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Wayland

The work started on Wayland. This was identified as one of the major challenges our project had to tackle in the mid to long term.

Wayland isn’t expected to replace Xorg as default any time soon, not in 21.3, not in 22.x, but we want to be ready all the same.

Cinnamon 6.0 features experimental Wayland support. In the login screen a new option was added to start Cinnamon on Wayland.

The Wayland session isn’t as stable as the default one. It lacks features and it comes with its own limitations.

It was added as a preview for people interested in Wayland and as an easy way for them to test if they want to give us feedback.

A board was set up to keep track of Wayland development. It’s available at https://trello.com/b/HHs01Pab/cinnamon-wayland.

A dedicated Github repository was created for issues related to Wayland, whether they need fixing in Cinnamon, in an XApp project, a Mint tool or anything software project we maintain: https://github.com/linuxmint/wayland.

In terms of timing Wayland support doesn’t need to be fully ready (i.e. to be a better Cinnamon option for most people) before 2026 (Mint 23.x). That leaves us 2 years to identify and to fix all the issues. It’s something we’ll continue to work on and improve release after release.

Whenever it happens, assuming it does, we’ll consider switching defaults. We’ll use the best tools to do the job and provide the best experience. Today that means Xorg. Tomorrow it might mean Wayland. Cinnamon and Linux Mint will be ready and compatible with both.

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