Raspberry Pi has announced the availability of a new version of its operating system, Raspberry Pi OS, which now runs Wayland by default across all of its Pi models, even older ones which struggled with Wayland before a few tweaks were made.
For a bit of background, since the release of Bookworm in 2023, Raspberry Pi OS has been using a Wayland compositor known as wayfire which allowed Wayland to be the default display server for the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. Wayfire was not a suitable choice for older models as it didn"t run very well.
To address this issue, Raspberry Pi has been working with another compositor called labwc which is more lightweight and that is what comes with the new Raspberry Pi OS update. When you upgrade to the new version, you will see a popup (it"s temporarily disabled to fix an issue, but will be back soon) which gives you three options: Ask Me Later, Keep Wayfire, or Switch To Labwc. All Pi users are advised to switch to labwc, especially those on old Pis as it will ensure backward compatibility.
Aside from labwc, this update also includes improved touchscreen support, better Raspberry Pi Connect integration, and other changes. To upgrade your system, you need to run the following commands:
- sudo apt update
- sudo apt full-upgrade
- sudo apt purge arandr
- sudo apt install raindrop
- sudo apt install squeekboard wfplug-squeek
If you do an in-place upgrade, Raspberry Pi says it has temporarily removed the popup to switch to labwc due to an issue people have reported. The issue has been addressed and fixed and should be presented again soon.
You can also get this updated Raspberry Pi OS in the Raspberry Pi Imager tool or the Raspberry Pi website.