Please, a little help installing on Arch / Nvidia / XFCE ?? Basic questions on installing / configuring...

[dimyself]

I've tried searching online (reddit, github, arch site, google) and i see no clear instructions on upgrading to xlibre on arch.

It's a shame... any instructions and positive comments seem to be buried and drowned out by trolls, corporate shills, and wayland folks. It's hard finding anything other than discussions about "wayland vs xserver vs xlibre". It looks like "they" are trying hard to keep xlibre hidden from public view! I hope this changes over time!!

I wish to install xlibre because i've seen comments that it's actually pretty stable on arch and I want the added security / features and supported project.

Also interesting... I'm hearing about code reverts and possible code sabotage being inserted ON PURPOSE by some devs! Just another reason to get xlibre working before they revert or possibly sabotage something else!

Or, would I be better waiting a few weeks / months to install it until it's more worked out?

Install questions

For those that have already got Xlibre working on arch, can I get a little help installing / configuring it using an Nvidia 1070, using XFCE on a desktop computer? I don't really have any special devices / drivers.

If I understand the instructions correctly... I need to install xlibre-server and its dependencies.

And then I can do a pacman -Q | grep xf86 and everything here that has an xlibre repo in the aur then needs to be swapped for the xlibre version?

I'm using the latest nvidia drivers nvidia-dkms 575.57.08-3. Do I just need to reinstall the nvidia drivers after installing xlibre or anything else?

Is that all?

Does XFCE work ok on it?

Also, are there any problems with xlibre being on my host machine for guest VMs using standard video drivers (non Nvidia)?

Thank you!!

[EeyoreTheDonkee]

Well, there's one repository that refers to a gentoo port or overlay.. If you have the time and energy, then perhaps you can try installing gentoo on a live usb or via container or emulator and then try to follow the repo instructions. Take notes and then try to do it with your favorites. In principle it shouldn't be too different.

Otherwise, it is early in the game. The mailing list started a thread about adopting one of the DMs as an XLibre exemplar. Some people are pushing to fork kde but, I'd prefer one that wasn't so gung-ho to abandon X.

p.s. I wonder about the support for nvidia drivers. They have their issues, in fact, even on the well-healed distros I fall back to nouveau and it gets along better with the kernel, revisions, old(er) hardware, etc. e.g. like the 1070.

[reaperx7]

For Arch, use this method:

I recommend yay for this...

1. Install xlibre-xserver-bootstrap and xlibre-input-libinput. These go in first.

2. Remove the bootstrap package and then install xlibre-xserver, it will require you install commons, then install the xephyr, xnest, and xvfb xlibre packages.

3. Rebuild and reinstall the xlibre-input-libinput driver as well as any other video and input drivers like evdev, vesa, fbdev, dummy, and void. Mainly so the system doesn't complain about the backup drivers missing.

4. Install your nvidia drivers and utilities as per the ArchWiki. You might need to edit the PKGBUILD files to ignore the Xorg packages.

Yes, Xfce works fine with xlibre. I have been using it since the project got it's package builds made public. No issues.

You may have to insert the:

Option "IgnoreABI" "1"

flag in your nvidia configuration file manually in the driver optional features area, but it should work.

[dimyself]

Thanks a lot! This is what I waS looking for. I'll give it a try and update how it works and if something different comes up i'll update it.

4. Install your nvidia drivers and utilities as per the ArchWiki. You might need to edit the PKGBUILD files to ignore the Xorg packages. You mean edit the PKGBUILD of the Nvidia packages I assume?

[dimyself]

For Arch, use this method:

I recommend yay for this...

1. Install xlibre-xserver-bootstrap and xlibre-input-libinput. These go in first.
2. Remove the bootstrap package and then install xlibre-xserver, it will require you install commons, then install the xephyr, xnest, and xvfb xlibre packages.
3. Rebuild and reinstall the xlibre-input-libinput driver as well as any other video and input drivers like evdev, vesa, fbdev, dummy, and void. Mainly so the system doesn't complain about the backup drivers missing.
4. Install your nvidia drivers and utilities as per the ArchWiki. You might need to edit the PKGBUILD files to ignore the Xorg packages.

Yes, Xfce works fine with xlibre. I have been using it since the project got it's package builds made public. No issues.

You may have to insert the:

Option "IgnoreABI" "1"

flag in your nvidia configuration file manually in the driver optional features area, but it should work.

So, an update. I tried it today... but unfortunately, it failed.

I hope you don't mind if I ask a few follow up questions

I followed your instructions as best i could. When I installed xlibre-server-bootstrap... it automatically installed the other xlibre stuff (xlibre-server, xlibre-common, xlibre-input-lininput, and afew other packages)

Then I tried to uninstall bootstrap. It complained about sddm, lightdm, so I uninstalled those. Then uninstalled bootstrap. Then reinstalled sddm, lightdm

I then installed all the xlibre packages that match installed xf86 packages (vesa, voodoo, dummy, fbdev,evdev, keyboard, mouse, void, etc etc).

I don't know what you meant by rebuilding nvidia drivers. I didn't see anything that stood out in the archwiki that I was missing. So then, I just did a reinstall of them: sudo pacman -S nvidia-dkms nvidia-utils. I don't know how to tellif they were using xorg. As pacman doesn't show me the PKGBUILD.

