diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index cdd844fb6820..e25a727850c6 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -141,3 +141,6 @@ harness = false
 [profile.release-with-debug]
 inherits = "release"
 debug = true
+
+[patch.crates-io]
+gbm = { git = "https://github.com/ids1024/gbm.rs", branch = "strong-ref" }
diff --git a/src/backend/allocator/gbm.rs b/src/backend/allocator/gbm.rs
index fe10ff7e059a..2a360f192e65 100644
--- a/src/backend/allocator/gbm.rs
+++ b/src/backend/allocator/gbm.rs
@@ -94,13 +94,13 @@ impl GbmBuffer {
     /// Gbm might otherwise give us the underlying or a non-sensical modifier,
     /// which can fail in various other apis.
     pub fn from_bo(bo: BufferObject<()>, implicit: bool) -> Self {
-        let size = (bo.width().unwrap_or(0) as i32, bo.height().unwrap_or(0) as i32).into();
+        let size = (bo.width() as i32, bo.height() as i32).into();
         let format = Format {
-            code: bo.format().unwrap_or(Fourcc::Argb8888), // we got to return something, but this should never happen anyway
+            code: bo.format(),
             modifier: if implicit {
                 Modifier::Invalid
             } else {
-                bo.modifier().unwrap_or(Modifier::Invalid)
+                bo.modifier()
             },
         };
         Self { bo, size, format }
@@ -242,9 +242,6 @@ impl Buffer for GbmBuffer {
 /// Errors during conversion to a dmabuf handle from a gbm buffer object
 #[derive(thiserror::Error, Debug)]
 pub enum GbmConvertError {
-    /// The gbm device was destroyed
-    #[error("The gbm device was destroyed")]
-    DeviceDestroyed(#[from] gbm::DeviceDestroyedError),
     /// The buffer consists out of multiple file descriptions, which is currently unsupported
     #[error("Buffer consists out of multiple file descriptors, which is currently unsupported")]
     UnsupportedBuffer,
@@ -257,7 +254,6 @@ impl From<gbm::FdError> for GbmConvertError {
     #[inline]
     fn from(err: gbm::FdError) -> Self {
         match err {
-            gbm::FdError::DeviceDestroyed(err) => err.into(),
             gbm::FdError::InvalidFd(err) => err.into(),
         }
     }
@@ -269,7 +265,7 @@ impl AsDmabuf for GbmBuffer {
     #[cfg(feature = "backend_gbm_has_fd_for_plane")]
     #[profiling::function]
     fn export(&self) -> Result<Dmabuf, GbmConvertError> {
-        let planes = self.plane_count()? as i32;
+        let planes = self.plane_count() as i32;
 
         let mut builder = Dmabuf::builder_from_buffer(self, DmabufFlags::empty());
         for idx in 0..planes {
@@ -279,13 +275,13 @@ impl AsDmabuf for GbmBuffer {
                 // SAFETY: `gbm_bo_get_fd_for_plane` returns a new fd owned by the caller.
                 fd,
                 idx as u32,
-                self.offset(idx)?,
-                self.stride_for_plane(idx)?,
+                self.offset(idx),
+                self.stride_for_plane(idx),
             );
         }
 
         #[cfg(feature = "backend_drm")]
-        if let Some(node) = self.device_fd().ok().and_then(|fd| DrmNode::from_file(fd).ok()) {
+        if let Ok(node) = DrmNode::from_file(self.device_fd()) {
             builder.set_node(node);
         }
 
diff --git a/src/backend/drm/compositor/mod.rs b/src/backend/drm/compositor/mod.rs
index 2e7e99fb61e9..bd34499cc5ec 100644
--- a/src/backend/drm/compositor/mod.rs
+++ b/src/backend/drm/compositor/mod.rs
@@ -4365,13 +4365,11 @@ where
     }
 
     let bo_format = bo.format().code;
-    let Ok(bo_stride) = bo.stride() else {
-        return false;
-    };
+    let bo_stride = bo.stride();
 
     let mut copy_to_bo = |src, src_stride, src_height| {
         if src_stride == bo_stride as i32 {
-            matches!(bo.write(src), Ok(Ok(_)))
+            matches!(bo.write(src), Ok(_))
         } else {
             let res = bo.map_mut(device, 0, 0, cursor_size.w as u32, cursor_size.h as u32, |mbo| {
                 let dst = mbo.buffer_mut();
diff --git a/src/backend/drm/gbm.rs b/src/backend/drm/gbm.rs
index 6badd649c2b6..4adfecfbfc01 100644
--- a/src/backend/drm/gbm.rs
+++ b/src/backend/drm/gbm.rs
@@ -344,7 +344,7 @@ where
             // We only support this as a fallback of last resort like xf86-video-modesetting does.
             warn_legacy_fb_export();
 
-            if bo.plane_count().unwrap() > 1 {
+            if bo.plane_count() > 1 {
                 return Err(AccessError {
                     errmsg: "Failed to add framebuffer",
                     dev: drm.dev_path(),
diff --git a/src/backend/drm/surface/gbm.rs b/src/backend/drm/surface/gbm.rs
index 8233e1fc554c..36161ea41464 100644
--- a/src/backend/drm/surface/gbm.rs
+++ b/src/backend/drm/surface/gbm.rs
@@ -197,10 +197,10 @@ where
         };
         let format = Format {
             code,
-            modifier: buffer.modifier().unwrap(), // no guarantee
-                                                  // that this is stable across allocations, but
-                                                  // we want to print that here for debugging proposes.
-                                                  // It has no further use.
+            modifier: buffer.modifier(), // no guarantee
+                                         // that this is stable across allocations, but
+                                         // we want to print that here for debugging proposes.
+                                         // It has no further use.
         };
 
         let use_opaque = !plane_formats.iter().any(|f| f.code == code);