libx11-compat Is Working To Implement Xlib Atop SDL For Wayland, macOS, Android - Phoronix
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libx11-compat Is Working To Implement Xlib Atop SDL For Wayland, macOS, Android
Written by Michael Larabel in X.Org on 22 July 2026 at 08:28 AM EDT. 13 Comments
For helping to keep X11 clients running in a modern Linux desktop world with Wayland or even for running on macOS or Android, there is now yet-another option being developed with libx11-compat. The libx11-compat project is working to re-implement the Xlib client library atop SDL2/SDL3 interfaces for allow broad underlying platform coverage.
Open-source developer Ching-Chun (Jim) Huang wrote in about the work he is pursuing with libx11-compat as a lightweight compatibility layer for X11 clients. For Xlib-dependent applications it can run without source code changes such as with macOS without XQuartz, Wayland-only Linux desktop sessions, headless CI environments, Android, and other non-x11-native platforms.
The libx11-compat library is an in-process implementation of the X Window System client library and built atop SDL2/SDL3, SDL_ttf, and Pixman. The code can currently run a number of classic X11 applications like XMosaic, Qt2 apps, XCircuit, XMMS, and more without an X Server.
Those wanting to learn more about libx11-compat can do so via GitHub.
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