XLibre, finally and fortunately.

[Graeme]

🥳👏

[Seenkao]

Ну вот и я присоединился к пользователям Xlibre. Полёт нормальный, явных проблем не наблюдается. Будем продолжать наблюдать. 

Google translate:
Well, I've joined the Xlibre community. It's going well, no obvious issues. We'll keep monitoring it.

[valdir.marcos]

RedHat has decided to destroy all its X11 directories and updates.

All this to impose its buggy Wayland.

Fortunately, some X11/XWayland developers decided to take over and update the fabulous X11 and created X11Libre last month.

https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver

Interesting.

[Fred vS]

Some news from the front...

I have installed a XLibre distro: Artix with xfce and it works like marvelous charm. Including fpc apps of course.

I choose Artix (a ArchLinux os) because he is the first to First-party support  XLibre:
https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/wiki/Are-We-XLibre-Yet%3F

Here their iso's:
https://artixlinux.org/download.php#testing

The result is impressive: super fast boot, no tearing new feature by default, clear sound, video perfect and many others wow.

[robert rozee]

Some news from the front...

I have installed a XLibre distro: Artix with xfce and it works like marvelous charm. Including fpc apps of course.
[...]
The result is impressive: super fast boot, no tearing new feature by default, clear sound, video perfect and many others wow.

i am impressed, that is brilliant Fred! quick question - can XLibra be installed alongside Wayland so that someone can use a mixture of programs, some built to use X11, others built to use Wayland?


cheers,
rob   :-)

[Fred vS]

i am impressed, that is brilliant Fred! quick question - can XLibra be installed alongside Wayland so that someone can use a mixture of programs, some built to use X11, others built to use Wayland?

XLibre is a fork of Xorg, so it's a standalone graphical server.

Wayland already has its own X server alongside it: XWayland.

However, you can run "pure Wayland" applications on XLibre using the 12to11 application.

[Fred vS]

XLibre turns one year old today and releases xlibre-xserver-25.1.6.
https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/releases/
Thousand of fixes and new features since the original fork.

Good news for users who love wine, remote desktop systems, inkscape, ardour, video editor like Davinci Resolve Studio, games, gtk2, mint and many others...

I did the transition to XLibre of my main Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS OS, using this: https://github.com/xlibre-debian/ubuntu
Verdict: perfect and out-of-the-box.

[dbannon]

Fred, have you tried a XLibre install on a "x11 free" system ? eg "With Fedora 44, that fallback is completely removed for GNOME and KDE Plasma installations."

Now, such systems have, apparently, removed everything that talks x11 from Gnome and KDE (but xcb still works).  So, installing xLibre would (??) make no difference. The DE would continue to talk to Wayland. Dose an app that speaks x11 go direct to display via xLibra, or still has to talk via the DE and therefore Wayland ?

While xLibre seems to still be getting lots of love from devs, not one recognized Disto ships with it being default. So, that says to me, the remaining non-wayland distros -
* XFCE - have announced they are working on wayland.
* Mate - seems to be struggling anyway
* Cinnamon -  initial support for Wayland, which is still in the alpha ...
* Budgie - Budgie 10.10 switched to Wayland session by default for better ...
* Fluxbox ?

will all slowly drift to Wayland and thats where we need to concentrate our efforts. Like it or not (I don't). At the moment, with Qt5 and Qt6, xcb is the answer and a good one. But the X11 haters will kill that off as soon as they can. And gtk3 that Željan has done such a great job on, cannot use xcb.

A good example was systemd, it appeared, everyone said "no thanks, too invasive, you will never see it in my distro". But, one by one, (eg MXLinux) systemd became an option, then the default, then the only choice.

Not happy.

Davo

[Thaddy]

I consider it niche, but installed it on some Debians to run some old software I wrote myself and am too lazy to adapt. Installation yesterday went flawless with the instructions provided. I could have chosen an old distro instead, but this seems a better idea. Thanks for the pointer, Fred. Having X-server running flawless is quite important to me on some systems. A pleasant surprise is that the huge security issues (one of the reasons that Wayland dropped it) with X-server seem also solved. (Never an issue on local networks)

I won't run it on my main computers, though. Just the systems that need X-server and/or GTK2.
Those main ones run Wayland + Qt6 - very stable - and one runs Wayland + GTK3, still small issues.

