Wayback 0.1 debuts as early Wayland server for X11 diehards
- Reference: 1753384391
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/24/wayback_01_released/
- Source link:
"Just enough Wayland to make Xwayland work," reads the new site's [1]handy strapline . It's a good summary – if you know what Xwayland is.
[2]This first, preliminary release arrives less than a month after the [3]project's initial announcement . This means it's very early days yet. This is still new, experimental software, it's quite far from feature-complete, and a whole list of stuff doesn't work yet. Don't get too excited yet. That said, it sounds promising. According to the the announcement:
While this is a preview release it is already daily-driveable by users with simple requirements, as long as they don't mind bugs.
It continues:
This is still considered alpha-quality software and there are still features that are, as of now, unimplemented or work-in-progress.
[…]
That being said, some of us are already daily-driving it to find bugs and fix them as they appear.
So, treat this with some caution, and [4]don't expect a Miracle *.
As a quick recap, Wayland is still making progress, and the X.org X11 server is in maintenance mode. However, there are quite a few X11-based window managers and desktop environments that don't work with Wayland yet, and many never will. We [5]described about 17 such environments back in 2022. Announced last month, Xlibre is a [6]new fork of the X.org X11 server , but the politics and views of the people behind Xlibre are considered unacceptable by many in the FOSS community.
[7]
As a result, the development of Wayback was sped up, leading to this first preview release. It's a Wayland display server that can take the place of an X11 server and presents a full-screen "rootful" session of [8]Xwayland . It enables those who don't want any of the existing Wayland environments to keep their current X11-based environment, but run it without needing a whole X11 server underneath.
[9]
[10]
Xwayland itself is nothing new, it's a standard part of most Wayland desktops. Xwayland is an X11 server that runs under an existing Wayland compositor, enabling you to run traditional X11 applications under your shiny new Wayland-based environment. But the snag is that it needs an existing compositor to run under – or, in the older terminology, it runs under an existing window manager. That means you can't run an X11 window manager using Xwayland. In other words, Xwayland is no use if you want to use an existing X11 setup, such as [11]Window Maker or [12]the recently revived IceWM or something really legacy like [13]the Common Desktop Environment, CDE .
[14]The price of software freedom is eternal politics
[15]Wayback gives X11 desktops a fighting chance in a Wayland world
[16]Fedora 43 won't drop 32-bit app support – or adopt Xlibre
[17]Xlibre forks to the rescue – but Kubuntu gives X11 the boot
There's a significant amount of functionality missing from Wayback version 0.1. It can't do DPMS power management yet. So far, it only supports a single screen, although multihead should come in time. Quite a few command line options to the traditional X command don't work yet, and many X functions are "stubbed out" – which means they're there but they don't do anything yet. For instance, "mouse locking," which means constraining the mouse pointer into a single window, which is used in many games.
Not only is it early days for Wayback, but it also remains a Wayland-based tool. Bear both these things in mind and manage your expectations. We have read a great many reports and comments that the network functionality of the X Window System is its single key feature for many users, and Wayback will not deliver that. You could potentially use [18]Waypipe or VNC or RDP or something like that instead, but Wayback is a local display server.
So, a month after the [19]first release of the new Xlibre comes the first release of the response from the Wayland side of the fence. The Reg FOSS desk is watching both with great interest.
[20]
This vulture has been using X11-based environments for over 25 years now, and is not personally fond of either KDE Plasma (vastly too cluttered for our tastes), or of GNOME (far too limited and restrictive). All of our preferred environments remain X11-based for now, and moving to Wayland would involve significant functional compromises that we don't want to make. X.org still works fine for everything we want, and if either – or both – of these projects delivers something that will let us continue using our preferred environments in future, then we're interested. ®
*Bootnote: Speaking of a Miracle…
We facetiously linked to the Miracle-WM project, but this was purely a punne or play on words. † We did mean it: don't expect Miracle-WM – there's no relationship. Miracle-WM is a native Wayland compositor and isn't compatible with Wayback.
Saying that, though, the [21]Miracle-WM tiling compositor for Canonical's Mir display server continues to make good progress. It's up to [22]version 0.62 now , version 0.6 appearing just a couple of weeks ago.
