Wayback, a new, experimental compatibility project part of the FreeDesktop.org ecosystem aiming to run traditional X.Org servers on top of Wayland, using Xwayland as its foundation, aiming to make it possible to run classic X11 setups, window managers, and tooling on systems that have otherwise moved fully to Wayland, has just unveiled its latest update, version 0.3.

Since the previous 0.2 preview, one of the most visible changes is improved distribution availability. Wayback has moved from Alpine Linux’s testing repository into the community repository, making it part of official stable Alpine releases. In addition, packages are now available for Fedora 42 and Fedora 43, too.

Beyond packaging, the release includes documentation updates and small correctness fixes. Manual pages were updated to reflect better the current state of the project, and various typos and minor issues were resolved.

Internally, the custom command-line option parser has been overhauled to handle a wider range of X.Org options, including clearer handling of stubbed or unsupported parameters. This parser is now also used by wayback-session, improving consistency across tools.

Looking ahead, development work is exploring a shift away from Xwayland’s rootful mode toward a rootless approach. According to the developers, this change would enable proper multi-monitor support and unlock additional improvements, though the work is still at an early stage.

For more information, see the announcement.

Bobby Borisov

Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.