Release highlights:

• New protocol implementations:

  • content-type-v1 to tag surfaces with their content type (audio, video, game, etc).
  • xwayland-shell-v1 to improve XWayland reliability.
  • wp-fractional-scale-v1 to allow clients to submit buffers with a non-integer scale factor matching the output.
  • tearing-control to allow clients to opt-in for tearing page-flips.
  • security-context-v1 to identify clients running in sandboxes.
  • cursor-shape-v1 for server-side cursor themes.

• Introduce a new output layers API to leverage KMS planes.

• Add a new renderer API with improved design and performance. Add an API to query the time taken to render.

• Continued work on the Vulkan renderer: add more RGB formats, add YUV buffers, add interoperability with implicit synchronization instead of blocking.

• Add support for the new wl_surface.preferred_buffer_{scale,transform} events.

• Improved scene-graph, including support for linux-dmabuf feedback and clipping surfaces.

• Improved wlr_cursor which now keeps track of the current cursor image.

• Add an implementation of the wl_shm interface, replacing libwayland’s for improved reliability and performance.

• The Wayland backend supports embedding a wlroots compositor inside an existing Wayland client.

• wl_surface roles have been refactored.