† Yes, we know it's really spelled "pun." This phrase is a Terry Pratchett reference. If you don't read Pratchett, you should.
Get our [23]Tech Resources
[1] https://wayback.freedesktop.org/
[2] https://wayback.freedesktop.org/news/2025/07/23/wayback-0.1-released/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/wayback_wayland_display_server/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/04/miracle_wm_030/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/linux_desktop_feature/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/10/xlibre_new_xorg_fork/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aIZNMzAeBIxAZGLNCQQxqgAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Wayland#Xwayland
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aIZNMzAeBIxAZGLNCQQxqgAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aIZNMzAeBIxAZGLNCQQxqgAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.windowmaker.org/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/icewm_version_3/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2012/08/09/cde_goes_opensource/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/12/the_price_of_software_freedom/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/wayback_wayland_display_server/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/fedora_43_i686_32bit/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/mixed_news_for_x11/
[18] https://man.archlinux.org/man/extra/waypipe/waypipe.1.en
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/mixed_news_for_x11/
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aIZNMzAeBIxAZGLNCQQxqgAAAFc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://miracle-wm.org/
[22] https://github.com/miracle-wm-org/miracle-wm/releases/tag/v0.6.2
[23] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: worried
From this point on, I will not upgrade any of my OSs until I have tested them on _all_ the applicaitons I use and all the software I have written (e.g. "legacy OpenGL).
The creeping sickness of systemd, wayland, gtk4/adwaita etc. will soon make "newer" Linux OSs a liabliity.
I am happy with Alpine 3.22 and MX-23.6
Re: worried
Just as a counterpoint, I was setting up a “kiosk” raspeberry pi this week, running a full screen browser. Did this the usual way: minimal install, then run xinit and a very minimal window manager (matchbox). It worked, but performance was very poor.
In desperation I tried following the guide from the raspberrypi.com site, which suggested starting with a full desktop install (which is wayland based), and to my surprise it was a massive improvement - fps at least tripled, at a guess - and quite a bit easier to set up too.
Just want to get that out there as a counterweight to all the grumbling.
Re: worried
If a full PiOS (with systemd, avahi, wayland, /tmp and swap on SD card) is more efficient than your "minimalist" X11 setup, then you are _clearly_ doing it wrong ;)
I am running a full X11/XFCE desktop and the machine is snappier than PiOS!
Re: worried
> you are _clearly_ doing it wrong
Concur. There was something wrong with the "minimalist" setup, like no GPU acceleration or something.
For digital signage on a Pi, I might be tempted to try Ubuntu Core and Mir. :-) It's one of the primary use cases.
Re: worried
Yes, I know. I've done this before, but for whatever reason after installing xinit, xorg, all the usual gubbins to get it up and running, it worked but was clearly not accelerated. I needed to add or configure something, but damned if I knew what.
By contrast, trimming *down* the Wayland-based desktop was a doddle and left me with a clearly accelerated browser resulting in less CPU load.
It's not that it couldn't be done using X11, it's that it's fiendishly complex to get right. Wayland, in this instance, was trivially easy. Turning a full-fledged desktop into a kiosk involved editing /etc/xdg/labwc/autostart ; one shell script. You can't say that about X11.
(As for the previous comments: Avahi is great - a few network packets every few seconds, and it makes managing hosts so much easier; and swap and /tmp don't come into the picture once you run overlayfs to ensure the SD-card is never written to)
Re: worried
The creeping sickness of systemd, wayland, gtk4/adwaita etc.
Makes FreeBSD and "we refuse to comply with your nonsense" Linux distros like Devuan look better and better.
Re: worried
I think Wayland is actually good but I agree with the systemd and adwaita part.
Re: worried
> brightside (http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/b/brightside/)
I am just curious: why the Ubuntu link instead of the source code?
https://github.com/dustincys/brightside
I am not sure if that's the original, mind you.
Looking, I also found this post -- was that you?
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=328021
I found some other posts about it.
e.g.
