There are a lot of things you can do with an Xserver, but run it on a microcontroller? Well, if that microcontroller is an ESP32-S3, [Sergey Zorin]– and Claude– have got you covered with Woodland X11, a full-featured port of everyone’s favourite XServer.
Now, it is just the core Xserver with no extensions, and currently targeted specifically at the Elecrow CrowPanel Advance 4.3″, a device that packages an ESP32-S3-N16R8 with an 800×480 RGB565 IPS panel and GT911 touch. In this implementation, your finger is the Xcursor. There’s even two-finger scroll implemented, though no keyboard. As you can see in the demo video embedded below, it works well enough for those oldschool X applications like xclock, xcalc and– crucially!– xeyes. What’s the point of an Xserver without googly eyes, anyway?
In reality, you’re not likely to set this up just for Xeyes, but the idea of having bringing Linux applications to a little display via WiFi or — as in the video– wired connection has no limit of use cases. Try that with Wayland!
Considering X11’s vintage, it is perhaps not surprising that it fits on the ESP32-S3, a chip we’ve seen emulate an entire 386 PC before– a PC that could run an Xserver, for you youngun’s.
Thanks to [Sergey] for the tip!