How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-07-01 11:26:14

couple of threads mentioning XLibre but this one seems less volatile so will post here:

https://bkhome.org/news/202506/xorgx11-lives-on.html

JWM-Kit · 2025-07-02 13:46:13

trinidad wrote:

Yikes!! There's actually no real peer to Debian packaging. I guess you mean better than itself?

I notice how you had to shorten the quote of what I said to even make your argument seem valid. I pointed out exactly how other systems allow you to create a package by creating a single simple file. All you need is a text editor.

Is creating a proper Debian package that hard? No. Is it way more complicated then most other systems? Yes. There isn't even an argument to be had here. It's obvious to anyone who has created packages for different systems. The only reason anyone would disagree with me here is 1. They have no experience creating packages, or 2. They intentionally want to be disagreeable.

Last edited by JWM-Kit (2025-07-03 00:37:31)

JWM-Kit · 2025-07-02 13:48:35

Thanks @stargate-sg1-cheyenne for the link to Barry's blog. I'm not a user of easyOS or PuppyLinux, but I do follow them because they are unique from other distros.

tux_99 · 2025-07-03 01:50:42

I agree with @JWM-Kit, I find the RPM spec file format more logical and clearer structured and therefore easier to read (and write) than the collection of multiple Debian packaging configuration files.
The Arch pkgbuild file format is almost as good as the RPM spec file format, the only thing I really don't like about the Arch pkgbuild file format is that it lacks a Changelog (for me this is a major negative point as sometimes I would like to be able to check what changed between package updates).

The RPM spec file format is one of the few really good things that Redhat has contributed to the Linux world (unlike pulseaudio, systemd, gnome3 and wayland).

BTW, using the RPM package format does not mean not being able to use the apt package management tools, in fact there is at least one Linux distro (PCLinuxOS) that uses RPM packages but uses apt and synaptic as their package manager.

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-07-03 01:56:42)

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-07-03 05:02:30

as of this post/date/time, the pclinuxos website only seems to resolve to a new/blank/wtf wordpress webpage. nothing lasts forever. as always, your mileage may vary.

tux_99 · 2025-07-03 05:18:43

I have no idea what happened to the pclinuxos website (I'm not a pclinuxos user at all) but the status of the pclinuxos website is completely beside the point I was making, I simply said that it's technically possible to combine the RPM package format with apt as package manager, there are/were at least a couple of other distros doing the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT-RPM

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-07-03 05:22:34)

hunter0one · 2025-07-03 23:52:11

I'm a PCLinuxOS user & maintainer. The person who hosted the site, wiki, and forum lost his equipment to a fire. You can find the new forum here: https://www.pclinuxos.com/forum

The main PCLOS page just points to the new forum now, Tex put a temporary WordPress template there.

APT-RPM can definitely be used, but APT-RPM is quite old and unmaintained, similar to Xorg.

I would be happy to come to Devuan as someone who enjoys packaging. I used it for a while several years ago, but DEB packaging seems a lot more daunting than RPM. I asked here once how to package for it because I would be happy to help paint the way forward for Devuan but nobody replied and the only package I made which is my usual guinea pig for different packaging formats, zramen, just made me very skeptical of packaging in the DEB format.

tux_99 · 2025-07-04 03:34:59

@hunter0one during my researches about debian packaging I recently came across the following tool which could make life easier for those of us here who have RPM packaging experience (I have done some packaging for Mandriva, Mageia and Centos 6 in the past) and would like to package for Devuan:

https://github.com/macq/spec2deb

I have yet to find the time to try it out, but if it works as described it would allow to take a RPM spec file from which it generates automatically the various debian style packaging files. I guess the generated files will likely need further tweaking (for example the names of the dependencies) but it should still make the work easier.

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-07-04 03:38:42)

hunter0one · 2025-07-04 04:02:08

Great. I just looked at another debian package folder to try to understand it. I still have a lot of questions though. Can Devuan users contribute to Debian as a whole (in other words, can their package wind up in Debian, since otherwise Devaun doesnt accept new packages)? Are you supposed to use Ceres?

I pulled out my Daedulus DVD.

