--- title: I moved to Wayland :D | daily.dev description: A personal account of migrating a highly customized Linux desktop from X11 to Wayland, using DWL (a minimal tiling compositor based on wlroots) as the window... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I moved to Wayland :D | daily.dev og:description: A personal account of migrating a highly customized Linux desktop from X11 to Wayland, using DWL (a minimal tiling compositor based on wlroots) as the window... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/oAKfG3NvS.png og:image:alt: I moved to Wayland :D og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I moved to Wayland :D **[Bread on Penguins](https://daily.dev/sources/breadonpenguins)** · 14 min read · 44 upvotes · 5 comments ## Summary A personal account of migrating a highly customized Linux desktop from X11 to Wayland, using DWL (a minimal tiling compositor based on wlroots) as the window manager. Covers the patching workflow for DWL (vanity gaps, client opacity, floating windows), replacing Dmenu with a pure-shell alternative, switching to the foot terminal emulator, and extensively customizing a fork of Sunbar to display album art via Cairo and live-updating pywal colors. Also discusses eliminating a notification daemon by embedding notifications in the status bar, script migration challenges, screen recording quirks on Wayland, and unresolved Wine/Photoshop compatibility issues. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@mohammedsafin96** · 0 upvotes > Try Hyprland **@jmichael** · 0 upvotes > Wayland? It's like installing a traffic cop in your living room to check your papers every time you want to go from one room to another, in your own house. You feel "safer"? How _special_. How long you going to be in the bathroom this time? Might as well install Windows. Pretend you're in better hands. > >  ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I held onto X11 longer than I should have, and switching to Wayland fixed these things I didn't know were broken](https://daily.dev/posts/i-held-onto-x11-longer-than-i-should-have-and-switching-to-wayland-fixed-these-things-i-didn-t-know-72cnc7fro) · XDA Developers · 5 upvotes · 0 comments - [Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure](https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-the-fragmentation-of-wayland-an-xdotool-adventure-jtuqhvmvy) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Labwc 0.20 Wayland Compositor Released With Numerous New Features](https://daily.dev/posts/labwc-0-20-wayland-compositor-released-with-numerous-new-features-scf547wub) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years](https://daily.dev/posts/wayland-set-the-linux-desktop-back-by-10-years-bp6wqwoqi) · Hacker News · 57 upvotes · 39 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#shell](https://daily.dev/tags/shell), [#window-manager](https://daily.dev/tags/window-manager) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I moved to Wayland :D","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs"},"datePublished":"2026-02-23T19:58:58.570Z","dateModified":"2026-04-02T02:13:38.874Z","description":"A personal account of migrating a highly customized Linux desktop from X11 to Wayland, using DWL (a minimal tiling compositor based on wlroots) as the window...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FpWhd-UtJ2M/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FpWhd-UtJ2M/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Bread on Penguins","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Bread on Penguins","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--N4g3YKkU--/f_auto/v1749712625/logos/breadonpenguins","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/breadonpenguins"},"commentCount":5,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":44},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}],"keywords":"linux,shell,window-manager","timeRequired":"PT14M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"I moved to Wayland :D","description":"A personal account of migrating a highly customized Linux desktop from X11 to Wayland, using DWL (a minimal tiling compositor based on wlroots) as the window...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FpWhd-UtJ2M/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-02-23T19:58:58.570Z","duration":"PT14M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/oAKfG3NvS","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/FpWhd-UtJ2M"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bread on Penguins","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/breadonpenguins"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"I moved to Wayland :D"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-moved-to-wayland-d-oakfg3nvs","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Try Hyprland","datePublished":"2026-03-03T11:39:40.299Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/oAKfG3NvS#c-4pYPWxaHS","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mohammed Safin","url":"https://daily.dev/mohammedsafin96","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocI2ob_0DrouHQ1Kdu77Usg1KHHonVsRVZkL1HXk7Mu44sk83jo=s96-c"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Wayland? It’s like installing a traffic cop in your living room to check your papers every time you want to go from one room to another, in your own house. You feel “safer”? How special. How long you going to be in the bathroom this time? Might as well install Windows. Pretend you’re in better hands.","datePublished":"2026-03-11T14:44:10.927Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/oAKfG3NvS#c-fjq7pgYzG","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"JMichael","url":"https://daily.dev/jmichael","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Yj8tXNc4--/f_auto/v1768335072/avatars/avatar_dSlgvp69V3SOg2MWOSFlr?_a=BAMAMiZW0"}}]} ```