What is TinyX and where can I get its source?
 

Hello,
I'm trying to add X window system to my bare bone custom Linux system (no package manager). While researching about this I came across things like "Tiny X", "KDrive, "XVesa", "Xfbdev", etc. and I'm really confused about the differences between them. From what I've learned so far, Tiny X and KDrive are the same thing, and they are a branch of the XFree86 project that aims to minimize size. And I also learned that XVesa and Xfbdev are alternative X display servers that uses VESA and the framebuffer respectively. Is Tiny X equivalent to XVesa / Xfbdev? Where can I get the source code of Tiny X?
Also, what is the difference between XFree86 and X11? I can't seem to find any explanation on this.

Thanks a lot

Tiny X was a very small GUI interface that only worked at a couple of resolutions, if memory serves me right, I had it on an odd distro a long ways back, Kdrive I think was an updated version of it.

Xvesa & Xfbdev are part of Xorg, I think, Xvesa is a smaller GUI than Xorg, but only caters for the Vesa resolutions, Xfbdev allows for showing graphics on a text type terminal.

These are my understanding of them, I could be wrong, & if I am, it will soon be pointed out, in the nicest possible manner, I hope. ;)

(XFree86 I think was the fore runner of Xorg.)
X11 is the 11th version, often it is seen as X11R6, the 6th release(?) - something like that.

Hello,
Thanks for the replies! After a bit more digging, I found out that the vesa and fbdev drivers are indeed a part of Xorg, however they are only available as video hardware drivers, but not independent servers. Xvesa and Xfbdev are independent X servers that can run by themselves. From the page tinyx webpage it seems like that Xvesa and Xfbdev are quite outdated and ill-maintained. Are they still safe to use? Or are there any maintained forks of these projects?

Thanks

I just downloaded the XVesa package from the www.irif.fr website and I found out that it is a precompiled binary executable. Where can I get Xvesa's source code? I would like to build it my self. Cheers

Looks like it's on GitHub.

https://github.com/idunham/tinyxserv...vesa/Xvesa.man
https://github.com/idunham/tinyxserv...hw/kdrive/vesa

there is another link on Github:

https://github.com/tinycorelinux/tinyx

It is used by TinyCoreLinux, see: http://tinycorelinux.net/

from the README:

We resurrected Xvesa from the depths of git history, and intend to maintain it with Xfbdev. This includes bugfixes, security fixes, and occasional new features if required.