Mutter is a display server and window manager for the Wayland protocol ("compositor"). It is the default window manager for GNOME.

Mutter was initially a compositing window manager designed and implemented for the X Window System, but then evolved to be a Wayland compositor. It became the default window manager in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity which used GTK for rendering. The name "Mutter" is a combination of "Metacity" and "Clutter".

Window management

Mutter can function as a standalone window manager for GNOME-like desktops, and serves as the primary window manager for the GNOME Shell, which is an integral part of GNOME since version 3. Mutter is extensible with plug-ins, and supports numerous visual effects. GNOME Shell is written as a plug-in to Mutter.

Release history

  • Support for HiDPI was added to version 3.13 of Mutter by Adel Gadllah.
  • In version 3.13.2 logind integration replaced mutter-launch.
  • In version 3.13.3 (June 24, 2014) the server side bits of wl_touch_interface were implemented by Carlos Garnacho.
  • Support for X11 was officially dropped with release 50, rendering Mutter exclusively a Wayland compositor.

Forks

Muffin

Muffin is a fork of Mutter by the Linux Mint team for their Cinnamon desktop environment. Cinnamon's shell, a fork of GNOME Shell, is written as a plugin for Muffin.

Further reading

  • Tilley, Sean (6 August 2017). . Medium.
  • Stieben, Danny (22 July 2013). . makeuseof.com.

External links