Xfce's xfwm4 Merges Wayland Compositor Code Based On wlroots
Merged today for Xfce's Xfwm4 window manager component is a built-in Wayland compositor using wlroots.
The lightweight Xfce desktop has seen a long road on enabling Wayland support and up until now has ultimately required using an alternative Wayland compositor for using Xfce components outside of the X11 confines. But merged today to the Wayland development code for Xfwm4 is an initial Wayland compositor.
For doing the heavy-lifting with Xfwm4, the wlroots library started by the Sway compositor and since picked up by various other Wayland compositors is being used. Leveraging wlroots makes for a much easier bring-up of a Wayland compositor for the Xfce desktop.
This merge to the Xfwm4 Wayland branch introduces the wlroots Wayland compositor support and was pointed out by a Phoronix reader.
The Xfce Wayland roadmap has previously pointed to a xfwm4 port to using wlroots for Xfce 4.22 at best. Continuing to keep X11 compatibility for Xfce is expected. No Xfce 4.22 release date has yet to be published but if their usual release cadence holds, it likely won't be out until around December 2026, which still gives them plenty of time to work out their Wayland support.
The lightweight Xfce desktop has seen a long road on enabling Wayland support and up until now has ultimately required using an alternative Wayland compositor for using Xfce components outside of the X11 confines. But merged today to the Wayland development code for Xfwm4 is an initial Wayland compositor.
For doing the heavy-lifting with Xfwm4, the wlroots library started by the Sway compositor and since picked up by various other Wayland compositors is being used. Leveraging wlroots makes for a much easier bring-up of a Wayland compositor for the Xfce desktop.
This merge to the Xfwm4 Wayland branch introduces the wlroots Wayland compositor support and was pointed out by a Phoronix reader.
The Xfce Wayland roadmap has previously pointed to a xfwm4 port to using wlroots for Xfce 4.22 at best. Continuing to keep X11 compatibility for Xfce is expected. No Xfce 4.22 release date has yet to be published but if their usual release cadence holds, it likely won't be out until around December 2026, which still gives them plenty of time to work out their Wayland support.