Phoronix reports that Polo 1.0 is out, a new Wayland compositor aimed at people who like the MATE desktop and want it to feel like MATE, just not on X11 anymore.
Polo is built on Weston’s Wayland library and tries to behave like MATE’s Marco compositor on X11, including Marco’s window-management policies, settings and themes. There’s XWayland support too. If you miss some of the old GNOME 2 desktop-cube and wobbly-window tricks, Polo can do those. Developer Kerem Söke has been working on it as a way to modernize MATE without throwing out the muscle memory.
The 1.0 release is on GitHub, and there’s a write-up on Ubuntu Discourse if you want more of the design notes.
Review before you install: read the release notes yourself, back up your config, and try new versions somewhere you can afford to break first.
My take
MATE’s whole point was “keep the desktop I already know.” A Wayland compositor that starts from Marco instead of inventing a new feel is the right instinct. I’ll be curious whether it holds up as a daily driver, or whether it stays a promising 1.0. If you try it, do it on a box you can roll back.
God Bless, and May the Source Be with You!
