River: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:29, 25 May 2025

River is a dynamic tiling Wayland compositor.

Prerequisites

Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur when starting your desktop.
A non-root user account.
The community repository must be enabled.
Set up eudev.
Install and enable D-Bus. Without D-Bus, icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.
Wayland compositors need raw access to input and output devices, typically mediated by a seat manager. Either seatd or elogind work fine, but installing both leads to conflicts.
Installing wayland-base enables elogind as seat manager, enables community repository and enables eudev.

Installation

Install River and the documentation:

# apk add river river-doc

river-doc is required if you want use the example config.

Install your choice of additional packages:

This list includes icons, fonts, and a terminal emulator named foot which is the default in River's sample init file that we will use later.

# apk add adwaita-icon-theme foot font-dejavu

Running River

Before running River for the first time, copy the sample init file to ~/.config:

install -Dm0755 /usr/share/doc/river/examples/init -t ~/.config/river

Set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and then start River:

river

Troubleshooting

Following are a few notes that are most certainly not related to River whatsoever but rather discovered while running River so I'm tacking them onto the end of this wiki.

Firefox 89.0.1 complains on launch "glxtest: libpci missing", resolved by:

apk add pciutils-libs

Firefox 89.0.1 complains continuously "Unable to load hand2 from the cursor theme", resolved by:

mkdir -p ~/.icons/default ln -s /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors ~/.icons/default/cursors

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[https://github.com/riverwm/river River] is a dynamic tiling Wayland compositor. An introduction to River can be found in [https://isaacfreund.com/blog/river-intro/ this blog post] by the author for the 0.1.0 release.
+[https://github.com/riverwm/river River] is a dynamic tiling [[Wayland]] compositor.
-This wiki was written starting from a fresh install using the Alpine 3.14.2 x86_64 extended .iso. The steps begin from the first reboot after running setup-alpine and performing a sys install to disk.
 == Prerequisites ==
+{{:Include:Desktop prerequisites}}
+* Wayland compositors need raw access to input and output devices, typically mediated by a [[seat manager]]. Either [[seatd]] or [[elogind]] work fine, but installing both leads to conflicts.
+* Installing [[Alpine_setup_scripts#setup-wayland-base|wayland-base]] enables [[elogind]] as [[Seat manager|seat manager]], enables [[Repositories#Community|community repository]] and enables [[eudev]].
-The following links contain guides for setting up the video stack.
+== Installation ==
-* [https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Intel_Video Intel Video]
-* [https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Radeon_Video Radeon Video]
-Add yourself to the input and video groups:
-<pre>
-# adduser $USER input
-# adduser $USER video
-</pre>
-You have to log out and back in for this to take effect.
-Install some TTF fonts:
+Install River and the documentation:
-<pre>
+{{Cmd|# apk add {{Pkg|river}} {{Pkg|river-doc}}}}
-# apk add ttf-dejavu
-</pre>
-Since sway 1.6.1 (more specifically, since wlroots 0.14), you need to set up libseat backend if you wish to run sway directly (without nesting it in another wayland compositor). To do that, choose one of the following methods:
+<code>river-doc</code> is required if you want use the example config.
-<dl>
+Install your choice of additional packages:
-<dt>seatd daemon</dt>
+This list includes icons, fonts, and a terminal emulator named foot which is the default in River's sample init file that we will use later.
-<dd>
-<pre>
-# apk add seatd
-# rc-update add seatd
-# rc-service seatd start
-# adduser $USER seat
-</pre>
-If you are already logged in as a $USER, you will need to relogin.
+{{Cmd|# apk add {{Pkg|adwaita-icon-theme}} {{Pkg|foot}} {{Pkg|font-dejavu}}}}
-</dd>
-<dt>seatd-launch</dt>
+== Running River ==
-<dd>
-<pre>
-# apk add seatd-launch
-</pre>
-When starting sway, you will need to prefix invocation with <code>seatd-launch</code>.
+Before running River for the first time, copy the sample init file to ~/.config:
-Note: <code>seatd-launch</code> is a suid binary, so it might be wise to use one of the other methods from a security perspective.
-</dd>
-<dt>elogind daemon</dt>
-<dd>
-TODO
-</dd>
-</dl>
-== Installation ==
-We can now install sway:
+{{Cmd|install -Dm0755 /usr/share/doc/river/examples/init -t ~/.config/river}}
-<pre>
+Set [[Wayland#XDG_RUNTIME_DIR|XDG_RUNTIME_DIR]] and then start River:
-# apk add sway sway-doc
-# apk add                \ # Install optional dependencies:
-    xwayland             \ # strongly reccommended for compatibility reasons
-    alacritty            \ # default terminal emulator
-    dmenu                \ # default application launcher
-    swaylock             \ # lockscreen tool
-    swayidle               # idle management (DPMS) daemon
-</pre>
-== Running Sway ==
+{{Cmd|1=river}}
-To run sway, first set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to a suitable location (e.g. /tmp). Install & configure elogind to skip this step. Then run sway from the Linux console:
+== Troubleshooting ==
-<pre>
+Following are a few notes that are most certainly not related to River whatsoever but rather discovered while running River so I'm tacking them onto the end of this wiki.
-$ XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp sway
-</pre>
-(if you run sway with seatd-launch, you will need to use <code>$ XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp seatd-launch sway</code>)
+Firefox 89.0.1 complains on launch "glxtest: libpci missing", resolved by:
-See the [https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Wayland Wayland] page for a permanent configuration
+{{Cmd|apk add {{Pkg|pciutils-libs}}}}
-{{Note|
+Firefox 89.0.1 complains continuously "Unable to load hand2 from the cursor theme", resolved by:
-swaylock needs to be able to read your <code>/etc/shadow</code> file to be able to validate your password
-}}
-== Configuration and Usage ==
+{{Cmd|mkdir -p ~/.icons/default
+ln -s /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors ~/.icons/default/cursors}}
-An example config is provided at <code>/etc/sway/config</code>. Copy it to <code>~/.config/sway/config</code> and read through it to learn the default keybindings.
+== See also ==
-For additional information, start at <code>man 5 sway</code> and read the [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki upstream FAQ].
+* [https://isaacfreund.com/blog/river-intro/ An introduction to River]
-[[Category:Desktop]]
+[[Category:Compositor]]