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/add-a-corner-activated-window-picker-for-marco/7814
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/functional-funk-let-gnome-pie-enhance-your-gtk-desktop/22180
I doubt that Mint is going to help you much TBH, but if you can get the MATE developers interested in updating it, you may get a modernised version.
> Gnome v1 before that
Do you perhaps mean GNOME 2.x?
> expecting brightside won't work with Wayland
No, I'm sure it won't, but then neither will Metacity.
> once MATE 22 goes EOL
You mean Mint 22, right?
A "punne"?
...this was purely a punne or play on words... [...] ...this is a Terry Pratchett reference...
Except that in the books I think it's spelled "pune".
Ah yes, here we are, first reference to it in the canon I believe, "Men At Arms", first page, Corporal Carrot's letter home to his parents:
"...we could inscribe on the back something like ‘A Watch from, your Old Freinds in the Watch’, this is a pune or Play on Words..."
Sorry to be the resident Ponder Stibbons.
You're lucky it's only a first offence, or you'd be strung up by your figgin.
Re: A "punne"?
...and sorry for my careless choice of icon in that previous comment. I do not, in fact, hope that your donkey explodes.
Re: A "punne"?
> Except that in the books I think it's spelled "pune".
I have committed an abomination unto Nuggan!
I will be visited with explanatory pamphlets. :-(
Re: A "punne"?
At least no-one has asked if you want your figgin toasted.
maintenance mode
x.org might be in maintenances mode but this is foss which many times has pivoted on a dime. We'll do so again and if that isn't Xlibre it will be some other ongoing port of x11. Wayback will not be the answer.
Re: maintenance mode
> will be some other ongoing port of x11
X12. Implemented in Rust.
Make it so, number one!
Re: maintenance mode
Begun the Linux war has.
Re: maintenance mode
> Begun the Linux war has.
"Use the force, Harry" as Gandalf said.
Linux is one big cluster of battles in a war that's now over 50 years old.
The trouble is that Linux folks are so obsessed that they haven't noticed that there are other armies battling alongside them -- the BSDs and so on.
They never realised that the leaders who started the war moved on to new battlegrounds. (Plan 9, Inferno, etc.)
It is beyond their ken that there are other territories that aren't even in their war: Lisp OSes, Oberon/A2/Zonnon, Tripos/AmigaOS/Helios, even their nearest neighbours on the islands of C++ (Symbian, BeOS -- even Haiku, although for short-sighted reasons they're building a bridge to the land that's at war)...
Re: maintenance mode
Come on Liam, I realize that you are joking, but claiming that people who have been reading tech news since the 1990s somehow "haven't noticed" is _some_ journalistic 'licence'!
It is pretty obvious that none of the alternative "battles" will be won, and Linux is falling to the legions of the clueless. An OS version of "eternal september". The trolls/astroturfers/newbies are already demanding systemd by default in MX. So much for choice.
They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man.
Re: maintenance mode
> claiming that people who have been reading tech news since the 1990s somehow "haven't noticed"
No. I stand by it, but I think you misread me.
Linux exists because GNU fscked up. The GNU project investigated and evaluated using the BSD kernel in the GNU OS in about 1988-1989 and decided against it.
If it had gone for it, there would have been a working FOSS Unix *before Windows 3.0* and the world would look significantly different.
The BSD folks screwed up by not spotting in '87 or so that the 80386DX PC was the future. It was clear enough to everyone else, but they've always fetishized arcane old stuff.
Unix is a religion, and like all religions, they're more interested in attacking each other's vile heresies than lifting their heads, looking at the wider world, and learning about it and how it works.
Even Thompson and Ritchie moved on. The acolytes still cling to the first revelation.
The proof is that so many of them still use Vi.
Re: maintenance mode
There was a lot of 68k UNIX around in the 80s. I'd say it wasn't clear till the early 90s as 68k started to fall behind x86 and Motorola gave up on both 68k and 88k.
Rootfull was already an option
You could run Xwayland rootfull and fullscreen already on the existing compositors. I did this in crostini with ChromeOS's compositor, but it should work on sway, gnome and plasma. Then I ran my x11 windowmanger of choice, evilwm.