I then rebooted and itwouldnt boot. I had to ssh in (my other TTYs don't currently work) and reinstall xorg-server and xf86-input-libinput. Then I rebooted and it came back up.

Any ideas what I can try or what might be wrong?

Thank you!

[EeyoreTheDonkee]

How about LXQt? Do you think there will be more or less complications with it than XFCE? I would think maybe less? But, perhaps not, it's the dependencies that I worry about; also, it has a somewhat custom build system. Well, anyways, I will attempt it when I have a chance.

[dimyself]

How about LXQt? Do you think there will be more or less complications with it than XFCE? I would think maybe less? But, perhaps not, it's the dependencies that I worry about; also, it has a somewhat custom build system. Well, anyways, I will attempt it when I have a chance.

Thanks for the suggestion...but it doesn't even get that far.

It wouldn't even load the display manager. I tried sddm and lightdm and neither would load.

Maybe I was missing something simple or maybe I did a step incorrectly?

The nvidia module was loaded. But the other commenter posted about having to "rebuild" nvidia. I don't know if I did that correctly. All I did was reinstall nvidia-dkms and nvidia-utils. Maybe that wasn't rebuilding? I'm not sure.

I will try it again soon, as it's not hard to revert the changes if it fails

I just wish I had some More things to try. Maybe I will post it in the github issues to get more responses. Discussions area seems kind of dead.

[reaperx7]

For package nvidia-dkms, make sure you use

Option "IgnoreABI" "on"

Is in your 40-nvidia.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d and it will work. Nvidia's build unfortunately only targets ABI version 21 used by FreeDesktops xorg, not ABI version 25 that Xlibre uses.

[artist4xlibre]

These PKGBUILD files and procedure are ready for testing: https://github.com/X11Libre/pkgbuilds-arch-based

[callmetango]

@dimyself Does this post regarding the PKGBUILD files for Arch above answer your question?

[dimyself]

@dimyself Does this post regarding the PKGBUILD files for Arch above answer your question?

honestly, not really... If i may ask. why would someone need to do these steps instead of just installing the packages from the AUR?

Also, I still don't understand how to "rebuild" or reinstall the nvidia drivers after? Do i just reinstall them?

When I tried installing xlibre (and all the replacmeent xf86 packages and nvidia drivers), it wouldn't boot to the gui / sddm. I didn't see any obvious errors that showed what was wrong.

Is installing using the PKGBUILDs and makepkg different from just installing all the xlibre packages from the AUR?

After follOwing the instructions using the PKGBUILD page... will they all auto update when there are updates in the AUR?

It shows some manual steps whenever there's updates. Will this change over time? It seems like quite a bit of work to get it installed and updated when there's updates using the PKGBUILDs.

Thank you!

[reaperx7]

If you're installing on Arch, go ahead and build xlibre-input-libinput first and install it manually using "pacman -U" and remove xf86-input-libinput beforehand.

Next buiild and install the xlibre-xserver-bootstrap package ONLY.

This will build the xlibre-xserver packages, but do NOT install them just yet.

Rebuild the xlibre-xserver packages.

Remove xlibre-xserver-bootstrap and then install the new xlibre-xserver packages manually with "pacman -U". Now build ALL the xlibre-video and input packages and install them. You will reinstall xlibre-input-libinput.

You should now have a fully up to date xlibre X11 xserver installed that cam be maintained easily with tools like "yay -Syu".

I recommend only installing the evdev, vesa, and fbdev drivers as fallback.

[artist4xlibre]

The easiest way is to use the pre-built packages as per https://github.com/X11Libre/pkgbuilds-arch-based

Xlibre binary packages repository

These are available in a separate xlibre repository which can be enabled with the following actions:

Run commands:

sudo curl -sS http://152.70.56.125/0x73580DE2EDDFA6D6.gpg | gpg --import -

sudo pacman-key --lsign-key 73580DE2EDDFA6D6

Add the xlibre repository by adding this section to file /etc/pacman.conf:

[xlibre]
Server = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/artist4artix/packages-arch-based/refs/heads/main
# List of available packages: https://github.com/X11Libre/pkgbuilds-arch-based

artist for Xlibre

[callmetango]

@reaperx7 Do you mean something like this: Wiki | Site / XlibreOnArtix ? 😉

[reaperx7]

Love it.

[darkhog]

@dimyself did this work for you?

[EeyoreTheDonkee]

@callmetango Do you mean something like this: Wiki | Site / XlibreOnArtix ? 😉

This is great, awesome, etc. Truly.

I grabbed the artix lxqt xlibre iso, ran mkusb-minp on it.. completely seamless persistent system. I can't imagine what all the foot dragging is about when this proves Xlibre plugs right in??

It's so annoying. They want to force us to refresh our systems. This has to be the only real reason for the push-back. Is has nothing to do with politics, etc.

Money.. that's all it is.

[callmetango]

Your welcome! Thanks go to @artist4xlibre and the Artix guys for their first-class support of XLibre.

[callmetango]

@dimyself

I've tried searching online (reddit, github, arch site, google) and i see no clear instructions on upgrading to xlibre on arch. [...]

How are things with you? Were you able to get XLibre working on your system?