Miracle WM, a new tiling window manager built on Mir
Version 0.1.0 of Miracle-wm is very incomplete still, yet shows that interesting stuff is happening on the back of Canonical's Mir display server.
Canonical developer Matthew Kosarek has released version 0.1.0 of his project Miracle-wm, a new tiling Wayland compositor. There are many such tools around now, but a couple of things are unusual about this one: the display server it uses, and its packaging.
So far, this is just the first incomplete preview release of Miracle, and Kosarek has also published a roadmap detailing where he hopes the project will go next. He's aiming for two more preview releases before a complete version 1.0 in mid-July.
We tried it, and it does what it says on the tin, which is to say very little at all just yet: you can open windows, and it will tile them for you – via customizable keystrokes – and that's about it. The sample configuration file in the user guide suggests partnering it with helpers such as swaybg for wallpapers and Waybar as a panel. (We found that also installing fonts-freefont-xyz will get most of Waybar's indicators to show properly.)
This isn't a criticism: tiling window managers tend to be minimal by design. The jaded old vulture behind the Reg FOSS desk suspects this is due to the fact that a lot of Linux users tend to be keyboard warriors who do a lot of their computing in a collection of terminal-emulator windows, alongside a web browser window or two. Many hardcore shell-pilots regard things like file managers and desktop icons as unnecessary fripperies.
