GNOME's [1]Glycin project as the Rust-based sandboxed and extendable image loading library now supports XPM and XBM images. This is notable since those formats were the last unsandboxed image loading formats used on Fedora Linux.

Released yesterday was [2]Glycin 2.1 Alpha that brings a number of component updates and adds XPM and XBM support to the image-rs code. X PixMap (XPM) was for icon pixmaps under the X Window System and X BitMap (XBM) for cursor and icon bitmaps with X GUIs as the successor to XPM.

As noted with [3]This Week in GNOME , the XPM and XBM formats were the last unsandboxed image loader in use on Fedora Linux. Now that handling image loading for XPM/XBM can be handled by the Rust-based sandboxed Glycin, it can allow for a safer and more universal experience on Fedora moving forward. Glycin is also used by a variety of GNOME apps such as Loupe, Shortwave, Camera, Fractal, and others.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Glycin

[2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glycin/-/tags/2.1.alpha

[3] https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2026/01/twig-230/