev working on an XR system UI for Linux that'll hopefully make tech more trustworthy, flexible, intuitive, and accessible. Massive Tron fan; totally an ISO.

Let me know if you have any questions about my interests (i will infodump) and check out my project (Stardust XR) :D

Pronouns: they/them
Stardust XR: https://stardustxr.org/

Last Notes

2026-03-20 18:16:09 UTC

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ohno already??? :((

2025-07-31 17:59:51 UTC

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I don't think they're trying to kill it on desktop, you can often still install the X11 version... but not making it the default makes sense for a lot of users

2025-07-29 07:06:20 UTC

I want to defend Wayland here and explain a crucial piece that I think people are missing...
The splitting of protocols in Wayland and compositor reimplementation were to allow for new form factors. It had to sacrifice the guarantee of all desktop app functionality being present to achieve that.
The idea (as I see it) was never to have 500 desktop compositors all trying to reimplement the same thing with slight differences. Iinstead, it was for 500 different interfaces for different platforms that are compatible with the same apps (e.g. desktop, laptop, phone, car screens, AR/VR, watch). Different form factors have totally different ways of dealing with interface, but share enough common features where it makes sense to have 1 base protocol and many other ones for device/form specific features.
Problem is, while in 2008-2016 we had a ton of new experimental UIs coming out on a semi-regular basis (that was the peak of the whole convergent phone/tablet craze, smartwatches started, fancy car UI, touch tables, early AR/VR) things have quieted down. The purpose of Wayland's insane modularity hasn't been visible to most people given it's almost always complained about in a desktop contest vs X11. But X11 was literally only designed for a desktop form factor and has been refined for that 1 purpose for decades!
As an example of different form factors, Wayland lets IVI (in-vehicle infotainment) systems work way better than Xorg could have. Desktop window layouting on that platform would inherently produce massive amounts of unnecessary complexity, and the ability to direct scanout saves on power/expensive compute. Automotive Grade Linux and COVESA maintain reference interfaces for cars so companies can iterate a ton faster. Wayland gives the app compatibility and they can make the system UI work with more flexibility and ease than an X11 window manager.
Take Linux Mobile too, the compositor can reliably enforce window layout and boundaries and composition. While this could technically be done with an X window manager and compositor, doing it with Wayland guarantees reliability as the app simply doesn't have a choice or room for error. Some things like drag and drop of toolbars doesn't make much sense on mobile given how small the screens are.
There's some interfaces where X11 is basically impossible to use. In AR/VR (where i am making a Wayland compositor) the concept of a screen simply does not exist. How is an app supposed to position itself when the very concept of 3D is not part of the protocol? In Wayland I don't have to implement the protocols that don''t work (e.g. layer shell) and therefore any apps that don't need it will be compatible..
Wayland has allowed for insane levels of flexibility, things that no other display server architecture can do reasonably. Total flexibility between app and screen, direct scanout without hacks, AR/VR support, etc.
Here's some fun and useful stuff that's been done with Wayland, stuff that X11 could never reasonably do:<li>LG Smart TV UI: <a href="https://youtu.be/4cmYCK9PBkM" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no">https://youtu.be/4cmYCK9PBkM</a></li><li>Multiple user collaboration on touch tables with arbitrary rotation: <a href="https://youtu.be/8xtjJTJAQsY" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no">https://youtu.be/8xtjJTJAQsY</a></li><li>AR/VR apps running in windows and volumes at the same time, all interactable back in 2014 (eat your heart out magic leap and apple): <a href="https://github.com/evil0sheep/motorcar" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no">https://github.com/evil0sheep/motorcar</a></li><li>Presentation slides that were themselves a Wayland compositor written in Qt and QML so therefore allowed fully interactive live demos in an integrated form factor with a very popular and easy to code UI framework: <a href="https://youtu.be/mIg1P3i2ZfI" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no">https://youtu.be/mIg1P3i2ZfI</a></li><li>Cosmic panels are actually Wayland compositors, meaning widgets can draw literally anything from any toolkit in any language.</li>
Now, could Wayland devs maybe have distributed features across protocols better? Worked with app toolkit devs to ensure the protocols they made actually fit what the apps and compositors needed? Stopped bikeshedding (though imo many cases of "bikeshedding" are simply accounting for other form factors)? Absolutely!
My point here is simple: there was a reason for making it this modular, for not having a standard implementation. It wasn't just devs trying to impose some ideology, it wasn't some corporate takeover. It's good reasons that people using X11 on their desktop/laptop don't encounter. If we made something that wasn't universal, most apps wouldn't be compatible with it and therefore everything but the desktop form factor would lack apps.

2024-11-24 21:07:58 UTC

just wanted to vent and ask for advice/opportunities:
basically I'm moving soon and it'd help significantly to get some more income... the big problems being I'm autistic with low spoons and my skillset is at a weird intersection (system architecture, UX design, AR/VR, and Rust) where the only jobs I could find that fit the first 3 are at facebook or apple who would rip apart all the projects and eat up all the spoons i've got.
I did find a great job that I was able to do, https://ioc.exchange/@azonenberg/113012322798382346, where because I know UX design and native development and system architecture and all I could help explain and provide examples to copy from to improve the UX! problem is, I just can't seem to find any more opportunities like this. It was low spoons (i can identify UX patterns like this easily and figure out how to practically implement them) and fit into my skillset.
I mean, i've been working on an XR display server (https://github.com/StardustXR/) from scratch with primitives designed to make good UX, even made a declarative UI toolkit and IDL for it and everything but display server knowledge is so utterly niche there's like 20 display servers in the whole world so getting a job for that is laughable and super rare.
I just kinda don't really know what else I can do? regular normie jobs with the commute and all are gonna eat up spoons really fast and so are the more corporate UX design jobs (figma mockups that a separate team of engineers implement is inefficient and difficult on my brain). Anyone have any advice or recommendations or opportunities like this?
I'd love to do UX design consulting as a freelance thing, it's something I'm actually good at and it's rare to find someone who knows good UX and system design and native code in 1 person.
Please give advice or boost for reach!
#design #ux #autism