#X.Org

[johniac]

SciTech Chronicles. . . . . . . . .July 11th, 2025

[penguintechtips]

Fixing XORG/MESA crashes on My Thinkpad X201

Introduction

I've recently aqcuired a Thinkpad X201. It features an Intel Core i5 520M and the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD GPU, which should be plenty for some light browsing and word processing on Debian.

The Installation of the Operating System (Debian 12 "Bookworm" with the Mate Desktop) went smoothly and my spirits were high when I suddenly got catapulted back to the login screen after trying to copy some arbitrary textfile from my NAS to a local folder.

Because I have become kind of lazy in regards to sysadmin related activities I did some distrohopping (Arch, OpenSUSE) and tried multiple desktops (Mate, KDE, XFCE) but the problem persisted so I had to dive deeper.

The root cause (funny cuz Linux)

After some research this seemed to be a relativly common bug on these older Intel iGPUs that could be fixed by enabling the "TearFree" option of the driver using a custom /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf like so:

Section "Device"  Identifier "Intel Graphics"  Driver "intel"  Option "TearFree" "true" EndSection

However, creating that custom config with the above content led to me not getting any graphical user interface at all, just the good old fashioned console login prompt.

After digging deeper it turns out MESA (which is used by X11 to display graphics) removed legacy INTEL drivers starting with version 22. They are supposed to be replaced by something called "crocus", but that doesn't support options such as "TearFree".

The Solution

The solution for this problem is called Mesa Amber, a branch of mesa based on the latest 21.x version and therefore still containing the legacy drivers. Some Distributions (like Arch) have a ready to use package for it, but Debian does not. It does however exist as source code. Therefore:

Building and installing from source

Depending on your configuration, execute these commands with sudo or as root when necessary

apt install git build-essential devscripts git clone https://salsa.debian.org/xorg-team/lib/mesa-amber.git cd mesa-amber mk-build-deps --install --remove rm mesa-amber-build-deps* debuild -us -uc cd .. apt install *.deb

As a final step, add MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=i965 to /etc/environment and create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with the content mentioned before: Section "Device"  Identifier "Intel Graphics"  Driver "intel"  Option "TearFree" "true" EndSection After a reboot, your system should use the old driver and not crash anymore.

Source (Devuan Forum) Let me know if I made any mistakes!

[bigsmerf1]

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[piratesexmachine420]

Thoughts on Linux (the OS)

Misconception!

I don't want to be obnoxiously pedantic, but Linux is not an OS. It is a kernel, which is just part of an OS. (Like how Windows contains a lot more than just KERNEL32.DLL). A very, very important piece, which directly shapes the ways that all the other programs will talk to each other. Think of it like a LEGO baseplate.

Everything else is built on top of the kernel. But, a baseplate does not a city make. We need buildings! A full operating system is a combination of a kernel and kernel-level (get to talk to hardware directly) utilities for talking to hardware (drivers), and userspace (get to talk to hardware ONLY through the kernel) utilities ranging in abstraction level from stuff like window management and sound servers and system bootstrapping to app launchers and file explorers and office suites. Every "Linux OS" is a combination of that LEGO baseplate with some permutation of low and high-level userspace utilities.

Now, a lot of Linux-based OSes do end up feeling (and being) very similar to each other. Sometimes because they're directly copying each other's homework (AKA forking, it's okay in the open source world as long as you follow the terms of the licenses!) but more generally it's because there just aren't very many options for a lot of those utilities.

Want your OS to be more than just a text prompt? Your pick is between X.org (old and busted but...well, not reliable, but a very well-known devil) and Wayland (new hotness, trying its damn hardest to subsume X and not completely succeeding). Want a graphics toolkit? GTK or Qt. Want to be able to start the OS? systemd or runit. (Or maybe SysVinit if you're a real caveman true believer.) Want sound? ALSA is a given, but on top of that your options are PulseAudio, PipeWire, and JACK. Want an office suite? Libreoffice is really the only name in the game at present. Want terminal utilities? Well, they're all gonna have to conform to the POSIX spec in some capacity. GNU coreutils, busybox, toybox, all more or less the same programs from a user perspective.

Only a few ever get away from the homogeneity, like Android. But I know that you're not asking about Android. When people say "Linux OS" they're talking about the homogeneity. The OSes that use terminals. The ones that range in looks from MacOS knockoff to Windows knockoff to 'impractical spaceship console'. What do I think about them?

I like them! I have my strongly-felt political and personal opinions about which building blocks are better than others (generally I fall into the 'functionality over ideology' camp; Nvidia proprietary over Nouveau, X11 over Wayland, Systemd over runit, etc.) but I like the experience most Linux OSes will give me.

