Building XLibre

This page will describe how to obtain the XLibre Xserver from your distribution and how to build it from source.

Please bear with us that the content here is a work in progress (WIP). If you already built the XLibre Xserver from source then please feel free to add the missing parts.

Getting the Source

You can either download a release from Releases · X11Libre/xserver or use Git to clone the project sources like so:

git clone https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver.git

Getting the Build Time Dependencies

There are quite a few dependencies that must be available before building the XLibre Xserver. These vary by the distribution you use as shown below. Right now, only the Debian/Devuan dependencies are explicitly known.

Dependencies for XLibre Xserver on Debian/Devuan

apt-get install git autoconf automake autopoint make pkg-config:amd64 byacc flex gcc gettext gperf m4 libncurses5 libncurses5-dev perl intltool libpng16-16 libpng-dev llvm llvm-dev libtalloc2 libtalloc-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev libgbm1 libgbm-dev libmtdev-dev libmtdev1 libudev1 libudev-dev libgcrypt11 libgcrypt-dev fontconfig libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev asciidoc doxygen xmlto xsltproc libpixman-1-0 libpixman-1-dev libevdev2 libevdev-dev x11proto-dev libxcb-util-dev libxcb-shape0 libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-icccm4 libxcb-icccm4-dev libxcb-xkb1 libxcb-xkb-dev libxcb-xinput0 libxcb-xinput-dev libxcb-damage0 libxcb-damage0-dev libxcb-sync1 libxcb-sync-dev libxcb-image0-dev libxcb-image0

Source: https://www.freelists.org/post/xlibre/Compiling-xlibre-DebianDevuan-package-dependencies

Building from Source

After unpacking the sources, change into the source directory and run the Meson build tool:

cd "<source dir of xserver>"
meson setup build "<options>"
cd build
meson compile

You may specify the <options> like so: -Dxvfb=false. Please see the file meson_options.txt for a list of available options.

Installing the Built Artifacts

After compiling the sources you can install the compiled binaries by running:

meson install

In case you run this command as an unpriviliged user, the meson script will ask you to run sudo. Alternatively you may also specify a destination directory for the installation by running:

DESTDIR='<destdir>' meson install

After the successful installation you can find the XLibre Xserver at <destdir>/usr/local/bin/X.

WIP To run the Xserver you need some drivers in the <destdir>/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/xlibre-....