Raspberry Pi OS Brings Labwc Wayland Compositor As Optional Alternative To Wayfire

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released Raspberry Pi OS 2024-07-04 as the newest update to this default operating system for Raspberry Pi ARM single board computers.

Raspberry Pi OS 2024-07-04 continues defaulting to Wayfire as the default Wayland compositor for the desktop with this operating system. However, now through the raspi-config configuration utility is also the labwc stacking Wayland compositor for those preferring that instead or just wanting to try something different from Wayfire. Wayfire meanwhile has seen a number of fixes in this Raspberry Pi OS update.

Also on the Wayland side, WayVNC for VNC support under Wayland has improved encryption support and better handling of virtual displays.

When it comes to desktop configuration, the Raspberry Pi OS' pipanel also allows now customizing more than two desktops and for pipanel to interact with labwc. The pixflat-theme has also added labwc support.

Raspberry Pi Connect is also now bundled as part of the preferred applications with Raspberry Pi OS.

This Raspberry Pi OS update moves to using the Linux 6.6.31 kernel plus brings other package updates such as Google Chromium 125 and Firefox 126 plus the newest Raspberry Pi firmware.

Raspberry Pi OS 2024-07-04 can be downloaded from RaspberryPi.com.