I have done this on a number of platforms over the years. Going back to before createDIBSection existed (In fact I had something break when Windows provided an easy path and took away the method I had been using).

Linux has always been a weird kettle of fish, the thing that worked best for me was imlib2 which was originally part of enlightenment. It did what it was supposed to do, hid pixel format conversion without killing performance.

I'm not sure what would serve a similar function today,

If anyone knows of a library that takes a rectangle of memory, a pixel format and places it onscreen regardless of the display environment I'd like to hear about it.

The faster and more efficient, the better. More features than needed, worse.