Chrome OS Is Working To Remove The Last Of Its X11 Dependencies

Written by Michael Larabel in Operating Systems on 20 May 2017 at 07:00 AM EDT. 22 Comments
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Chrome OS has not been using the X.Org Server but there have been some X11/X.Org dependencies still around, which looks like they will be removed soon.

It looks like Chrome OS will soon be X11-free. This commit yesterday to the Chromium code-base caught my attention, which uses Ozone by default unconditionally.

The commit mentions, "X11 is no longer used on any machines and X11 for chromeos will soon be removed entirely. So, switch the default for chromeos to use_ozone." Ozone is Chrome's low-level library for abstracting away the display server and other interfaces for portability.

Chrome OS hadn't been defaulting to using an X.Org Server in some time since rolling out their custom graphics stack that uses OpenGL ES and DRM/KMS more directly. Though they had been using XWayland to run Android Studio on Chrome OS so no word if that's now running directly off Wayland, etc.

Anyhow, as the commit says, X11 for Chrome OS will soon be removed entirely.
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