Mir is a graphical server for Linux developed by Canonical with the aim of Mir is to replace the X Window System in Ubuntu.
It was recently announced release of the new version of the display server «Mir 2.14», version which highlights the added support for wayland screen lockers (Wayland's ext-session-lock-v1 extension protocol), drag and drop support, various bug fixes, and more.
For those who do not know about Mir, they should know that there is a screen server that is developed by Canonical, despite the fact that I abandoned the development of the Unity shell and the Ubuntu edition for Smartphones.
Mir still in demand in Canonical projects and now I knowe positions as a solution for embedded devices and Internet of things (IoT). Mir can be used as a composite server for Wayland, allowing any Wayland-based application (eg built with GTK3 / 4, Qt5, or SDL2) to run in Mir-based environments.
Main novelties of Mir 2.14
In this new version of Mir 2.14, as mentioned at the beginning, the new version adds support for the Wayland extension "ext-session-lock-v1", which is defined as a session lock function and can be used to create screen savers or display an authentication dialog when the screen is locked.
Another of the changes that stands out in this new version is the implementation of the ability to move items using the “Drag and Drop” mechanism in environments based on Wayland, in addition to the addition of the ability to change mouse cursor while moving elements, as well as that "attached" windows can be "restored" with a drag gesture.
Also highlighted in Mir 2.14 is the power capability adds multiple Displays in a combined configuration, as well as the unification of the implementations of the rendering platforms (RenderingPlatform) and that support for the dispmanx platform was suspended.
Regarding the bugs fixed in this new release:
- Handling libinput device rejections
- Fix in the name of the outputs in Nvidia cards
- Fixed leak in install_sigbus_handler
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that on the basis of the Mir display server, the development of the Miriway composite server began and the user environment based on it. At the current stage of development, the Miriway-based shell supports floating windows, a Wayland and X11-based application launch interface (via Xwayland), dynamically created virtual desktops, external panel connection, creation of shortcuts to launch Applications.
From additional components, a shell for starting terminal emulators, startup scripts, and a login screen are developed. Miriway packages are prepared in snap format and about the Miriway code, we can mention that it is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLv3 license.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about this new version of Mir, you can check the details In the following link.
How to install Mir on Ubuntu and derivatives?
The installation packages of this new version are prepared for Ubuntu 22.04, 22.10 and 23.04 ( PPA ) and Fedora 36, 37 and 38. For those who are interested in being able to install this graphical server on their systems, all they have to do is open a terminal on their systems (they can do it with the key combination Ctrl + Alt + T or with Ctrl + T) and in it we are going to type the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mir-team/release sudo apt-get update
With this, the repository is already added to your system, before installing the graphical server it is fully recommended that if you are using private drivers on your system for your video card or integrated, change these to free drivers, this in order to avoid conflicts.
Once we are sure that we have the free drivers activated, we can install the server by executing in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install mir
At the end you will have to restart your system so that the user session with Mir is loaded and you choose this for your session.