Canonical has announced the release of Mir 2.14, the latest version of its display server. Despite the discontinuation of the Unity shell and the Ubuntu smartphone edition, Canonical continues to develop Mir for use in built-in devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). Mir can now be used as a composite server for Wayland, allowing the launch of applications that use Wayland, such as those built with GTK3/4, QT5/6, or SDL2.
Packages for installation are available for Ubuntu 32.04, 22.10, and 23.04 (ppa) as well as Fedora 36, 37, and 38. The project code is available on GitHub under the GPLV2 license.
The new version of Mir introduces support for the Wayland anticipation from Session-Lock-V1, which enables the blocking of sessions for purposes such as screen keepers or authentication dialogs. Additionally, the Drag and Drop mechanism for moving elements within Wayland has been implemented, along with the ability to change the mouse cursor during element movement. The latest release also discontinues the Dispmanx platform, unifying the implementation of rendering platforms.
Based on Mir, a composite server called Miriway has been developed, along with a user environment based on it. Miriway currently supports floating windows, an application launch interface on Wayland and X11, virtual desktop creation, connecting external panels, and creating application shortcuts. Miriway also includes a layer for launching terminal emulators, running scripts, and an invitation screen for system entry. The code for Miriway is written in C++ and is distributed under the GPLV3 license. Pre-built assemblies of Miriway are available in snap format.