I'm pleased wayback is getting momentum but it's only useful if you want ultimate lightweight layers/processes running (if Wayland+typical DE is bloated and slow on anything built in the last 15 years I'll be surprised and disappointed), or if at some point gfx drivers become wayland only but you want to remain very old school and/or still had an unacceptably weak machine. I'd assume just using Xorg is going to be better for years.
Wayback implements the bare minimum to get Xwayland functioning, so if you wanted to run a wayland only app like waydroid you'd not be able to just flip to the main Wayland compositor for that.
Now if it had future plans to allow your x11 windowmanager to move/resize rootless Wayland apps that would be amazing, but I don't see any mention.
Re: Rootfull was already an option
> You could run Xwayland rootfull and fullscreen already on the existing compositors
I'm aware.
Original XFCE creator Olivier Fourdan is now at Red Hat and has blogged about it, as I mentioned here:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/27/mint_wayland_cinnamon6/
I mentioned his efforts in my previous story on Wayback:
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/03/wayback_wayland_display_server/
(I misspelled his name. _Mea culpa._)
The blog only got 3 posts, alas. It is here...
https://ofourdan.blogspot.com/
It was explicitly experimental.
AIUI the aim of Wayback is to make this as simple, and requiring as little config, as possible. That sounds laudable.
Youngsters...
" something really legacy like the Common Desktop Environment, CDE."
Tsk! Tsk! The only one true window manager is ol(v)wm - OpenLook (Virtual) Window Manager (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olwm)
The later window managers (including CDE) are just Splitters!
Now, where's my slippers and pipe...
Re: Youngsters...
> The only one true window manager is ol(v)wm - OpenLook (Virtual) Window Manager
There is OLWM on Linux?!
Oh gods, there goes another weekend...
Re: Youngsters...
The most important question is I be able to hit the help key and get the introduction to OpenLook which included a pop art comic where someone could leave work early thanks to their Sun Sparcstation and go dancing down at the Club Soda?
> Wayland is still making progress...
Really? Fro some weak definition of "progress" perhaps.
The whole thing demeans the very name of Waylan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_the_Smith).
worried
Worried about Wayland for myself anyway. Just recently "upgraded" (installed to another partition) to Mint 22 from Mint 20 a couple of weeks ago. My biggest issue was whether or not I would be able to get brightside(http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/b/brightside/) to build and run. Fortunately after not too much effort I was able to compile it and it's dependencies(about 17 of them, had to hack some things up to get some to build), brightside hasn't seen an updated since 2005(several other dependencies date back to early 2010s), and last officially released with Ubuntu 16 I think. Fortunately the app itself is super simple though it does depend on some more complex libraries.
brightside provides the MATE desktop (or Gnome v1 before that) the ability to flip virtual desktops when your mouse moves to the edge of the screen(up/down/left/right), something I have used as a core part of my workflow on Linux going back to the late 90s/early 00s with AfterStep. I use a total of 24 virtual desktops in a 6x4 grid.
Last time I checked, which was years ago at this point(when I first upgraded to Mint 20 from 17) I was unable to find newer software that provided this functionality for MATE. It seems the latest MATE includes Wayland support(Mint 22 ships with MATE 1.26 from 2021) , but worry/expecting brightside won't work with Wayland, maybe there is another software package now that offers this edge flipping functionality perhaps I am the last person in the world to use it or something.
My stopgap idea in the meantime once MATE 22 goes EOL(2029?) if there is no X11 anymore or something is get Ubuntu Pro, which looks like is free for personal use, which would give me another ~4-5 years of core updates anyway, since Mint bases most of their software off of Ubuntu's repos (I already maintain my browser updates completely manually with Firefox ESR and MS Edge).
Wayland has had very worried me for years because of this, I wasn't sure if my next jump from Mint 20 would have X11 anymore or not so was relieved that it was still there. By the time I'm done with Mint 22(which won't be till it's past EOL, excluding time spent with Ubuntu pro updates), it'll be a solid 30+ years of depending on edge flipping for my day to day workflow(and about 25 years of using a GNOME v1 style desktop UI), and obviously I don't want to try to force a drastic change in a workflow that has worked so well for so long for me.