Wayland is a graphical server protocol and library that provides a method for window composition managers to communicate directly with applications and hardware.
After nine months of development, the launch of the new version of a stable version of the protocol, the interprocess communication mechanism and the libraries Wayland 1.22.
The 1.22 branch is backwards compatible with API and ABI versions 1.x and contains mainly bug fixes and minor protocol updates. The Weston Composite Server, which provides code and practical examples for using Wayland in desktop environments and embedded solutions, is being developed as part of a separate development cycle.
For those who don't know about Wayland, you should know that this is a protocol for the interaction of a composite server and applications who work with him. Clients make their own rendering of their windows in a separate buffer, passing information about updates to the composite server, which combines the contents of the individual application buffers to form the final result, taking into account possible nuances, such as overlapping of windows and transparency.
In other words, the composite server does not provide an API to render elements individual, but only operates on already formed windows, which allows you to get rid of double buffering when using high-level libraries like GTK and Qt, which take over the job of sorting window content.
Wayland solves many X11 security problems because, unlike the latter, it isolates input and output for each window, does not allow the client to access the content of other clients' windows, and also does not allow interception of input events associated with other windows.
Main news of Wayland 1.22
In this new version of Wayland 1.22 that is presented, it stands out that support for the wl_surface ::preferred_buffer_scale and wl_surface::preferred_buffer_transform events to the wl_surface API, through which the composite server transmits information about a change in the scale level and transformation parameters for the surface.
Another change that stands out is that added wl_pointer::axis event to the wl_pointer API to indicate the physical address of the pointer to determine the correct scroll direction in widgets.
In addition to that, Wayland-server added a method to get the global name and implemented the wl_client_add_destroy_late_listener function.
On the part of the Wayland-related changes in applications, desktop environments and distributions, the following is highlighted:
- Wine comes with initial support for use in environments based on the Wayland protocol without XWayland and X11 components. In the current stage, the winewayland.drv driver and unixlib components have been added, and preparations have been made for processing Wayland protocol definition files by the build system. In one of the next releases, they plan to include changes to enable output in the Wayland environment.
- Continued improvements to Wayland support in KDE Plasma versions 5.26 and 5.27. Implemented the ability to disable pasting from the clipboard with the middle mouse button. Improved window scaling quality for applications launched with XWayland.
- Provided automatic selection of zoom level for the screen.
- Experimental versions of the xfce4-panel and xfdesktop desktop have been prepared for Xfce offering initial support for working in environments based on the Wayland protocol.
- The Tails distribution's user environment has been moved from an X server to use the Wayland protocol.
- The Blender 3 3.4D modeling system implements support for the Wayland protocol, allowing you to run Blender directly in Wayland-based environments without using the XWayland layer.
- Sway custom environment version 1.8 with Wayland has been released.
- A custom PaperDE 0.2 environment is available, using Qt and Wayland.
- Firefox has improved screen sharing in Wayland environments by fixing issues with smooth scrolling of content, firing a click event when the scrollbar is clicked, and scrolling out of content in environments Wayland based.
- Valve continues to develop the Gamescope Composite Server (formerly known as steamcompmgr), which uses the Wayland protocol and is used in the SteamOS 3 operating system.
- Development of lxqt-sway, a port of LXQt userspace that Wayland supports. Also, another LWQt project is developing a custom LXQt wrapper based on Wayland. Continued porting of the MATE desktop to Wayland.
- System76 is developing a new version of the COSMIC user environment using Wayland.
- Wayland is enabled by default on the mobile platforms Plasma Mobile, Sailfish, webOS Open Source Edition, Tizen, and AsteroidOS.
Based on Wayland, Ubuntu Framework and wayward shells are being developed.
Finally, for those who are interested in being able to try this new version You can download the source code for your build from the following link.