Peppermint OS shifts from Xorg to XLibre display server, delays Wayland transition
Peppermint OS has announced a significant technical transition for its upcoming ISO releases, moving from the traditional Xorg display server to Xlibre. The shift addresses growing concerns in the Linux community as original Xorg development has stalled amid industry migration toward Wayland. Xlibre was created specifically to maintain and modernize the Xorg codebase with security updates, bug fixes, and feature improvements for users who prefer the X11 protocol. According to the project, the new server is designed as a drop-in replacement that maintains compatibility with standard desktop environments, window managers, and legacy drivers without disruption.
The announcement also clarified the project's stance on Wayland adoption. Peppermint OS stated it has no immediate plans to transition to Wayland in the foreseeable future, noting that Xfce, the desktop environment powering Peppermint OS, is taking a balanced approach to supporting both protocols natively. The updated 64-bit Debian flagship nightly build, now incorporating Xlibre and an updated Linux kernel, is available for community testing. Users will find the interface and overall experience remain identical to the current stable release despite the backend changes.
This milestone represents another infrastructure evolution for Peppermint OS, marking their first Debian-based ISO built without traditional live-build tools. The project has migrated its build system from debootstrap to mmdebstrap, aligning with the architecture already deployed for their Devuan edition. The developers acknowledge there may be rough edges in the build process and have invited community feedback through their forums and communication channels. A corresponding Devuan build update using Xlibre is also nearing completion, with a public testing announcement expected shortly.
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External links
- Testing updated PepDebian build and shift to XlibrePeppermint OS • Official source
- Peppermint OS Starts Its Shift from X.Org to XLibreLinuxiac
Comments
Here we go again! Another distro that switches to XLibre, but will turn into a mess and be droped just like in Artix Linux case ( https://linuxiac.com/artix-linux-drops-xlibre-support-just-months-after-making-it-default/). I also heard the XLibre protocol is vibe-coded and developers don't actually know C language.
I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt and, at the same time, curious. Where did you hear that XLibre has been vibe-coded?
@Shaz Shah You can have a look at this video or just skip to 17:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ma2E_Dbt1w. But the TLD is this: XLibre it's a mess that is only backed up buy people that are anti-Wayland and have anti-DEI opinions as you will always find it in any posts about XLibre on general.
Artix dumped XLibre when the Artix maintainer of XLibre quitted (mostly because of the regressions found, some related to Artix, others to XLibre), and didn't find anyone to replace him (since it's not a simple in-place replacement as XLibre advertises it). As for the "vibe-coding" allegation, the core team of XLibre is pretty active and usually contribute by large patch of code. And since the project doesn't require to disclosure AI use, it may be possible theses many of the changes are indeed assisted by AI. But regressions can also simply explained by regular code changes and adding new features, what the original X11 server team avoided to keep a stable (albeit outdated) implementation that would work enough on every system. So AI may not be the culprit.