Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge
XLibre - a fork of Xorg
GNUser:
Hi Juanito, Rich, curaga, Paul_123. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that XLibre is taking off: Currently there are 535 contributors to its xserver, with a very active merge history. The XLibre developers seem seriously committed to maintaining and improving X.
Some OSes have no plans of abandoning X. Among those, some are moving from Xorg to XLibre (GhostBSD, for example: https://ericbsd.com/addressing-xlibre-change-and-ghostbsd-future.html).
What are your thoughts on TCL moving from Xorg to XLibre? Do you think such a move would add stability to TCL? I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. I'm willing to help with packaging and testing, of course.
EDIT: I'd also be happy with the status quo (Xorg) and a wait-and-see approach. Kindly let me know your thoughts--I've always been happy just going along with whatever TCL is doing :)
GNUser:
The silence is eloquent. I hear "status quo is preferable" loud and clear. Works for me :)
Rich:
Hi GNUser
Maybe these warnings served as a deterrent:
--- Quote ---Upgrade notice
Module ABIs have changed - drivers MUST be recompiled against this Xserver version, otherwise the Xserver can crash
or fail to start up correctly.
If your console is locked up (no input possible, not even VT switch), then most likely the input driver couldn't be loaded due
to a version mismatch. When unsure, it's best to be prepared to ssh into your machine from another one or set a timer
that's calling chvt 1 after certain time, so you don't need a cold reboot. Or, make sure that you have magic SysRq key
enabled (Alt+PrtSc) via sysctl (kernel.sysrq=1), then press following combination depending on keyboard layout to
make kernel regain control over keyboard to make VT switching work:
QWERTY/AZERTY keyboard layout: SysRq + R
Dvorak/Colemak keyboard layout: SysRq + P
Proprietary Nvidia drivers might break: they still haven't managed to do even simple cleanups to catch up with Xorg master
for about a year. All attempts to get into direct mail contact have failed. We're trying to work around this, but cannot give
any guarantees. But you can make it work by adding Option "IgnoreABI" "1" line to ServerFlags section in Xorg
config.
Most Xorg drivers should run as-is (once recompiled!), with some exceptions. See .gitlab-ci.yml for the versions/
branches built along with Xlibre.
--- End quote ---
Found here:
https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/tree/xlibre-xserver-25.0.0.0
Outright replacement of Xorg with Xlibre runs the risk of unforeseen breakage.
I doubt there is any appetite for that.
I also don't see any clean and simple way for Xlibre to co-exist with Xorg to
allow someone to switch back and forth between the two.
GNUser:
--- Quote from: Rich on February 24, 2026, 09:05:54 PM ---Outright replacement of Xorg with Xlibre runs the risk of unforeseen breakage.
I doubt there is any appetite for that.
--- End quote ---
Breakage is not my favorite dish, either ;D
I naively thought XLibre was a drop-in replacement for Xorg, maintained by folks committed to its longevity. Real life is always more messy than theory.
I'm happy to kick this can down the road.
Juanito:
--- Quote from: GNUser on February 24, 2026, 06:49:50 PM ---The silence is eloquent. I hear "status quo is preferable" loud and clear. Works for me :)
--- End quote ---
Perhaps it's worth detailing where we are now with x11 and wayland:
x86 (TinyCore)
Xvesa, Xfbdev and xorg-server are all available
mesa is not compiled for wayland in the interests of keeping things small
fltk-1.3 does not support wayland
x86_64 (TinyCorePure64)
Xfbdev and xorg-server are available
mesa is compiled for x11 and wayland
fltk-1.4 supports wayland so the tinycore applets are available in a wayland compositor
armhf (piCore)
xorg-server is available
mesa is compiled for x11 and wayland
fltk-1.4 supports wayland so the tinycore applets are available in a wayland compositor
aarch64 (piCore64)
xorg-server is available
mesa is compiled for x11 and wayland
fltk-1.4 supports wayland so the tinycore applets are available in a wayland compositor
x11 is becoming increasingly unsupported, particularly for x86 (xorg-server will not start with my intel hd4400 graphics using the modesetting driver, but will start with the obsolete xf86-video-intel driver)
wayland is becoming increasingly supported, wayland-only test versions of x86_64 and aarch64 work well (firefox works noticeably better on an RPi3 with wayland as compared to x11). All gtk3 and gtk4 apps work with wayland.
XLibre might make sense for x86, particularly if it updates Xvesa and Xfbdev (I don't know if this is planned), but I'm not sure if it makes sense for x86_64, armhf or aarch64.
The decision to be taken is perhaps not deciding between x11 and XLibre, but rather deciding between x11/XLibre and wayland.
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