xorgcist

A Linux GUI for X11 multi-display and input configuration — the things nvidia-settings stopped doing well.

It reads your current display and input state, lets you visually edit display layout and touchscreen mapping, and emits xorg.conf snippets and xinput commands as text for you to save wherever you want. Built for the X11-bound niches — sim rigs, kiosks, GPU passthrough, facility multi-display — that aren't migrating to Wayland.

Install and use

Requirements

• Linux running an X11 session (not Wayland)
• Python 3.10 or 3.11 (dearpygui 1.9.0 has no wheels for 3.12+)
• xrandr, xinput, and lspci on PATH (standard on any X11 desktop)

glibc note: requirements.txt pins dearpygui<=1.9.0 because 1.9.1+ require glibc 2.29+. RHEL8 ships glibc 2.28, so newer wheels install but fail at import. If you're on a newer distro you can lift the cap, but the pinned version works everywhere.

Install

git clone https://github.com/nreagan/xorgcist.git
cd xorgcist
pip install -r requirements.txt

If you'd rather not touch system Python, use a venv or pipx:

python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run

python3 xorgcist.py

If you want to poke at the UI without a real X11 session (e.g. on a Wayland machine), launch with synthetic data:

python3 xorgcist.py --demo

Workflow

1. xorgcist opens populated with your current displays, input devices, and touchscreens — pulled from live xrandr, xinput, and GPU PCI data.
2. Edit any of the independent sections you need: display layout and touchscreen mapping. The input devices view is informational.
3. Review the generated xorg.conf snippet and runtime xrandr script in the preview panes. The built-in validator lints them on every change.
4. Save via the standard file dialog or copy to clipboard. xorgcist does not pick paths or install anything for you — drop the snippet into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, an autostart script, version control, or wherever fits your setup. The real test is loading it in your actual X session.

Shell note: the generated runtime script is POSIX sh. It works as-is in .xinitrc, graphical-session autostart Exec=, or a systemd user unit tied to the graphical session. Do not put it in .bashrc or run it from SSH: those shells may not have the real local X11 $DISPLAY / $XAUTHORITY, and they run at the wrong time. Multi-X-screen scripts derive the X server number from $DISPLAY at runtime, so the same script works whether you log in first (:0), second (:1), or under multi-seat. csh users running it as a file are fine; csh users sourcing it interactively will need to wrap it (sh runtime.sh) since csh doesn't grok VAR=value cmd syntax.

Run the tests

python3 -m unittest test_xorgcist.py

What it does

On launch, xorgcist reads live xrandr / xinput / lspci state and presents three independent views:

• Display layout — drag displays into position with absolute or relative offsets; assign displays to separate X screen IDs (:0.0, :0.1, …). This is the piece nvidia-settings used to do and no longer does.
• Input devices — view detected keyboards, mice, tablets, and touchscreens.
• Touchscreen mapping — derives the Coordinate Transformation Matrix from the display layout so a touchscreen maps cleanly to the rectangle of its physical output.

Each editor is independent. Use any subset; skip the rest.

How it works

xorgcist is a file emitter, not a config applier. Each editor produces standard xorg.conf snippets or xinput commands as plain text, exposed through a normal Save dialog and a Copy-to-clipboard button. There is no daemon, no sudo, no install workflow, no auto-revert. You review the generated text and decide where to put it — /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, an autostart script, version control, wherever fits your setup.

A built-in validator lints the generated config before you save: required sections present, ServerLayout references resolve, no duplicate identifiers, BusIDs syntactically valid. For full validation that the config actually loads, install it in your real X session — there is intentionally no in-app dummy-driver dryrun, because the modern Linux session-security stack (Xorg.wrap, sticky-bit /tmp, root-owned X locks, dummy driver semantic gaps) makes such sandboxes brittle and low-value.

Audience

Power users on X11 by choice: simulator and arcade rigs, kiosk and digital signage operators, multi-seat lab and classroom setups, GPU passthrough hosts, accessibility installations, Wacom-heavy creative workflows, retro and specialty hardware, facility multi-display installations.

If your current workflow is "open nvidia-settings for the bits it still does, then hand-edit xorg.conf for the bits it doesn't," xorgcist is for you.

Non-goals

• Wayland support
• Cross-session sync, cloud, fleet management
• Bundled "profile" abstractions on top of the saved files
• Device-level touchscreen calibration (tap-target routines for misbehaving panels)
• Anything that runs in the background or modifies system files on your behalf

Stack

Python 3 + Dear PyGui — a native immediate-mode GUI framework. The whole UI is described fresh each frame from a single UIState dataclass; event handlers mutate state and the next frame reflects it. No widget-vs-app-state desync, snapshot-undo for free, trivial to test by asserting against UIState without rendering. Dear PyGui renders via OpenGL, which is reliably available on any system running an X session. Tests use stdlib unittest.

Driver coverage. xorgcist emits two artifacts per save: a xorg.conf snippet and a runtime xrandr script.

• NVIDIA proprietary is the primary supported driver. The xorg.conf uses NVIDIA's MetaModes to encode per-output positioning, rotation, and mirroring inside the config file itself. The runtime script also applies refresh rates and primary-output selection.
• AMD (amdgpu) and Intel (modesetting / i915) ignore MetaModes entirely — for these drivers, the xorg.conf only sets up a minimal single X screen and the actual layout (positioning / rotation / mirror / scale / primary / disable) comes from the runtime xrandr script. NVIDIA multi-X-screen runtime commands use display prefixes so xrandr targets the right screen.

In practice: NVIDIA users can often rely on xorg.conf for the display layout itself, but should use the runtime script for refresh rates, primary-output selection, and touchscreens. AMD/Intel users need the runtime script to be wired into their session startup (autostart, .xinitrc, systemd user unit, etc.). Both paths are emitted from the same UI.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.