Running Wayland, X11, GNOME, and KDE natively on an iPad

I like running software on devices that aren't "supposed" to run it. I own the hardware. I should control the software. And for reasons, Apple makes phenomenal hardware and operating systems, but locks them down. I've been bitter for a long time. Six years ago, when I should’ve been studying for finals, I ported X11 to my jailbroken iPad because I wanted to try using it as a "real" personal computer: That first version worked, but also sucked: the X server ran on the iPad, but I used a VNC client to interact with it and a lot ofsoftware did not compile. I was using vim and xterm and it looked like something from the 90s. With more experience, and with LLMs, I was able to get significantly further. There is a "slop wiki" available at https://xios.maxleiter.com with more information, and the code is on GitHub. Some screenshots: X11 If you're unfamiliar with X11, this post assumes a basic understanding, but TL;DR: it’s a window server and protocol thatmany devices use. It describes how…