I usually install Debian (sid) from a minimal system and all I need to have a perfectly working xserver is:
xserver-xorg-core ← core xserver
xserver-input-evdev ← for mouse and keyboard
xserver-xorg-video-nouveau ← for my NVIDIA card

Package xorg is a metapackage that brings everything and the kitchen sink, as by the saying. ( packages.debian.org/sid/xorg )

If we don't have xorg installed, sgfxi doesn't work.
If sgfxi would need only xserver-xorg-core I wouldn't even need to install the nouveau driver (xserver-xorg-video-nouveau) when building the system and could install the proprietary driver directly.
That would prevent us from installing undesired extras and would obviously make it much easier to use sgfxi as there wouldn't be the need to the workarounds to replace nouveau.

Maybe some force option for these cases?
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that's a good observation/idea.
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I checked, sgfxi doesn't test for the package xorg, and the only time it installs xserver-xorg-core it does it explicitly, on installing free xorg driver. Sgfxi should also be triggering without-recommends for that install, which is the only way I can think that xorg metapackage would be installed. I avoid debian metapackages in general when I can, though smxi might install xorg meta if you use it to build the system, I don't remember. But smxi also has an xorg packages remover as well, though I should add the xorg metapackage to that list as well.

which Xorg
/usr/bin/Xorg
dpkg -S Xorg
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/share/man/man1/Xorg.1.gz
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/bin/Xorg

The test in sgfxi is this:

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Oh well. I asked but I don't really know about what's needed for the proprietary driver to work.
Anyway, having xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (or any other driver) and installing xorg without recommends didn't pull that much. Then I used sgfxi to install it (I've installed GNOME 3 in Debian and I don't know if it's Fedora's extra background services or if it's the video driver - in Fedora I was using the default nouveau - but gnome shell is much snappier now here in Debian).

-edit- P.S.
I mentioned it because if xorg isn't installed, sgfxi will refuse to run. Running sgfxi --help shows that it checks the system's xorg version. For some reason when only xserver-xorg-core is installed sgfxi won't be able to get xorg's version.
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ah, I see.

dpkg -S /usr/bin/X
xserver-xorg: /usr/bin/X

Belongs to xserver-xorg

I see where the problem comes in. sgfxi however requires to know the X version, which it gets from the X -version command.

I guess I can add in an override flag, but then sgfxi won't be able to do X_VERSION testing for the driver, unless you can find an alternate way to get the version number, which is the best solution, simply one more case to check.
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I poked around a bit, and discovered that I can use Xorg as a fallback for -version, that is in xserver-xorg-core explicitly.

dpkg -S Xorg
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/share/man/man1/Xorg.1.gz
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/bin/Xorg

ie, if X -version is not present, try: Xorg -version

that seems to work fine.

Do: sgfxi -U
to update the detection, then try running sgfxi and you should have no problems.

This is checked for Debian and Arch, can't say about Fedora, if the command: Xorg -version works post the output here so I can confirm it.

I'm all in favor of running a simpler system with the least packages so this was a good issue to get handled, thanks.
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Worked fine, thanks.

In that system I have already installed xorg but in my other Debian sid I have only xserver-xorg-core (neither xorg nor xserver-xorg). I'm running nouveau here.
(old) sgfxi -U wouldn't work because it errored complaining on wrong X version but I downloaded the new sgfxi with wget and 'sgfxi -h' didn't complain about anything and detected the xserver version properly.
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yeah, it's actually a good idea to create a stripped down xorg install, that's worth a thought for smxi's desktop install section too.
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Hi, I have sgfxi 4.17.27 and it complains that Xorg does not appear to be installed (I have only xserver-xorg-core in a system I'm building up).
I noticed too that every time I try to run sgfxi it can't find its own version and updates itself.

I don't want to install the xorg package because it depends on libgl1-mesa-glx and every time this package is updated we lose the glx support from the NVIDIA driver and have to reinstall the driver (I know this is kind of a different subject but maybe it's only some file that sgfxi overwrites that could be reverted after the update to get back the glx support, but I don't know which one).
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Well, I installed gnome 3 (it's better than gnome 2) and it pulled in libgl1-mesa-glx, so I'll install the NVIDIA driver and then when libgl1mesa-glx is updated and it breaks the glx support I'll try to get a better picture of what happens (so as to see if it can be reverted without reinstalling the driver).
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