HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

ltuyen · 2025-08-31 06:10:41

Check if the ca-certificates and curl packages installed:

apt info ca-certificates curl

If it doesn't have "APT-Manual-Installed: yes" on it, you are not installed ca-certificated and curl, try install these packages first:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl

Add XLibre-deb repository and keyrings

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://xlibre-deb.github.io/key.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/xlibre-deb.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/xlibre-deb.asc

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xlibre-deb.sources
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://xlibre-deb.github.io/devuan/
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")
Components: main
Architectures: $(dpkg --print-architecture)
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/xlibre-deb.asc
EOF

Update the repository and install XLibre

sudo apt update
sudo apt install xlibre

For the Devuan 5.0 (daedalus) users. you might need to install "libdrm" packages from Devuan "daedalus-backports" repository.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devuan-backports.sources
Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.devuan.org/merged
Suites: daedalus-backports
Components: main
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/devuan-archive-keyring.gpg
EOF

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y -t daedalus-backports 'libdrm*'

Command was taken from xlibre-deb/devuan on GitHub
Have a nice day!

unixuser · 2025-08-31 16:13:24

Hey, thanks for the tuto

What's the advantage of XLibre compared to X11 as X11 is still in development ? Are we sure that XLibre dev won't give it up ? X11 is pretty solid, it is nice to see new stuff, but I fear
Do you use it ? How is it performance wise ? Better, equal with X11 ? How is the ram usage ?

ltuyen · 2025-08-31 16:49:18

unixuser wrote:

Are we sure that XLibre dev won't give it up ?

Yes. XLibre developer won't give it up and they will maintain the Xorg fork for as much long as possible

unixuser wrote:

Do you use it ?

Yes, i use XLibre with i3 or some lightweight window manager as a daily driver. Works better than Wayland compositor

unixuser wrote:

Better, equal with X11 ?

Better than non-XLibre Xorg

EDX-0 · 2025-08-31 18:05:49

any specific feature that makes it a "worth installing right now" over waiting for it to be added onto either debian or devuan experimental for your daily driver? cuz for testing environments and providing feedback onto the project i do consider an install now if you can spare a "testing machine"

RedGreen925 · 2025-08-31 22:14:23

over waiting for it to be added onto either debian

You must have missed the direction the Debian project moves to, they are fully in control of the corporate parasites and their sympathizers working to kill all of this old tested code for the new shinny. That is fully part of the corporate control of linux agenda they have and are most likely set to kill off X and any variants as you see start to happen with the Wayland only releases starting to appear from them. There is a snowballs chance in hell of any new variant of the X server appearing in Debian.

Codalunga · 2025-09-03 10:36:16

Thanks for this.
I believe Devuan 6 implementation of X11 will still be ok for my needs, but it will be interesting to see how XLibre will step up to become the de-facto X11 - maybe in a couple of releases?

greenjeans · 2025-09-03 16:15:06

any specific feature that makes it a "worth installing right now" over waiting for it to be added onto either debian or devuan experimental for your daily driver?

That's a really good question, one I don't have an answer for. I need to do some research targeting what improvements if any there are over vanilla xorg right now. I don't have anything like a full understanding of this.

But going forward if the intent was to let xorg quietly die, then even if there are no distinct improvements it seems worthwhile to support this actively developed replacement, it has at least provoked a lot of conversation and interest and highlighted bigly the intent to shove Wayland down our throats.

golinux · 2025-09-03 16:30:05

And LeePen has even submitted a patch for seatd!

zapper · 2025-09-03 19:19:32

I think I might actually consider supporting this project. I still prefer Xenocara as an idea, but whatever.

My disdain for wayland is growing...

synaptic doesn't work in devuan/gnuinos.

Last edited by zapper (2025-09-03 19:20:05)

vulpine · 2025-09-08 07:43:09

When I first rebooted Xlibre launched up so much faster then Xorg that I had thought something had gone wrong. Checking logs and logging it appeared that nothing had. I browsed around a little bit and moved my mouse around. Xlibre has so much less latency then Xorg too!

I am trying this on Devuan 5 Daedalus. I highly encourage others to give it a try too. I was skeptical at first given I wasn't having many issues with Xorg and worried about changing something that was already stable, but this is such a better experience.

