Wayland heading for default status as Mint devs mix it into Cinnamon 6 bun

The creators of Linux Mint and nan Cinnamon desktop are experimenting pinch nan Wayland protocol – and truthful is nan original developer of Xfce.

Linux Mint's October update reveals that Cinnamon, 1 of nan past important X11-only Linux desktops, is starting to change: Mint developer Clément Lefebvre is experimenting pinch a Wayland version.

Normally, nan project's experimental repository, codenamed "Romeo," is private, and codification is only opened to nan nationalist erstwhile it reaches beta trial stage. We often look astatine Mint betas astatine nan FOSS desk, and from Mint 21 beta, done various of its point releases up to nan LMDE 6 beta, we tin aver that by that stage they are usually very coagulated and hardly distinguishable from nan last versions.

Lefevbre says that Mint 21.3 should beryllium retired earlier Christmas, and it will person a caller action successful nan Software Sources to alteration nan experimental Romeo repository, containing in-development, pre-beta versions of Mint components:

This will let alpha-testers to tally unstable versions of Cinnamon, Xapp, Mint devices etc… without having to compile anything. It will besides switch our unstable PPA.

One of nan much visible changes will beryllium seen successful nan forthcoming Cinnamon 6, pinch preliminary Wayland support. Cinnamon 6.0, planned for Mint 21.3 this year, will characteristic experimental Wayland support, but he warns folks not to expect excessively overmuch astatine this early stage:

We don't expect it to switch Xorg arsenic default immoderate clip soon, not successful 21.3, not successful 22.x, but we want to beryllium fresh each nan same.

The Wayland convention won't beryllium arsenic unchangeable arsenic nan default 1 and it will deficiency immoderate features and pinch person limitations. We won't urge it but you'll beryllium capable to springiness it a changeable if you want to, and it'll beryllium location for willing group if they want to springiness america feedback. The forums are ever open.

Linux Mint 22 is nan early merchandise based connected next April's version of Ubuntu, 24.04. This is nan adjacent Long Term Support merchandise of Ubuntu, and its codename will beryllium Noble Numbat.

The Ubuntu task is approaching its 20th anniversary, and is going information nan alphabet a 2nd time. Those pinch agelong memories whitethorn callback nan past "N" release, 11.04 Natty Narwhal. It was nan first merchandise that defaulted to nan then-new Unity desktop, and astatine nan time, nan Reg didn't complaint it very highly.

Monsieur Lefebvre is not nan only personification experimenting pinch Wayland recently. As his new blog reveals, truthful is Red Hat developer Olivier Fourdan, who has been moving connected a rootful mode for XWayland.

Xwayland is nan instrumentality that allows accepted X11 applications to tally successful a Wayland-based environment, and usually it will tally "rootless", which intends that alternatively than taking complete nan full screen, it simply provides model that are managed by nan Wayland compositor. A "compositor" is Wayland's word for what was called a "window manager" successful nan X model system, though utilizing Wayland, it's besides nan full show server.

For now, this functionality won't beryllium very useful for most people, though it could beryllium useful for developers. What is perchance much absorbing is that Monsieur Fourdan has a erstwhile declare to fame: he is nan original writer of nan Xfce desktop, which he started building measurement backmost successful 1996, arsenic he mentions successful this 2009 interview.

Google Groups still has 1 of his first posts astir it from February 1997 – alternatively earlier than moreover nan first beta of KDE. So though KDE turned 27 earlier this month, it's still not nan oldest Linux desktop still being developed. ®