I like my system to be a little bit of a hobby, so when I finally ditched Windows for the last time I picked Arch Linux. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to treat their OS as a hobby, though. There are better and easier options for 'normal users'.

I like the terminal very much. I understand it's intimidating for new users, but it really is an incredible tool for doing stuff once you're in the mindset. GUIs are great when you're inexperienced, but sometimes you just wanna tell the computer what you want with your words, right? So many Linux programs will let you talk to them in the terminal, or are terminal-only. It's very flexible.

I also really, really love the near-universal concept of a 'package manager' -- a program which automatically installs other programs for you. Coming from Windows it can feel kinda restrictive that you have to go through this singular port of entry to install anything, instead of just looking up the program and running an .msi file, but I promise that if you get used to it it's very hard to go back. Want to install discord? yay -S discord. Want to install firefox? yay -S firefox. Minecraft? yay -S minecraft-launcher. etc. etc. No more fucking around in the Add/Remove Programs menu, it's all in one place! Only very rarely will you want to install something that isn't in the package manager's repositories, and when you do you're probably already doing something that requires technical know-how.

Not a big fan of the filesystem structure. It's got a lot of history. 1970s mainframe computer operation procedure history. Not relevant to desktop users, or even modern mainframe users. The folks over at freedesktop.org have tried their best to get at least the user's home directory cleaned up but...well, there's a lot of historical inertia at play. It's not a popular movement right now but I've been very interested in watching some people try to crack that nut.

Aaaaaand I think those are all the opinions I can share without losing everyone in the weeds. Hope it was worth reading!

[cozy-sims]

Linux update! (And a few Nvidia tips)

After a dreadful day of trying to make this work, I'm reporting that The Sims 2 finally works on my new Linux system! 😭❤️ Admittedly I have made my own life harder setting this up, but the most important thing I've learned from this experience and thought it might worth sharing:

Before you try to install TS2 on your Linux, make sure that you have your graphics card's driver updated!

When I first installed The Sims 2 on Linux it was incredibly laggy and choppy, because the default Nouveau driver didn't work well enough with my Nvidia card. After I installed the Nvidia driver from the built in driver manager, the game just straightup crashed.

Then I had to find out that Mint's driver manager couldn't install the newest driver for my card (RTX 3070), and even when installed, it didn't work. 😂

So if you have an Nvidia card and struggling or planning to install Linux in the future, below the cut are a few useful tips that I've discovered in the depths of the Internet:

Check what driver the official Nvidia site recommends for your GPU. - I did this and it showed driver version 570.

2. I think this is optional, but open your terminal and type the cmd: sudo apt update - this will trigger Linux to update its driver list.

3. Open Driver Manager, and see if the recommended driver (570 in my case is available). For me it was not available, only the 550, this was my issue.

3.1. If you can see your required driver, awesome, install it from the driver manager and skip to step 5. 3.2. If not, you have to use this PPA. -> Meaning you have to open your terminal and enter the following commands (when I list multiple commands to run, first type the first one, press enter, then type the next one, press enter etc.): sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ ppa sudo apt update You can also find installation guide on the link above, but it's basically this. 4. Now you have to restart your system, and repeat Step 3. of this list. The newest driver should show up in your Driver Manager now, install it.

5. After installing, open your terminal and type the following command: inxi -G -> this will allow us to check if the driver works properly. Shock, it did not for me :D When working properly, it should look like this:

Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch resolution: 1:1920x1080~60Hz 2: 1920x1080~60Hz When not working, it looks like this: Example 1: Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: nouveau unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa failed: nvidia

6. This is the thread that helped me fix this problem. You have to scroll down to the Nvidia Graphics troubleshooting tips.

7. I had to add this "kernel boot parameter": nvidia_drm.fbdev=1 into the system. On this link you can see how to add it either temporarily or "permanently" (meaning you don't have to add it every time you start your system, but it is removable).

To add it permanently, you have to type the following commands into your terminal:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia_drm.fbdev=1" sudo update-grub

8. After you added it, reboot your system, and when it starts again, check if the parameter is there with the command: cat /proc/cmdline

9. If it's there, run the inxi -G command again, and see if it looks like it should.

10. If not, you might have to update the Kernel version of your Linux, which you can do in the Update Manager/View/Linux Kernels menu. I had to update mine from 6.8 to 6.11.

After all this you should be good to install the game, I made my life so much harder than it was necessarily so I hope my research on how to deal with an Nvidia Graphics card with Sims 2 on Linux is helpful to some of you. 😂

[margueritesauvage]

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[abbiistabbii]

so i found you from that post (which will be obvious once you read the rest off this ask) and want to say the following: get nazipie and the defender of that (or any for that matter) billionaire pdf file off of linux and maybe i’ll consider switching to linux

also please give the mad computer scientist an albert wesker makeover

A...are you not using Linux because Pewdiepie and Stallman are Linux users?

