Kevin Kofler from the Fedora project, part of the working group responsible for maintaining packages with KDE, has announced the formation of packages for Fedora with XLibre X Server, a fork of X.Org Server aimed at active development and a significant clean-up of the X server. Compatible drivers xorg-x11-drv-* have also been prepared for use with XLibre.
The packages have been published in the Fedora Copr repository (Community projects), which allows community members to create their own RPM packages without overlapping with the main Fedora repositories (similar to AUR, anyone can upload their package to Fedora Copr). The packages are built for Fedora 42, currently in development for the release of Fedora 43 and the Rawhide branch (Fedora 44). Fedora-specific patches used in standard packages with X.Org Server (xorg-x11-*) have been applied to the packages and are not yet included in XLibre (these patches are intended to be included in XLibre later on, if possible).
Currently, there are no plans to move these packages to the main Fedora repositories, but it is possible that such a move may occur in the future if there is community interest. To replace X.Org with XLibre in Fedora, it is enough to activate the Copr repository kkofler/xlibre-xserver, and the replacement will be automatically performed during the next update: sudo dnf copr enable kkofler/xlibre-xserver sudo dnf upgrade
Previously, Kevin Kofler proposed replacing the xorg-x11-xserver package in Fedora Linux with the X server implementation from the XLibre fork. The motivation for the replacement was mentioned as a transition to an actively maintained codebase instead of continuing to ship an outdated one. After discussions in the community, the proposal was withdrawn pending consideration by the FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), which is responsible for the technical side of Fedora's development.
Additionally, it is worth noting the blocking of the official XLibre project account on the social network Reddit — the user XLibreDev was banned without explanation. Posts made by the user XLibreDev are hidden, but the channel xlibre continues to operate. The developers note that they have not yet managed to obtain clarification from Reddit's administration. In their opinion, there were no grounds for blocking, as only standard announcements were posted from the blocked user, which were also shared on Bluesky, Mastodon, and X (Twitter).
Source: opennet.ru
