SVGALib

SVGAlib is an open-source low-level graphics library which ran on Linux and FreeBSD and allowed programs to change video mode and display full-screen graphics, without the use of a windowing system.^[3][4] Alongside X11 and the General Graphics Interface, it was one of the earliest libraries allowing graphical video games on Linux.

SVGAlib

Original author(s)	Harm Hanemaayer[1]
Developer(s)	Matan Ziv-Av
Stable release	1.4.3 / June 2, 2001; 23 years ago (2001-06-02)[2]
Preview release	1.9.25[2]
Written in	C
Operating system	Linux, FreeBSD
Platform	x86, x86-64
Type	Library
Website	www.svgalib.org

History

The first version of SVGALib was based on version 1.2 of another library, VGALib by Tommy Frandsen.^[5]

Several games like Ambrosia Software's Maelstrom by Sam Lantinga, the first-person games Freaks! and Space Plumber^[6][7] using the QDGDF library,^[8][9] and most famously id Software's Doom (alongside an X11 version) and Quake (after the submission of a third-party patch based on leaked source code^[10]) were ported to use SVGALib from other operating systems,^[11] as was Doom porter Dave Taylor's Abuse.

Wolfenstein 3D was also ported following its source code being released in 1995,^[12] as well as the id produced Heretic, Hexen and Hexen II after 1999,^[13] and Descent and Descent II by Parallax Software after 1998.^[14] Certain source ports for Doom, Quake, and Abuse maintained support for SVGALib.^[15] The library is also supported by the MAME/MESS emulator.^[16]

First party Linux games that have supported it include Alizarin Tetris,^[17] Bdash,^[18] Fleuch,^[19] Hatman,^[20] Intelligent FRAC,^[21] Koules,^[22] LinCity,^[23][24] Linberto,^[25] Quadra,^[26] Repton,^[27] SABRE,^[28] Thrust (also supported GGI),^[29] Zarch,^[30] and Zblast,^[31] among others.^[32][33][34]

SVGALib was popular in the mid to late 1990s.^[35][36] A reference book, Linux Graphics Programming with SVGAlib, was authored by Jay Link in 2000.^[37] Around the turn of the millennium, many applications that used it migrated to X11 and SDL,^[38] which could (until SDL 2.0) make use of SVGAlib as a video driver.^[39][40] This was in part due to the risks of privilege escalation due to SVGAlib requiring applications to run from root.^[41][42][43]