from xserver to xdirectfb

Question

Hi Is it possible to uninstall xserver and use xdirectfb with a tiny window manager - like awesome ? Do I need to compile from source every appllication I want to use with xdirectfb ?

From these links, it isn't clear to me :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectFB

http://directfb.org/index.php?path=Projects%2FXDirectFB

Answer 1

Pretty much yes you can, no you don't have to. I'm not sure if you'll save anything though.

Normal X server contains both raw hardware access support (framebuffer) and X server abstraction layer for the windowed apps and window manager.

The X abstraction layer is quite heavyweight due to support of multiple displays on multiple hosts, windows geometry, ordering, palettes and so on, plus generally rather overly complex API. Running that uses up lots of resources but makes (arguably) programming easier.

OTOH a framebuffer usage is very simple, change a byte in memory, call one function and the corresponding pixel is set, that's all - no overhead on the API side, but it's up to your application to draw every single pixel and manage cooperation with other applications, create windows and so on.

DirectFB is a raw framebuffer access API that is fast, simple and with minimal overhead, but provides no extras.

XDirectFB is an app that will run on top of DirectFB providing all the complexity of X server, without a hardware layer of its own.

Then you can run any WM and app on top of XDirectFB like on top of any other X server.

Now while of course DirectFB alone is much more lightweight than any X server, whether the combination, DirectFB + XDirectFB is lighter than a dedicated X - this is not so sure.