Sway 1.7-rc1 Has Better Zero-Copy Direct Scanout, Drops "--my-next-gpu-wont-be-nvidia"

The first release candidate of the Sway 1.7 Wayland compositor is now available for testing.

Sway 1.7 is working towards release as another exciting update for this i3-inspired Wayland compositor. Sway 1.7-rc1 has improved zero-copy direct scanout support for full-screen windows thanks to integrating support for the Linux DMA-BUF surface feedback extension.

Sway 1.7 has also been working on support for virtual reality (VR) headsets via DRM leasing, tabs can now be dragged with the mouse, hit bit depth composition, Wayland-native urgency using xdg-activation-v1 protocol, and a variety of other improvements and new features.

Sway has also dropped its "--my-next-gpu-wont-be-nvidia" option that was previously needed for unsupported/experimental NVIDIA support. Given that NVIDIA's proprietary driver now supports the GBM API for more easily supporting Wayland compositors, they have dropped some hostility towards NVIDIA and instead renamed the "--my-next-gpu-wont-be-nvidia" option to "--unsupported-gpu". The NVIDIA proprietary driver usage will still not be officially supported but at least a more appropriate flag is now in place. Sway with NVIDIA's 495+ driver should largely play fine with the GBM path and better off than former EGLStreams support work.

Sway 1.7-rc1 is available for download via GitHub.