One remark: the development team seems quite small, I think Lazarus/FPC sized, I may be wrong, which is a risk for such fundamental software, much more so than for Lazarus/FPC.

[birin]

...
While xLibre seems to still be getting lots of love from devs, not one recognized Disto ships with it being default. So, that says to me, the remaining non-wayland distros -

Hi Davo,

Artix distro as switched to XLibre by default recently.
Reading explanation of fork reasons, from Arch Linux + Majaro to Artix, seems very intersting.
The systemd problem + X11 / wayland problem + Gnome problem + ... => Redhat problem ?

Artix is not the only distro adressing this problems, primary the systemd problem.

Like XWayland, 12to11 alows running Wayland programs on X11 (XLibre) system.

Regards
birin

[dbannon]

Artix distro as switched to XLibre by default recently.

Good, one time I like to be proven wrong !  I am not sure that Artix is a major distro but it is a significant one.

The systemd problem + X11 / wayland problem + Gnome problem + ... => Redhat problem ?

Are you suggesting that RedHat is the underlying problem ?  I am not going to argue with you.

Like XWayland, 12to11 allows running Wayland programs on X11 (XLibre) system.

But XWayland is dependent on Wayland (?)

Never heard of 12to11. Hmm, https://git.linuxping.win/12to11/12to11 ? Not 'done' yet but interesting approach. Its wants to talk to Xorg server (on behalf of a Wayland app), be cool if it could to talk the XLibre too, XLibre has, already, fixed a number of problem in XOrg so may well be considered a superior target.

It does not seem to be getting the love that xLibre is at the moment.

Interesting, thanks Birin

[nomorelogic]

...
While xLibre seems to still be getting lots of love from devs, not one recognized Disto ships with it being default. So, that says to me, the remaining non-wayland distros -

Hi Davo,
Artix distro as switched to XLibre by default recently.

I wanted to point out that Vendefoul Wolf Linux (based on Devuan) also uses Xlibre as its default X server.
However, it still allows you to switch back to X11.

https://vendefoul-wolf-linux.sourceforge.io/index_en.html

[birin]

Are you suggesting that RedHat is the underlying problem ?  I am not going to argue with you.

I won’t argue the point either—I’m no expert on the subject—but I think RH has both the interest and the clout to do this, and many of its actions point exactly in that direction.

systemd changes the very logic of the UNIX world upon which Linux is built, but, more seriously, it leaves out all members of the UNIX family on which systemd does not and will not work, such as all BSDs, for example.
systemd is being pushed into as much software as possible, making it incompatible with any OS that doesn’t implement systemd, and forcing OSes to switch to systemd (Artix is doing significant work to maintain “systemd-free” versions for much of this software).
I can only see this as a desire for hegemony.

Wayland and Gnome follow the same logic as systemd, backed by the same players.
Artix recently acknowledged that it was no longer possible for him to maintain a systemd-free version of Gnome, and has therefore officially abandoned Gnome.

As I told you, this is just my feeling, but my mind is now made up.
In fact, since my Manjaro is becoming increasingly dysfunctional for my daily use, I’m considering replacing it with Artix as soon as I have a little time, with the idea of finding a functional OS from the same family as Manjaro, Arch Linux.


12to11 is the opposite of XWayland but the same idea; it allows applications designed for Wayland to run on an X11 server.

Birin

[cdbc]

Hi

with the idea of finding a functional OS from the same family as Manjaro, Arch Linux.

Hmmm, I dunno 'bout families, but PCLinuxOS stems from Mandrake / Mandriva and is absolutely "system-DICK" free, (it's not my name-calling - it's from TexStar - who claims: "system-dick is like when you accidently pokes your finger through the toilet-paper, when you're wiping yourself")...
We'd welcome you to try PCLinuxOS out   

Btw. Antix now uses IceWM 
Regards Benny

[birin]

Hmmm, I dunno 'bout families ...

Hi Benny,

My plan is simply to stick with my usual setup by keeping the same base distro and using KDE for my office work.
But since my brother runs some of our servers on Artix I know it’s “clean” and efficient, that gives me another good reason to “stay in the family”

It’s just personal reasons and habits that are keeping me from trying out PCLinuxOS or Devuan, for example.

Birin