why does the cinnamon package not depend on xorg-server?

sabinscabin · 2019-09-14 18:06:00

if I 'pacman -S cinnamon', it installs many dependencies, but xorg-server is not one of them. AFAIK, it is not possible to use cinnamon without xorg-server or possibly an alternative like wayland. In that case, why isn't xorg-server listed as a dependency in the pacman package or group? Is it simply because of there being alternatives to xorg in this case?

seth · 2019-09-14 18:43:57

Neither does eg. xterm…

You do not need an X11 server on the machine you're running your desktop environment (or any X11 client) on.
Yes, it's a common setup, but not required.

sabinscabin · 2019-09-15 15:45:00

are you saying it is possible to run cinnamon DE on my machine without xorg-server installed? If yes, how?

Swiggles · 2019-09-15 16:02:23

I think most people have never tried it with a full DE, but it should be really the same for any client. It is fully network enabled, so you can connect to another machine (where the server is running) and display your applications there. For configuration there are the xhost utility for direct connection over a network or tunnel via SSH (-x) if the server enables X11Forwarding.

By specifying the DISPLAY variable you can launch the application at any valid endpoint, e.g. DISPLAY=serverhostname:0 xterm
This command launches the program xterm on your local machine (client) but forwards the display to the server.

When you take a closer look at your usual setup where server and client on the same machine you notice that usually the environment variable DISPLAY is set to ":0" which just means it is display 0 on your local machine.

Edit: It is actually very useful for remote administration of tools that need a gui or offloading the program on another machine. Unfortunately it isn't used that much anymore and wayland ditches the support altogether and instead the compositor or some other layer has to provide this feature. Note this is very distinct from vnc, rdp etc, because it works per application and fully transparent from a users perspective.

Last edited by Swiggles (2019-09-15 16:06:59)

Arch Linux

#1 2019-09-14 18:06:00

why does the cinnamon package not depend on xorg-server?

#2 2019-09-14 18:43:57

Re: why does the cinnamon package not depend on xorg-server?

#3 2019-09-15 15:45:00

Re: why does the cinnamon package not depend on xorg-server?

#4 2019-09-15 16:02:23

Re: why does the cinnamon package not depend on xorg-server?

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