DaveT · 2025-10-07 23:17:23

zapper, xenocara works fine on OpenBSD which is my daily driver.
A quick rummage around the interwebs didn't turn up any ports to linux, but what do I know?
I only use Devuan Ceres for those things that have never been ported to OpenBSD, mainly music stuff in my case.
CSound and Pure Data for example.

recklessswing · 2025-12-30 20:01:08

How did you guys make this work on Excalibur? Does it work with Slim or GDM3 or SDDM or what? I tried on GDM3 and it freezes.

rolfie · 2025-12-30 20:20:44

Got XLibre with Lightdm/Cinnamon on Excalibur installed in a VM. As far as I can see it works fine. Only minor glitches.

recklessswing · 2025-12-31 11:20:28

Ok thanks, now got it working with lightdm and XFCE. Also lightdm with Gnome xorg works aswell too.

unixuser · 2026-01-13 12:19:29

I'm using it on my workstation with i3, works perfectly, won't go back, thank you.

RedGreen925 · 2026-01-13 23:56:25

Got around to giving it try on spare machine it works well enough. But looks like another dead project like so many of these repos are, the version in it is from September of last year xserver-xlibre-legacy (2:25.0.0.12-1). The current version is at 25.1.1 too bad perhaps someone will decide they want to make some current packages of it.

steve_v · Yesterday 04:28:24

looks like another dead project like so many of these repos are, the version in it is from September of last year xserver-xlibre-legacy (2:25.0.0.12-1).

The repo in the OP is 404 for me. Try here. README.md points back to the same nothing, but there are current packages in the repo.

Last edited by steve_v (Yesterday 04:30:30)

RedGreen925 · Yesterday 05:37:01

Had typo in my file now corrected it offers to upgrade the packages already installed on the test machine.

root@8400:~# apt upgrade
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libxatracker2
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove it.

Upgrading:
  xserver-xlibre-common          xserver-xlibre-video-fbdev
  xserver-xlibre-core            xserver-xlibre-video-intel
  xserver-xlibre-input-libinput  xserver-xlibre-video-nouveau
  xserver-xlibre-input-wacom     xserver-xlibre-video-qxl
  xserver-xlibre-legacy          xserver-xlibre-video-radeon
  xserver-xlibre-video-amdgpu    xserver-xlibre-video-vesa
  xserver-xlibre-video-ati       xserver-xlibre-video-vmware

Summary:
  Upgrading: 14, Installing: 0, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 0
  Download size: 3,721 kB
  Space needed: 7,168 B / 20.7 GB available

Continue? [Y/n] y

Oh even has a change log file going back several releases, so possibility this person will continue to do it.

Last edited by RedGreen925 (Yesterday 05:48:29)

Altoid · Yesterday 19:55:43

Hello:

EDX-0 wrote:

any specific feature that makes it ...

That is the question I have been wanting to see an answer to for a good while now.
Still waiting ...

NB: I am not a fan of new/shiny just because it is out there.

Besides that, X is not dead or abandoned, not by a longshot.
At least from what I have seen lately.

And it is mature and proven code, isn't it?

No, new for the sake of newiness is not for me.
ie: I firmly believe that it is the root of all enshittification.

Best,

A.

RedGreen925 · Yesterday 20:11:59

Besides that, X is not dead or abandoned, not by a longshot.
At least from what I have seen lately.

Yeah nothing like someone getting fed up making you look bad by doing some actual work for a change on a project to get people off their ass and doing some work on the mostly abandoned project except for security fixes being applied. There were many many patches the X people left laying around to rot until the fork happened and started to apply them that got those X people off their asses to do something..

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2025-08-31 06:10:41

HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#2 2025-08-31 16:13:24

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#3 2025-08-31 16:49:18

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#4 2025-08-31 18:05:49

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#5 2025-08-31 22:14:23

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#6 2025-09-03 10:36:16

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#7 2025-09-03 16:15:06

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#8 2025-09-03 16:30:05

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#9 2025-09-03 19:19:32

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#10 2025-09-08 07:43:09

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#11 2025-10-07 23:17:23

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#12 2025-12-30 20:01:08

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#13 2025-12-30 20:20:44

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#14 2025-12-31 11:20:28

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#15 2026-01-13 12:19:29

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#16 2026-01-13 23:56:25

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#17 Yesterday 04:28:24

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#18 Yesterday 05:37:01

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#19 Yesterday 19:55:43

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

#20 Yesterday 20:11:59

Re: HOW TO: Install XLibre on Devuan

Board footer