Frame – the first Linux Assembly X server
A software developer describes their project 'frame,' a custom X server written entirely in Assembly language for Linux. The author aims to optimize system performance and reduce the software stack's complexity and power consumption.
Why it matters
It showcases extreme optimization techniques in open-source software development and the 'own your software' movement.
On my quest to own my software , one foundational piece kept itching… the X server. The underlying graphics engine, the thing that puts pixels on the screen. X11 is 4 million lines of code, a beast very few can claim they understand. So I did the reasonable thing. I wrote my own, in Assembly.
It is called frame . No dependencies, no libraries, no garbage collector. No hot paths, no unnecessary wakeups. When it is idle, it sits still. It shuts up unless spoken to. My kind of software. It clocks in at some 20 thousand lines, and it already runs my whole desktop plus Firefox and GIMP whenever I need that. It is still young, and there is a long list of X protocol left to chew through. But it boots, it draws, and I am typing this on it.
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