While Linux has supported X11 for a very long time, developer teams are beginning to make the shift toward Wayland. For example, Kubuntu will only install the Wayland version by default, and KDE Plasma will scrap X11 support in 2027. Even our local Linux guru, Rich Edmonds, ditched X11 in favor of Wayland.

From what I've seen, this move toward Wayland has had a mixed reception. Some people prefer Wayland over X11, while others find that Wayland breaks their apps and renders their workflow unusable. So, as Wayland begins its slow and gradual march through the Linux space, some people have taken it on themselves to keep the X server tech running. Such is the case of Phoenix, which, while it doesn't have a lot to show just yet, wants to keep the X11 flame burning despite Wayland's rollout.

Phoenix wants to continue X11 in a Wayland world

But there's not a lot to look at yet

As spotted by our sister site, How-To Geek, Phoenix is planning a big rehaul of the X server scene. As the dev team states on its website, Phoenix is not just a fork of Xorg, but an entire rewrite using Zig, which sounds like a monumental task. This will make it a "modern alternative" to using Xorg, and the devs hope that it'll allow X11 apps to continue existing even after Wayland takes over.

Here's how the Phoenix website describes the goals of the project:

Be a simpler X server than the Xorg server by only supporting a subset of the X11 protocol, the features that are needed by relatively modern applications (applications written/updated in the last ~20 years).

This includes all software that you use, even old gtk2 applications.

Only relatively modern hardware (made/updated in the last ~15-20 years) which support linux drm and mesa gbm will be supported, and no server driver interface like the Xorg server. Just like how Wayland compositors work.

Phoenix's claims are pretty lofty. It claims the system will be safer, support modern hardware better, and have better graphics handling than Xorg. How-To Geek is a little less optimistic about how Phoenix will pan out. They believe that remaking X11 in Zig is like "building a new engine for a car that is already at the junkyard," and that Phoenix will arrive far too late for people to use it.

Regardless of how you feel about the future of X11, the fact of the matter is that Phoenix claims that it's "not ready to be used yet," meaning we'll have to wait a while to see if the dev team can live up to these pretty big expectations. Here's hoping they manage to pull it off.