Mutter (software)

Mutter is a window manager initially designed and implemented for the X Window System, but then evolved to be a display server ("Wayland compositor"). It became the default window manager in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity^[3] which used GTK for rendering. "Mutter" is a combination of "Metacity" and "Clutter".

Mutter
Developer	GNOME Project
Initial release	April 2011; 14 years ago (2011-04)
Stable release	48.4  / 29 June 2025; 3 months ago (29 June 2025)
Preview release	48.rc  / 4 March 2025; 7 months ago (4 March 2025)
Repository	gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter
Written in	C
Operating system	Unix-like
Size	40.2 kB (amd64 .deb package)[1]
Type	Wayland compositor X window manager
License	GPL-2.0-or-later[2]
Website	mutter.gnome.org

Window management

Mutter can function as a standalone window manager for GNOME-like desktops, and serves as the primary window manager for the GNOME Shell,^[4] which is an integral part of GNOME 3. Mutter is extensible with plug-ins, and supports numerous visual effects. GNOME Shell is written as a plug-in to Mutter.

Release history

• Support for HiDPI was added to version 3.13 of Mutter by Adel Gadllah.^[5]

• In version 3.13.2 logind integration replaced mutter-launch.^[6]

• In version 3.13.3 (June 24, 2014) the server side bits of wl_touch_interface were implemented by Carlos Garnacho.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Forks

Muffin

Muffin is a fork of Mutter by the Linux Mint team for their Cinnamon desktop environment. Cinnamon's shell, a fork of GNOME Shell, is written as a plugin for Muffin.^[11]