Post by @ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org

@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org

2026-07-20 05:45 UTC

River is a Wayland compositor written in Zig that defines a window manager protocol so that, like with X11, write your own window management software. As with X11, the protocol is language-agnostic, so you can define your window manager using any programming language at all. I have been gradually becoming more interested in Zig as a potential replacement for C in systems programming. Rust is another interesting potential replacement. #tech #software #Zig #ZigLang #Linux #Wayland #WindowManager #WaylandCompositor #RiverCompositor #UnixPorn

Replies (2)

@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz 2026-07-20 06:00

@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org Zig & Rust: Yeah, same here. River sounds interesting, and Wayland definitely needs to work harder to cover 100% of what X11 provides. (I used to be an X11 weenie so I was keenly aware back then of all kinds of obscure but handy X11 services, and even these days I continue to hear complaints of things missing -- which don't affect most people, but still)

Open ##3952939
@tclaesson@mastodon.nu 2026-07-20 08:27

@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org did you already know that there are r7rs wayland bindings? Here is an example river window manager in guile: https://codeberg.org/river/tinyrwm/pulls/5 My scheme is nothing to brag about, but it demonstrates how to get started with guile+wayland-scm+river using guix, which I think is useful.

Open ##5123267