Re: libX11's libXcursor dlopen

[Petre Rodan <petre.rodan%linux.dev@localhost>]

Hello!

On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 05:22:57PM +1100, matthew green wrote:
> when we updated time_t to be 64-bit for everyone in 2008-2009,
> we bumped the shlib versions of *all* libraries we ship with
> netbsd itself, which means all X libraries are at least 1 version
> higher than what they would normally do.
> 
> what the shlib version is shouldn't matter, because shlib users
> should get the right version via the shlib's SONAME being recorded
> in the binary later, and that being found, and eg, for this case
> it would be libXcursor.so.2 being searched for.

ok, thanks for the explanation.
the users are getting access to the so.2 library as per the ktrace in my first mail, but the XCreateFontCursor() function within it does nothing useful.

> is there an actual problem because of this?  i didn't quite find
> that but maybe i missed it.

just installed 11.0_RC2 on some better hardware and the problem that neither the cursor theme nor the cursor size is getting set persists.

11.0_RC2 uses the latest libXcursor (1.2.3) in the x11 set.

if I install the same libXcursor-1.2.3 from packages, move its libraries to /usr/X11R7/lib and create fresh symlinks (so.2 -> so.1; .so -> .so.1) then the problem is fixed.
somehow the libXcursor that gets shipped in the x11 set is flawed in both netbsd-10.1 and 11.0_RC2.

I will try to find the root cause of this and get back to the list.
I'll need to figure out how to compile (part of) the x11 set locally.

loose steps to reproduce:

############################### >8 ###
pkgin install adwaita-icon-theme

cat << EOF >> ~/.Xresources
Xcursor.theme: Adwaita
Xcursor.size: 48
EOF

cat << EOF >> ~/.xinitrc
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
EOF

startx

compile and run [1] under ktrace

while hovering the mouse over the white window you should get a large Adwaita hand cursor.
look inside kdump and see that there was no effort in searching for the Adwaita assets.

### 8< #################################

later edit:

just to make sure I understood the docs, xorg wsfb is the best I can achieve with a radeon RX 6800 card?
I'd need SDL2 opengl, will mesa work with wsfb? my plan was to port a retro game to netbsd.

[1] https://pastebin.com/AZe636JK

best regards,
peter