You know that, for one, you, potentially using Linux, will not positively or negatively affect the Lives of Stallman or Kjellberg and for two, there are some even worse people using Windows and Mac and Android and iOS, yet you still use it. You using Linux will have no positive or negative baring on you or anyone else.

This isn’t like JK Rowing and Harry Potter, where watching the new Harry Potter or buying a Galbraith book gives money to the Wicked Witch of Weem which she then uses to strip trans and gender variant people of their rights. Even when Stallman was fucking Head of the FSF before being kicked out, you using nano or any other GNU project did nothing to benefit Stallman or anyone because it was Free and Open Source Software! The whole point was that Stallman didn’t really own it as we would know it and he would not benefit financially because, again, it’s Free and Open Source Software: he doesn’t benefit financially because the whole point of it is that it’s released, free of charge, as a public good.

Also Pewdiepie is just a Linux user. You using Linux does not benefit him nor should it reflect badly on you. He’s not getting a check from the Linux Foundation every time someone downloads and installs Mint or Ubuntu. He’s literally just using Arch and Hyprland. Now would I use Arch? No, but that’s because Arch is a complicated Distro and I like GUIs, simple to use TUIs and a set up that doesn’t break with every update. Do I use Hyprland (despite some of it’s own drama)? Yes, because it’s a great Window Manager. I’m writing this post while using Hyprland! It does not, however, make me a Nazi because Pewds is too.

Unless you’re using a Distro that does something like, charge you to use it and sends money to the KKK or something, using Linux has no baring on you and provides no benefit to anyone like Stallman or Kjellberg because again, they do not benefit financially benefit or benefit in any way from you using it. Stallman doesn’t financially benefit from you using it on principle and right now, he’s toxic goods and nobody wants to even go near him, so he can’t even benefit on clout.

Terrible people are going to be using Linux, terrible people are going to even contribute to projects, hell, terrible people are going to start and lead projects (see xLibre, which is a laughing stock anyway because nobody is going to use X.org anyway and the guy leading it is a toxic rightwing nutcase who’s been kicked out of projects for being a right wing nutjob) but the thing about Open Source Software is that they don’t really benefit in any tangible ways because, by definition, Free and Open Source Software is free and Open Source. If you don’t use any technology used by horrible people, you’d be butt naked and living in the woods.

Go use Linux, Stallman and Kjellberg aren’t gonna benefit from it in anyway and the other people using it won’t have any baring on you as a person. If anything, using Linux is a net positive because it saves eWaste from going to the tip. If using the same distro as Stallman and Kjellberg bothers you, don’t use Trisquel or Arch. I don’t, but it’s not because of Stallman and Kjellberg, it’s because I wanna use Non-free stuff on my system and Arch is...well...Arch.

[hackernewsrobot]

The X.Org Server just got forked (announcing XLibre)

https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/commits/xlibre/prepare/

[blog-anish]

> At 33 years it is at its best age. 15 years for development, 15 years for maturing and 15 years to become old. We have another 12 years to go before a replacement is mature and needed. In the meanwhile x.org is still the primary solution for showing windows on your screen.

anon

[facing-worlds]

i know X.Org is pinching their noses rn

[igurugr]

Οι υποστηρικτές του Wayland προωθούν το ...

[dkplayer]

Выпущен XWayland 23.2

Выпущен XWayland 23.2 для сервера X.Org Server, обеспечивающий поддержку окон/клиентов X11 в композиторах Wayland, с функциями управления разрывом, изменяемым корневым элементом, поддержкой EI.

https://www.gamebuntu.ru/news/vypuschen-xwayland-23-2/

[xylophonetangerine]

X11 is obviously a famously complex and incredibly confusing collection of software but xkb, the X keyboard extension, is even worse. It's absolutely unreal how unhelpful the documentation is and how basically no one on the internet seems to be able to answer any questions about anything other the absolute basics needed to set a correct keymap for your X session. I genuinely don't know how anyone learns to use it on a higher level. I assume there has to be some kind of secret Mormon-style endowment ceremony where they perform morality plays to teach system administrators and software developers how to define keyboard layouts and control indicator LEDs through secret handshakes. And then at the end they reach the X.Org Holy of Holies where they're rewarded by being allowed to use a Wayland system for five minutes.

[piratesexmachine420]

X.Org? More like seX.Org, amirite!? *goes in for a high-five, but pulls away at the last second and runs away into the desert where days later i die of exposure*

[ericvanderburg]

Xlibre fork lights a fire under long-dormant X.org development

http://securitytc.com/TLSyRW

[elementaryos-official]

There's a vulnerability disclosed in X11 / XWayland.

Highly suggested to update your system with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade or you distro's equivalent