When we hear about "Wayland" the first thing to we usually relate the word is Ubuntu or Fedora, since they are one of the main Linux distributions that have wanted / or worked to make a migration of their system to this graphical server (even though many of us know that Canonical gives up and Fedora offers it together with X11).
But if I could tell you that there is a Linux distribution that is completely focused on offering a Wayland experience and to provide us with the latest developments and that no, it is not about Fedora, but it is a distribution based on Debian which Her name is Rebecca Black Linux.
About Rebecca Black Linux
Rebecca Black Linux is a Linux distribution that is offered to the general public with the aim of become familiar with the latest developments to provide Wayland support in various desktop applications and environments. The distribution builds on the base of the Debian package and includes the latest version of the Wayland libraries (a portion of the master branch), the Weston composite server, and the KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment E21, Wayfire, and Liri and Sway environments preconfigured to work on Wayland.
The environment is selected through the login manager menu and it is possible to start a shell from an already started environment in the form of a nested session.
The distribution package iIncludes the latest versions of libraries Clutter, SDL, GTK, Qt, EFL / Elementary, FreeGLUT, GLFW, KDE Frameworks and Gstreamer assembled with support from Wayland and the Xwayland component, which enables you to ensure the launch of conventional X applications in an environment made up of a Weston composite server.
The distribution also includes options for the gstreamer sound server, mpv media player, Calligra office suite, and KDE applications collected as Wayland clients.
To configure udev and parameters of multiseat configurations, in which multiple people can work at the same desk with their own keyboards and mice (each user has their own independent cursor), a special graphic configurator is provided. Weston includes RDP support. Delivery includes Mir display server and waypipe utility for remote launch of Wayland-based applications.
About the new version Rebecca Black Linux 2020-05-05
The layout was recently updated and in it we can find that synced with Debian 10 (Buster) instead of Debian Testing, but the kernel is left from Debian Testing (Bullseye), proprietary firmware for AMD GPUs included, Mesa was compiled with swr drivers (software rasterizer) was added and an experimental version of GTK 4 is available for testing.
Also it is noted that the login manager was redesigned, the password authentication process was improved, and support for multiseat configurations was added.
Of the other changes that stand out from this new version:
- The Orbital user environment and the Orbment window manager are excluded.
- To compress Squashfs, xz is involved.
- Improved graphical utility interface configureseats. Support for configuring udev rules has been added to the multiseat configuration utility.
- External patches have been applied to EFL, Weston, and Kwin to improve multiseat support.
- The children of the GNOME stack are in the / opt directory.
- Added support for the Vulkan graphical API.
- The composition includes the Latte docking panel, the Kvantum theme engine, and the Amarok music player.
- The Sway environment is assembled with wlroots.
- The structure includes a Pipewire media server.
- Added Wayfire composite server.
Download and Try Rebecca Black Linux 2020-05-05
For those who are interested in being able to try this distribution can go directly to the official website of the project in which in its download section you can find the system image.
The link is this.
The size of The iso image of the Lite version is 1.2 GB (for new users), while for the ISO image of the 2 GB developer version.