Last edited by hunter0one (2025-07-04 04:02:34)

golinux · 2025-07-04 05:24:20

hunter0one . . . Welcome to Devuan! You might find this documentation a good place to start:

https://git.devuan.org/devuan/documenta … ngGuide.md
https://git.devuan.org/devuan/documenta … tobuild.md

Anubis is a pain but those bots!

greenjeans · 2025-07-04 12:25:56

Anubis is a pain

That's like the understatement of the year. I just close any link instantly where that pops up.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-07-10 08:20:09

more re: anubis, please review:

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/our-small-team-vs-millions-of-bots

stultumanto · 2025-07-20 04:12:41

The XLibre project provides a tool named xorg-testing which builds and installs X in a chroot jail. This method allows you to test the distribution on an existing Debian system without overwriting the base X installation. Presumably, it would also work with Devuan, although I haven't found the time to to try it yet. I'll update the thread if I do.

zapper · 2025-07-20 05:09:46

@golinux & greenjeans

Anubis is annoying but its still better than cloudflare. That software cloudflare is made to de-anonymize and collect data as well as stop bots.

Its actually miles better IMO.

Last edited by zapper (2025-07-20 05:11:54)

callmetango · 2025-08-23 15:52:05

Hi, I am callmetango, one of the maintainers of the XLibre project.

I would like to inform you that https://github.com/apebl created a third-party repository for installing XLibre on Devuan at https://github.com/xlibre-deb/devuan. You may find this interesting.

greenjeans · 2025-08-23 16:24:18

Hi, I am callmetango, one of the maintainers of the XLibre project.
I would like to inform you that https://github.com/apebl created a third-party repository for installing XLibre on Devuan at https://github.com/xlibre-deb/devuan. You may find this interesting.

Sweet, thank you! And welcome to the forum! Let me get a little more coffee in me and i'll likely give that a try, I wonder if it's possible to do a test run using a liveUSB?

I always try to tinker first on a live session, I may have borked an install or two back in the day with my experimenting, lol.

Last edited by greenjeans (2025-08-23 16:24:40)

delgado · 2025-08-24 09:37:43

@callmetango: Thanks for providing a xlibre package for devuan.

Unfortunately, the installation would remove the proprietary nvidia driver and virtualbox on my excalibur box.

JayneCobb · 2025-08-25 02:06:53

@callmetango Thanks for the Xlibre repository info! I will give it a shot tomorrow on my testing PC! Looking forward to it.

callmetango · 2025-08-25 13:34:31

@delgado

@callmetango: Thanks for providing a xlibre package for devuan.
Unfortunately, the installation would remove the proprietary nvidia driver and virtualbox on my excalibur box.

You are welcome! Could you please report this issue at https://github.com/xlibre-deb/devuan/issues since I am only the messenger? ;-)

callmetango · 2025-08-25 13:40:23

@greenjeans @JayneCobb You are welcome and I like to say thank you to all of you for the very early support of XLibre on Devuan! Since the creation of DEB packages by https://github.com/apebl at http://github.com/xlibre-deb there are a lot of opportunities of bringing XLibre to the DEB world.

I am curious to see what your tests result in.

JayneCobb · 2025-08-25 14:43:52

@callmetango Well. I installed XLibre on my tester a Dell Precision 5510 with NVIDIA Quadro M1000M and all went well, very well. I even installed the NVIDIA drivers and tested a game using Stream and all appears to be working ok. I will continue testing but so far so good! Tell the team Big Thanks!

My main system is a Dell G15 5530 with an NVIDIA RTX 4060. When I get a chance I will test it out it as well.

Update: I am running Devuan Daedalus 5.0 and have tested both kernels 6.1.0-38-amd64 and 6.7.12-1-liquorix-amd64, with and without NVIDIA drivers. All OK, so far. No issues but I will continue to test and run the system the next few days. This is on the Dell 5510.

Last edited by JayneCobb (2025-08-25 17:13:52)

zapper · 2025-08-26 02:24:35

It would be interesting to ditch wayland as a distro in the future for devuan. I know its primary purpose is to escape systemd and be like debian, but I feel like wayland is not the best way forward. It probably has other problems that haven't been revealed that are worse than xorg in its best form.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-08-26 08:24:02

re: wayland reminds of a recent past post:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=57316#p57316

rolfie · 2025-08-26 18:14:00

Installed a Daedalus VM, encrypted with LVM, efi based, Lightdm and Cinnamon with German locale and Keyboard. Installation works, Lightdm is set to US keyboard, Cinnamon too. Adding a German keyboard works until reboot, then the system is back to US. Is that worth an issue? I think yes?
Edith: the screensaver login allows to switch the keyboard to German, the login doesn't.

Last edited by rolfie (2025-08-26 18:40:34)

greenjeans · 2025-08-26 18:30:08

Did some tests yesterday, all on my old 2012 Compaq CQ-58, Dual-core AMD C-60 APU at 1 ghz(max), 4 gigs of ram.

