How to get system to load alternative installation of Xorg?

[chevrox]

So I compiled the latest build of Xorg and ran make install into /usr/local and would like to try it out. Not sure if it's the right approach, since it didn't work after the installation, I relinked /usr/bin/X using update-alternatives to the new binary /usr/local/bin/Xorg, but WM still seems to pick up /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg. Didn't really see anything of note in /etc/X11 or /etc/gdm3. In addition, when starting /usr/local/bin/Xorg from tty or if /etc/gdm3/PreSession/Default is changed to the /usr/local path, Xorg doesn't seem to load any input driver and computer becomes unuseable due to lack of input (although not unresponsive as it can still be ssh'd in and Xorg can be killed from there).

[peter_irich]

I think through update-alternatives. Boot in text mode, rename (mv -f) /usr/bin/Xorg to /usr/bin/Xorg-ori,
in /usr/bin make symlink
ln -sf /etc/alternatives/Xorg Xorg
and with "update-alternatives --config" create symlink in /etc/alternatives to /usr/local/bin/Xorg.
Exact command I can't give now because I very rarely used this command.

Of course you can simply rename /usr/bin/Xorg and make symlink in /usr/bin: Xorg->/usr/local/bin/Xorg.

Peter.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

So I compiled the latest build of Xorg and ran make install into /usr/local and would like to try it out. Not sure if it's the right approach

Not really. You should try to backport the testing/unstable packages instead: https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation

I don't think it will work though, at least not without some fairly major hacking, but I haven't tried it myself.

I relinked /usr/bin/X using update-alternatives to the new binary /usr/local/bin/Xorg

That shouldn't be needed because /usr/local/bin/ usually appears before /usr/bin/ in $PATH so just symlink /usr/local/bin/Xorg to /usr/local/bin/X (if the manual installation doesn't do that already).

WM still seems to pick up /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg

Why do you think that? Please post actual diagnostic terminal output rather than vague opinion. Use $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to set different libraries: https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library- ... aries.html