JetBrains has announced it is working on supporting Wayland in IntelliJ-based IDEs for Linux users.

Wayland is the display protocol replacing the X Window System that Linux has used for decades. Wayland offers a number of improvements, including security, improved fractional scaling, better efficiency, and more.

While work is not complete, JetBrains’ Maxim Kartashev says Wayland support is on the horizon:

For Linux users of IntelliJ-based IDEs, an exciting advancement is on the horizon – the upcoming support of the Wayland display server protocol. This update is set to bring a host of benefits, including solving the age-old fractional scaling problem and elevating desktop integration when working with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSLg), which runs a Wayland server under the hood. While Wayland support is far from complete, the already existing features allow us to run some Java Swing and AWT applications on Wayland. In this blog post, we’ll delve into these advancements and explore some technical challenges posed by this novel approach to the display server.

There are still a number of problems to solve, but Kartashev says the company is determined to make IntelliJ-based IDEs first-class Wayland citizens:

Wayland’s architecture offers inherent benefits in terms of performance and security. By sidestepping the complexities of the aging X11 protocol, Wayland provides a more streamlined mechanism for communication between applications and the display server. This translates to faster rendering and a reduced likelihood of security vulnerabilities stemming from X11’s outdated design. As a result, IntelliJ-based IDEs running on Wayland are expected to exhibit improved stability and responsiveness.

The effort to make IntelliJ-based IDEs a first-class citizen of the Wayland desktop is ongoing. The software-based rendering already delivers performance in terms of FPS (frames per second) on par with the current X11 toolkit. The focus now is on identifying the remaining gaps in the toolkit’s implementation so that it can sustain an IDE running natively on Wayland.

The announcement is good news for Linux developers, especially those trying to migrate to Wayland-based systems.