Creating a Linux Desktop Envoriment

Question

Suppose I want to create my own desktop envoriment for Linux, without X. Like Google with the Android did. Where do I start? Is it actually a normal application that just draws stuff, and starts after the kernel boot? And how does it draw it? Using OpenGL or is there something more generic? And graphics drivers, how is it going? You should develop custom graphics drivers for your desktop or it comes with the Linux kernel?

Note: It's for normal PCs and not embedded devices.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use the frame buffer device.
There are a few toolkits that render directly to the frame buffer for embedded device - even fully featured toolkits like Qt and wxWidgets can do it.

Answer 2

See: DirectFB (and Wikipedia).

Answer 3

Well, you could study how OS X works in some detail.

You're probably best advised to keep most of the X server... it has a set of good device drivers already, and they're a very large part of the work.