Raspberry Pi Makes Wayland the Way Forward for All Devices in a New OS Release — But Beware Bugs

Raspberry Pi has announced a new release of its Debian-based Linux distribution for its single-board computer range, Raspberry Pi OS — and while it expands Wayland support to all models, it has also brought a few launch-date bugs, which may mean users of older devices are better off delaying an upgrade for a day or two.

"Today we are releasing a new version of Raspberry Pi OS. This version includes a significant change, albeit one that we hope most people won’t even notice," Raspberry Pi's Simon Long says of the new software build. " For most of this year, we have been working on porting labwc to the Raspberry Pi Desktop. This has very much been a collaborative process with the developers of both labwc and wlroots: both have helped us immensely with their support as we contribute features and optimizations needed for our desktop. After much optimization for our hardware, we have reached the point where labwc desktops run just as fast as X on older Raspberry Pi models. Today, we make the switch with our latest desktop image: Raspberry Pi Desktop now runs Wayland by default across all models."

The launch of Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, based on the Debian Linux distribution of the same name, in 2023 brought a move from the vintage but well-established X Window System to its next-generation successor Wayland — but only on selected models of Raspberry Pi, with older devices remaining on X. The new release does away with this distinction, moving to the labwc compositor to unlock improved performance and compatibility and make Wayland available to all Raspberry Pi models — with those upgrading from earlier releases prompted to make the switch from the Wayfire compositor on reboot.

Other improvements in the new operating system include an improved touchscreen experience, with native support for an auto-hide on-screen keyboard. "This change comes as a result of integrating the Squeekboard virtual keyboard," Long explains. "When the system detects a touch display, the virtual keyboard automatically displays at the bottom of the screen whenever it is possible to enter text. The keyboard also automatically hides when no text entry is possible." The Raspberry Pi Connect remote control system is now easier to enable and disable, with a permanent icon on the taskbar, and multi-monitor configuration has been made more performant.

Those eager to experiment with the new features, though, are advised that some launch-date bugs have been discovered — including blank screens when switching to labwc, keyboard layout switches, and an inability to use the graphical network configuration tool from the taskbar. These, Long says, are either being addressed or, depending on when you read this, have already had fixes released.

More information is available on the Raspberry Pi blog; the new build is now available to download through the Raspberry Pi Imager tool and directly from the company's website.