Labwc, a Wayland compositor designed for minimalism and efficiency, has recently unveiled its 0.8 update, which primarily focuses on integrating the latest wlroots 0.18 backend.
For those unfamiliar, Labwc (Lab Wayland Compositor) is a wlroots-based window-stacking compositor for Wayland, inspired by Openbox. It emphasizes simplicity and efficiency in managing window stacking and decorations, adopting a “no-bling” approach and eschewing animations and other frills to focus on core functionalities.
In simple terms, if you’re looking for a feature-rich and visually impressive option, Hyprland is the way to go. On the other hand, Labwc focuses on being straightforward and easy to use, prioritizing minimalism and simplicity.
Key Updates in Labwc 0.8
A major part of this release was transitioning to the new version of wlroots, a modular Wayland compositor library. However, this transition has not been without its challenges.
Users of Intel graphics drivers may encounter increased commit failures, a known regression issue advised to be mitigated by setting “WLR_DRM_NO_ATOMIC=1” or reverting to the more stable Labwc 0.7 branch if problems persist.
Apart from that, Labwc 0.8 introduces several user-centric features aimed at improving functionality and customization:
- Enhanced support for XWayland, which allows Labwc to better integrate with X applications running under Wayland, includes supporting xinitrc scripts to configure the XWayland server on launch.
- New fullscreen options (“fullscreen” and “fullscreenForced“) enhance user experiences.
- The update allows for keybindings even when sessions are locked, which can be handy for adjusting settings like volume without needing to unlock the screen.
- Enhanced window management is evident with the addition of resistance when dragging tiled or maximized windows and a new cascade placement policy for window organization.
On the bug fixes side, the latest update addresses several of them, with the main ones being:
- Fixes include aligning tablet rotation with output rotation and resolving a flickering issue noted with certain layer-shell clients like fuzzel.
- Improvements in window management include better handling of initially maximized and fullscreen windows and reduced visual glitches by setting initial geometry for XWayland windows.
For more information about all changes in the new Labwc 0.8, visit the releaseโs changelog.
