The developers of Linux Mint have announced that they are working on adapting the user shell Cinnamon to function with the Wayland Protocol. Experimental support for Wayland will be introduced in the release of Cinnamon 6.0, scheduled for November. In addition, a test session with Cinnamon based on Wayland will be available in the Linux Mint 21.3 release expected in December.
The migration is in its early stages, as many features already available when using Cinnamon with X.org are either missing or not functioning correctly in a Wayland environment. However, in the initial tests, Wayland is capable of controlling windows, virtual desktops, and most applications and components, including the file manager and panel.
The completion of Cinnamon’s integration with Wayland is planned for the release of Linux Mint 23, which is expected in 2026. After that, the developers will consider the possibility of switching to using Wayland as the default session. The two-year timeline is expected to provide enough time for debugging and resolving any existing issues with Wayland.