A few days ago [1]Wayback was announced as an X11 compatibility layer for X11 desktops environments leveraging a rootful XWayland server. While currently experimental, the hope is that it will be production-ready next year and Alpine Linux is looking at using it by default for its X11 environment.

Alpine Linux developer Ariadne Conill has posted more about the Wayback plans moving forward for this X11 compatibility layer to support running full X11 desktop environments using Wayland components.

Ariadne [2]commented that while it's currently experimental and " it is very likely that it is going to do things which make you mad at this point ," there are firm plans for it moving forward. The hope is that for Alpine Linux 3.24 or Alpine Linux 3.25 to make it the default X11 environment. This would correlate to releasing in either May or November of next year. Ariadne followed up that Wayback maturity may come before then, but long story short looking at about one year's time before all the pieces will likely be in place for a nice X11 compatibility experience.

Those wanting to check out the current Wayback code can find it on [3]GitHub .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wayback-X11-Wayland

[2] https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/114780830439906257

[3] https://github.com/kaniini/wayback