Graphics on Linux without full-blown window manager?

Question

Is it possible to do graphics on Linux without installing and using a full blown window manager like Gnome/KDE etc?

I am working on an embedded system with a touch screen and I just need to generate Python plots and perhaps have a few buttons to select which plots are displayed. There is no mouse or keyboard.

I do not want to use a windowing system because that would be total overkill for this project. Is there any way I can just display my plots and buttons in fixed locations on the screen and be done with it? Platform is Debian Linux.

With [Kivy](http://kivy.org/) you can create Python script for devices with touch screen. — furas, Jul 13 '14 at 19:51
Study [EWMH](http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.5.html) specs.. Or use e.g. Gtk above [Wayland](http://wayland.freedesktop.org/) — Basile Starynkevitch, Jul 13 '14 at 20:09

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 13 '14 at 19:45

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Yes, there are libs available. Years ago I used svgalib. Games like Quake used it as well.

http://www.svgalib.org

I may be behind the times, however, so I am not sure how current this alternative is. It seems a bit out of date.

answered Jul 13 '14 at 19:45

codenheim

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score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

You can program w/ Xlib directly. There looks to be a python port; I've included a link to a manual for the native C library since the python docs look skimpy and that may help with some of the concepts.

In your question you've perhaps conflated the concept of window manager with windowing system. GNOME and KDE are actually desktop environments built on top of a window manager. The latter are generally much lighter weight than the former and can often be used standalone (openbox, fvwm, et. al.).

These are in turn built on top of the windowing system, which is Xorg. It is possible to do graphical stuff without that using the kernel framebuffer, which apparently is an option for pygame.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

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Another alternative would be to not even have X at all. You could try using SDL w/ framebuffer support - a thread regarding this approach can be found here: Using OpenGL Without X-Window System

edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

Community

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answered Jul 13 '14 at 22:49

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Graphics on Linux without full-blown window manager?

3 Answers3