What is Linux s native GUI API

Question

Both Windows  Win32 API  and OS X  Cocoa  have their own APIs to handle windows  events and other OS stuff  I have never really got a clear answer as to what Linux   s equivalent is  I have heard some people say GTK   but GTK  being cross platform  How can it be native

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Linux is a kernel  not a full operating system   There are different windowing systems and gui s that run on top of Linux to provide windowing   Typically X11 is the windowing system used by Linux distros

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In Linux the graphical user interface is not a part of the operating system  The graphical user interface found on most Linux desktops is provided by software called the X Window System  which defines a device independent way of dealing with screens  keyboards and pointer devices   X Window defines a network protocol for communication  and any program that knows how to  speak  this protocol can use it  There is a C library called Xlib that makes it easier to use this protocol  so Xlib is kind of the native GUI API  Xlib is not the only way to access an X Window server  there is also XCB   Toolkit libraries such as GTK   used by GNOME  and Qt  used by KDE   built on top of Xlib  are used because they are easier to program with  For example they give you a consistent look and feel across applications  make it easier to use drag-and-drop  provide components standard to a modern desktop environment  and so on   How X draws on the screen internally depends on the implementation  X org has a device independent part and a device dependent part  The former manages screen resources such as windows  while the latter communicates with the graphics card driver  usually a kernel module  The communication may happen over direct memory access or through system calls to the kernel  The driver translates the commands into a form that the hardware on the card understands   As of 2013  a new window system called Wayland is starting to become usable  and many distributions have said they will at some point migrate to it  though there is still no clear schedule  This system is based on OpenGL ES API  which means that in the future OpenGL will be the  native GUI API  in Linux  Work is being done to port GTK  and QT to Wayland  so that current popular applications and desktop systems would need minimal changes  The applications that cannot be ported will be supported through an X11 server  much like OS X supports X11 apps through Xquartz  The GTK  port is expected to be finished within a year  while Qt 5 already has complete Wayland support   To further complicate matters  Ubuntu has announced they are developing a new system called Mir because of problems they perceive with Wayland  This window system is also based on the OpenGL ES API

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Strictly speaking  the API of Linux consists of its system calls   These are all of the kernel functions that can be called by a user-mode  non-kernel  program   This is a very low-level interface that allows programs to do things like open and read files    See http   en wikipedia org wiki System call for a general introduction   A real Linux system will also have an entire  stack  of other software running on it  in order to provide a graphical user interface and other features    Each element of this stack will offer its own API

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The closest thing to Win32 in linux would be the libc  as you mention not only the UI but events and  other os stuff

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Wayland is also worth mentioning as it is mostly referred as a  future X11 killer    Also note that Android and some other mobile operating systems don t include X11 although they have a Linux kernel  so in that sense X11 is not native to all Linux systems   Being cross-platform has nothing to do with being native  Cocoa has also been ported to other platforms via GNUStep but it is still native to OS X   macOS

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The linux kernel graphical operations are in  include linux fb h as struct fb ops  Eventually this is what add-ons like X11  Wayland  or DRM appear to reference  As these operations are only for video cards  not vector or raster hardcopy or tty oriented terminal devices  their usefulness as a GUI is limited  it s just not entirely true you need those add-ons to get graphical output if you don t mind using some assembler to bypass syscall as necessary

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XWindows is probably the closest to what could be called  native

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To aid in what has already been mentioned there is a very good overview of the Linux graphics stack at this blog  http   blog mecheye net 2012 06 the-linux-graphics-stack   This explains X11 Wayland etc and how it all fits together  In addition to what has already been mentioned I think it s worth adding a bit about the following API s you can use for graphics in Linux   Mesa -  Mesa is many things  but one of the major things it provides that it is most famous for is its OpenGL implementation  It is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL API    Cairo -  cairo is a drawing library used either by applications like Firefox directly  or through libraries like GTK   to draw vector shapes    DRM  Direct Rendering Manager  - I understand this the least but its basically the kernel drivers that let you write graphics directly to framebuffer without going through X

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Wayland  As you might hear  wayland is the featured choice of many distros these days  because of its protocol is simpler than the X   Toolkits of wayland  Toolkits or gui libraries that wayland suggests are    QT 5 GTK  LSD Clutter EFL

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GUI is a high level abstraction of capability  so almost everything from XOrg server to OpenGL is ported cross-platform  including for Windows platform  But if by GUI API you mean  nix graphics API then you might be wandering around  Direct Rendering Infrastructure

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I suppose the question is more like  What is linux s native GUI API    In most cases X  aka X11  will be used for that  http   en wikipedia org wiki X Window System    You can find the API documentation here

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