Mutter (software)

Mutter is a window manager initially designed and implemented for the X Window System, but then evolved to be a Wayland compositor. It became the default window manager in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity which used GTK for rendering.

Window management
Mutter uses a graphics library called Clutter giving it OpenGL capability. "Mutter" is a portmanteau of "Metacity" and "Clutter". Mutter can function as a standalone window manager for GNOME-like desktops, and serves as the primary window manager for the GNOME Shell, 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.


 * In version 3.13.2 logind integration replaced mutter-launch.


 * In version 3.13.3 (June 24, 2014) the server side bits of  were implemented by Carlos Garnacho.

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.