Installed on an updated Daedalus with the Mate DE.

Packages installed fine and seemed to work okay, but upon re-boot it wouldn't let me back in. Despite the system being set to auto-login the user it put up the lightdm log-in screen, attempting log in as user or root looks like it tries, then goes to a black screen for a second, then kicks me back to the log-in screen.

No luck in recovery mode either.

I do have the amd graphics firmware package installed and the microcode package, don't know if that makes a difference, my laptop just has too many video glitches if I don't use them.

Going over the logs now trying to figure out where it's going wrong, but X is not my forte` so it's some work trying to de-cipher.

EDIT: Don't know if it makes a difference but i'm running a non-uefi system here.

EDIT2: Procedure (second go-around, first time I tried without updating the libdrm packages, same result):

# Updated the libdrm packages first:

Upgraded the following packages:
libdrm-amdgpu1 (2.4.114-1+b1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1
libdrm-common (2.4.114-1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1
libdrm-intel1 (2.4.114-1+b1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1
libdrm-nouveau2 (2.4.114-1+b1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1
libdrm-radeon1 (2.4.114-1+b1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1
libdrm2 (2.4.114-1+b1) to 2.4.123-1~bpo12+1

Commit Log for Mon Aug 25 20:47:50 2025

Removed the following packages:
x11-common
xorg
xserver-common
xserver-xorg
xserver-xorg-core
xserver-xorg-input-all
xserver-xorg-input-libinput
xserver-xorg-input-wacom
xserver-xorg-legacy
xserver-xorg-video-all
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu
xserver-xorg-video-ati
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
xserver-xorg-video-qxl
xserver-xorg-video-radeon
xserver-xorg-video-vesa
xserver-xorg-video-vmware

Installed the following packages:
libfs6 (2:1.0.8-1)
x11-xfs-utils (7.7+2+b1)
xlibre (1:7.8+3)
xlibre-x11-common (1:7.8+3)
xorg-video-abi-25-dummy (0.1.0+2)
xserver-xlibre (1:7.8+3)
xserver-xlibre-common (2:25.0.0.9-3)
xserver-xlibre-core (2:25.0.0.9-3)
xserver-xlibre-input-all (1:7.8+3)
xserver-xlibre-input-libinput (1.5.1.0-1)
xserver-xlibre-legacy (2:25.0.0.9-3)
xserver-xlibre-video-all (1:7.8+3)
xserver-xlibre-video-amdgpu (23.0.0.4-2)
xserver-xlibre-video-ati (1:22.0.0.2-1)
xserver-xlibre-video-fbdev (1:0.5.1.1-2)
xserver-xlibre-video-nouveau (1:1.0.18.1-2)
xserver-xlibre-video-radeon (1:22.0.0.2-1)
xserver-xlibre-video-vesa (1:2.6.0.1-2)
xserver-xlibre-video-vmware (1:13.4.0.1-2)

Commit Log for Mon Aug 25 20:54:01 2025

# All the above left the below "residual configs" packages listed below, so I did a complete removal on them.
Completely removed the following packages:
x11-common
xserver-xorg
xserver-xorg-core
xserver-xorg-legacy
xserver-xorg-video-intel

Last edited by greenjeans (2025-08-26 18:43:14)

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#26 2025-07-01 11:26:14

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#27 2025-07-02 13:46:13

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#28 2025-07-02 13:48:35

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#29 2025-07-03 01:50:42

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#30 2025-07-03 05:02:30

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#31 2025-07-03 05:18:43

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#32 2025-07-03 23:52:11

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#33 2025-07-04 03:34:59

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#34 2025-07-04 04:02:08

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#35 2025-07-04 05:24:20

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#36 2025-07-04 12:25:56

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#37 2025-07-10 08:20:09

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#38 2025-07-20 04:12:41

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#39 2025-07-20 05:09:46

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#40 2025-08-23 15:52:05

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#41 2025-08-23 16:24:18

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#42 2025-08-24 09:37:43

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#43 2025-08-25 02:06:53

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#44 2025-08-25 13:34:31

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#45 2025-08-25 13:40:23

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#46 2025-08-25 14:43:52

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#47 2025-08-26 02:24:35

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#48 2025-08-26 08:24:02

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#49 2025-08-26 18:14:00

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

#50 2025-08-26 18:30:08

Re: How to Install XLibre on Devuan Daedalus (MATE)?

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