Hackaday · Creativity & design

GEM Desktop Revived for Linux Framebuffer

A Linux port of the Digital Research GEM graphical desktop has been developed, running directly on the framebuffer without relying on Xorg or Wayland.

The GEM desktop, originally developed for DOS and later used on Atari home computers, has been brought to Linux by Tomaz Stih. This implementation is a standalone graphical display for minimal Linux installations.

Stih is utilizing code from OpenGEM and FreeGEM, which are derived from Digital Research's original GEM codebase. The project aims for compatibility with Atari ST applications, and likely the DOS version as well.

While unlikely to replace Wayland or Xorg for most Linux users, the GEM port offers a lightweight graphical environment that could have niche use cases. Examples of sample applications include a clock and calendar.

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