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 wl_touch_interface were implemented by Carlos Garnacho. 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. References Further reading External links Mutter tarballs mutter-wayland tarballs GNOME git: Mutter GNOME Wiki: Mutter Gestures Compositing window managers Free software programmed in C Free X window managers GNOME Linux windowing system-related software Software that uses Clutter (software) Wayland compositors Window managers that use GTK