July 28, 2026
Double the cursors, double the drama
Multiple Mouse Cursors in Wayland
One computer, two mice, endless chaos as fans cheer and skeptics panic
TLDR: A developer showed that one computer can support multiple people controlling it at once, opening the door to shared work and games. Commenters were torn between calling it an exciting glimpse of the future and warning that many apps will freak out because they were built for just one active user.
A Linux tinkerer went down a three-week rabbit hole asking a wonderfully cursed question: what if one computer had multiple mouse cursors at the same time? The answer, according to the post, is: surprisingly possible on modern Linux systems using Wayland, though still rough around the edges. The author says this could make pair programming, co-op games, and shared creative work feel more natural—basically turning your desktop into a tiny multiplayer arena. Yes, there are tools, patches, and even a turtle cursor involved, which only made the internet love this story more.
But the real show was in the comments, where people split into camps of “this is brilliant” and “this will break absolutely everything.” One cheerleader pointed out that the feature must have been on developers’ minds from the start, because the system supports it so deeply. Another commenter jumped in with the wet blanket energy: apps often assume only one window is active at a time, so adding more people and more pointers could scramble a lot of old assumptions. That sparked a mini naming war too, with one reader insisting this isn’t just “multiple mouse cursors” but more like “multiplayer computing,” because the keyboard part matters just as much.
The funniest twist? Several people argued this idea isn’t weird at all. Laptops already blur the rules with touchscreens, and one commenter even tossed out VR eye-tracking plus mouse control as a future use case. So the vibe was less “niche nerd experiment” and more “wait… are we all going to be sharing desktops like Mario Kart soon?”
Key Points
- •The article documents a three-week investigation into using multiple mice and keyboards as separate logical seats on Linux with Wayland.
- •The author published tools and patched libraries to improve multi-seat support and marked additional open project ideas.
- •The core Wayland protocol is rated highest for multi-seat support, while Weston, sway, GTK, and SDL each have specific limitations.
- •The article distinguishes logical seats, where users share one desktop environment, from physical seats, where users have separate independent setups.
- •The investigation focuses only on Linux and Wayland, while briefly noting that X11 provides a related extension called Multi-Pointer X (MPX).