If you run a lightweight distro and you do not like the fact that Wayland will probably become the default, PeppermintOS has some news you should know about. It’s switching its display server from the soon-to-be-retired Xorg to XLibre for its next round of ISO refreshes.

It may look like a sensible call as it keeps X11 alive and skips Wayland (for now). However, XLibre is one of the divisive projects in the Linux world right now. Choosing XLibre won’t sit well with some people, at least.

Moving away from Wayland and Xorg

In a recent blog, PeppermintOS announced it’s shifting the display server from xorg-server to XLibre across its upcoming builds.

Reason is simple. Development on the original Xorg has stalled and most distributions have switched to Wayland. XLibre exists with the aim to keep maintaining, modernizing, and cleaning up the codebase for people who still prefer X11.

XLibre is built as a drop-in replacement for xorg, and it aims not to break standard desktop environments, window managers, or older drivers, and PeppermintOS says its testing so far has gone as expected.

PeppermintOS says it has no immediate plans to move to Wayland, pointing to XFCE’s roadmap of supporting both Xorg and Wayland natively. Xfce is the default offering from PeppermintOS.

By the way, this is the project’s first Debian-based ISO built without Debian’s traditional live-build tools, moving instead to mmdebstrap, mirroring what PeppermintOS already did for its Devuan edition.

That Devuan build has also been updated to use XLibre and is close to community testing. A 64-bit Debian flagship nightly is already up for testing, and PeppermintOS expects a few rough edges in the build process itself.

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The important point for existing PeppermintOS users is that the interface and overall experience stay identical to the current stable release. The change is under the hood.

Choosing Xlibre will get some eyerolls

Why? Because critics argue XLibre is more of a political fork than a technical one. Also, Xlibre has been in the news for some not-so-positive reasons.

XLibre is a fork of the X.Org server started in mid-2025 by Enrico Weigelt, who was the top commit contributor to Xorg in 2024. Weigelt was banned from freedesktop.org’s GitLab around the time the fork went public.

Arch Linux removed XLibre’s page from its official wiki earlier this year, citing a Code of Conduct rule against maligning other FOSS projects. The package itself stayed available in the AUR.

Artix Linux made XLibre its default X server in April 2026, then reversed course. With its August 2026 release it switched back to Xorg as the default, a decision it says it took after an unusually high volume of XLibre-related bug reports.

Artix then went further and announced it would stop packaging XLibre entirely. They shared that the switchback drew backlash from XLibre, and a veteran Artix developer known as “Artist” was targeted and harassed to the point of resigning. Existing XLibre users on Artix are being moved back to the corresponding Xorg packages.

What next?

XLibre being controversial doesn’t make it technically broken. The controversy is about the project’s conduct and politics, not whether it draws windows. PerppermintOS is testing it and found to be working well. Let’s hope it stays that way and we keep on getting choices on the display server scene.

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