What is Linux’s native GUI API?

Question

I hope this doesn’t come across as a stupid question but it’s always something I have wondered. Both Windows (Win32 API) and OS X (Cocoa) have their own APIs to handle windows, events and other OS stuff. I have never really got a clear answer as to what Linux’s equivalent is.I have heard some people say GTK+, but GTK+ being cross platform, how can it be native?

Answer 1

There is no native Linux GUI API. Not in the way that MS Windows has a native GUI API. The GUI on top of Linux is 'normally' Xorg. There are other GUIs but they are specialized and not normally included with standard Linux distributions.

The Xorg API can be found in Xlib (or XCB). But you really are better off using a GUI wrapper library such as Qt.