OpenGL is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering.
In computing, a windowing system is a software suite that manages separately different parts of display screens. It is a type of graphical user interface (GUI) which implements the WIMP paradigm for a user interface.
freedesktop.org (fd.o), formerly X Desktop Group (XDG), is a project to work on interoperability and shared base technology for free-software desktop environments for the X Window System (X11) and Wayland on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Although freedesktop.org produces specifications for interoperability, it is not a formal standards body.
DirectFB, now continued as DirectFB2, is a software library with a small memory footprint that provides graphics acceleration, input device handling and abstraction layer, and integrated windowing system with support for translucent windows and multiple display layers on top of the Linux framebuffer without requiring any kernel modifications. DirectFB is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
GLX is an extension to the X Window System core protocol providing an interface between OpenGL and the X Window System as well as extensions to OpenGL itself. It enables programs wishing to use OpenGL to do so within a window provided by the X Window System. GLX distinguishes two "states": indirect state and direct state.
The Khronos Group, Inc. is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of 170 organizations developing, publishing and maintaining royalty-free interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality, parallel computation, vision acceleration and machine learning. The open standards and associated conformance tests enable software applications and middleware to effectively harness authoring and accelerated playback of dynamic media across a wide variety of platforms and devices. The group is based in Beaverton, Oregon.
The Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is the framework comprising the modern Linux graphics stack which allows unprivileged user-space programs to issue commands to graphics hardware without conflicting with other programs. The main use of DRI is to provide hardware acceleration for the Mesa implementation of OpenGL. DRI has also been adapted to provide OpenGL acceleration on a framebuffer console without a display server running.
OpenGL for Embedded Systems is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerated using a graphics processing unit (GPU). It is designed for embedded systems like smartphones, tablet computers, video game consoles and PDAs. OpenGL ES is the "most widely deployed 3D graphics API in history".
Java OpenGL (JOGL) is a wrapper library that allows OpenGL to be used in the Java programming language. It was originally developed by Kenneth Bradley Russell and Christopher John Kline, and was further developed by the Game Technology Group at Sun Microsystems. Since 2010, it has been an independent open-source project under a BSD license. It is the reference implementation for Java Bindings for OpenGL (JSR-231).
Mesa, also called Mesa3D and The Mesa 3D Graphics Library, is an open source implementation of OpenGL, Vulkan, and other graphics API specifications. Mesa translates these specifications to vendor-specific graphics hardware drivers.
Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or Beryl. The project was started by David Reveman of Novell and first released on January 2, 2006. It was removed from the X.org server in favor of AIGLX on June 12, 2008.
A free and open-source graphics device driver is a software stack which controls computer-graphics hardware and supports graphics-rendering application programming interfaces (APIs) and is released under a free and open-source software license. Graphics device drivers are written for specific hardware to work within a specific operating system kernel and to support a range of APIs used by applications to access the graphics hardware. They may also control output to the display if the display driver is part of the graphics hardware. Most free and open-source graphics device drivers are developed by the Mesa project. The driver is made up of a compiler, a rendering API, and software which manages access to the graphics hardware.
Accelerated Indirect GLX ("AIGLX") is an open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to the X.Org Server and DRI drivers. This allows remote X clients to get fully hardware accelerated rendering over the GLX protocol; coincidentally, this development was required for OpenGL compositing window managers to function with hardware acceleration.
Core OpenGL, or CGL, is Apple Inc.'s Macintosh Quartz windowing system interface to the OS X implementation of the OpenGL specification. CGL is analogous to GLX, which is the X11 interface to OpenGL, as well as WGL, which is the Microsoft Windows interface to OpenGL.
WGL or Wiggle is an API between OpenGL and the windowing system interface of Windows. WGL is analogous to EGL, which is an interface between rendering APIs such as OpenCL, OpenGL, OpenGL ES or OpenVG and the native platform, as well as to CGL, which is the OS X interface to OpenGL.
Video Acceleration API (VA-API) is an open source application programming interface that allows applications such as VLC media player or GStreamer to use hardware video acceleration capabilities, usually provided by the graphics processing unit (GPU). It is implemented by the free and open-source library libva, combined with a hardware-specific driver, usually provided together with the GPU driver.
Wayland is a communication protocol that specifies the communication between a display server and its clients, as well as a C library implementation of that protocol. A display server using the Wayland protocol is called a Wayland compositor, because it additionally performs the task of a compositing window manager.
Pixel buffer or pBuffer is a feature in OpenGL and OpenGL ES platform interfaces which allows for off-screen rendering. It is specified as an extension to WGL API, and a core feature of GLX & EGL.
ANGLE is an open source, cross-platform graphics engine abstraction layer developed by Google. ANGLE translates OpenGL ES 2/3 calls to DirectX 9, 11, OpenGL or Vulkan API calls. It is a portable version of OpenGL but with limitations of OpenGL ES standard.
Vulkan is a low-level, low-overhead cross-platform API and open standard for 3D graphics and computing. It was intended to address the shortcomings of OpenGL, and allow developers more control over the GPU. It is designed to support a wide variety of GPUs, CPUs and operating systems, and it is also designed to work with modern multi-core CPUs.
