Frame: A New X11 Server Implementation Written Entirely In x86_64 Assembly - Phoronix

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Frame: A New X11 Server Implementation Written Entirely In x86_64 Assembly

Written by Michael Larabel in X.Org on 16 July 2026 at 08:50 PM EDT. 80 Comments

Previously we covered YSERVER as an X11 server written in the Rust programming language with the help of Claude Code. A Phoronix reader wrote in today to share an even more esoteric X11 server implementation that has come about and again written in large part by AI/LLM usage: Frame is an X11 server written in pure x86_64 Assembly.

Frame is a pure Assembly X11 server written in just one Assembly code file that as of writing is just shy of 25k lines of Assembly. There is no external dependencies on Mesa, FreeType, Xlib, or even libc. Frame is interfacing directly with the appropriate Linux system calls and DRM/KMS interfaces plus evdev for input.

Frame was created over the past month largely via Claude Code. The Assembly code in all its glory can be found on GitHub.

Geir Isene who has been working on this with Claude Code elaborated in a blog post on Frame:<br>"So the stack now looks like this: The Linux kernel at the bottom. On top of that, frame. Then the window manager tile with the info bar strip. Inside tile runs the terminal glass, and in glass lives the shell bare. Bolt has been promoted from screen locker to greeter, showing gdm the door. All of it Assembly. All of CHasm together is about 100 thousand lines. The stack it replaced (gdm, X11, i3, conky, wezterm, zsh) is somewhere north of fifty times that. I did it for the battery life. I am not sure this laptop has a fan anymore. Except me.

Today I put numbers on it. Idle on battery, frame and Xorg pull the same watts, because the panel and the wifi own that number anyway. But Xorg burns almost three times the CPU that frame needs to do nothing. And tile and glass used zero milliseconds over three minutes of measuring. The desktop sits completely still until I touch it.<br>...<br>But is it stable? Stable enough that I daily-drive it, write this post on it, and only occasionally yell. When something breaks or I want a feature, I turn to my buddy Claude and describe the itch. He never gets tired, is not opinionated, and turns out to be a really good teacher. I now know more about hardware layers, cursor painting, GPU handoffs and event watchers than I ever planned to."

An interesting albeit unique creation and reliant on AI/LLMs for managing the massive mess of Assembly code for implementing X11 protocol support.

Isene's blog post with more details can be found in full here.

80 Comments

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XWayland 24.1.13 Released To Fix Two More Security Issues In The X.Org Codebase<br>Vibe Coded X11 Server Written In Rust Adds Xinerama, FreeBSD Support & Other Features<br>YSERVER: Modern X11 Server Written In Rust With The Help Of Claude Code<br>X.Org Server Starts June With Nine New Security Vulnerabilities Discovered Via AI<br>X.Org Server 21.1.22 Released Due To Five New Security Vulnerabilities<br>X.Org Server's "Master" Branch Now Closed With Cleaned Up State On "Main"

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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