Xephyr is
display server
In computing, a windowing system (or window system) is software that manages separately different parts of display screens. It is a type of graphical user interface (GUI) which implements the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) paradigm for ...
software implementing the
X11
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
display server protocol based on
KDrive
X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation.
Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve ...
which targets a
window
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materia ...
on a host X Server as its
framebuffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...
. It is written by Matthew Allum. Xephyr is an X-on-X implementation and runs on
X.Org Server
X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation.
Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve a ...
and can work with
Glamor.
Future versions could make use of
libinput
Wayland is a communication protocol that specifies the communication between a display server and its clients, as well as a C library implementation of that protocol. A display server using the Wayland protocol is called a ''Wayland compositor' ...
. Replacing Xephyr with the xf86-video-dummy and xf86-video-nested drivers in the normal X.Org server is being considered as part of X11R7.8.
Features
Unlike the similar ''Xnest'', Xephyr supports modern X extensions (even if host server doesn't) such as composite, damage, randr, etc. It uses
SHM images and shadow framebuffer updates to provide good performance. It also has a visual debugging mode for observing screen updates.
Limitations
Xorg
X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation.
Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve ...
's version of Xephyr uses only
software rendering
Software rendering is the process of generating an image from a model by means of computer software. In the context of computer graphics rendering, software rendering refers to a rendering process that is not dependent upon graphics hardware AS ...
for
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...
, but Feng Haitao has developed
forked version of Xephyrwhich can do hardware-accelerated rendering if the underlying X server has the capability.
See also
*
Thin client
In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...
*
rio (windowing system)
rio is Plan 9 from Bell Labs' windowing system. It is well known for making its window management transparent to the application. This allows running rio inside of another window manager.
History
rio is the latest in a long series of graphi ...
References
External links
*
{{XWinSys
X servers