The Xfce project announced the first preview alpha release of Xfwl4, a Wayland compositor designed for the Xfce desktop environment, on June 22, 2026 [1, 2, 3]. Development of Xfwl4 was led by Brian Tarricone and began about six months ago [2, 3].
Brian Tarricone described the goal of Xfwl4 as replicating the behavior of the Xfce desktop running on an X server as closely as possible. He said, "Ideally a user could switch between the two without even knowing there’s a difference. In reality, of course, it won’t be quite that seamless, and there’s still more work to be done to get as close as possible to that ideal. This is a first solid cut at it, at the very least" [1].
The alpha release is considered an early version with known bugs and missing features. Tarricone noted, "After close to six months of work, I feel like it's ready to get some wider use, even though of course there will be bugs and missing features. Think of this as an alpha release" [2].
Currently, several features are missing or limited in functionality. These include the lack of screen margins, non-functional workspace and input settings dialogs, no minimized window icon view, no pager thumbnails in the panel, and no restoration of window positions or workspaces on startup [1].
Xfwl4 aims to enable seamless switching between Xfce running on Wayland or an X server without a noticeable difference to the user experience [1, 2, 3]. The first release marks a milestone toward that goal, offering a working, though incomplete, Wayland compositor tailored for Xfce.
Users and developers can now test Xfwl4 to identify bugs and missing capabilities as work continues to improve its stability and feature set [1, 2, 3]. The Xfce community will likely monitor its progress closely in the coming months.