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Sway is a tiling Wayland compositor and a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager | [https://swaywm.org Sway] is a tiling [[Wayland]] compositor and a drop-in replacement for the [[i3wm |i3 window manager]]. It works with your existing i3 configuration and supports most of i3's features, plus a few extras. | ||
{{:Include:Setup-desktop}} | |||
Install appropriate [[#Install Graphics Drivers|video]] drivers for your hardware before you can [[#Starting sway|launch sway]]. Without graphics drivers [[#Video Driver Issues|errors]] may occur. | |||
== Manual Installation == | |||
The below installation step allows you to pick and choose various componenents for your Sway Desktop. | |||
=== Add a normal user === | |||
Use <code>setup-user</code> to add a non-system normal user for running Sway. | |||
{{cmd|# setup-user}} | |||
== | === Set up eudev === | ||
[[eudev]] is recommended and required for Sway. Without it, sway cannot connect to input devices. | |||
{{cmd|# setup-devd udev}} | |||
=== Install Graphics Drivers === | |||
Install [[graphics driver]] for your video hardware. Without proper driver, Sway will fail to start. | |||
== | === Setup up a seat manager === | ||
Wayland compositors need raw access to input and output devices. This is mediated by a [[seat manager]]. | |||
Configure either [[seatd]] or [[elogind]] as both are supported. However using both may lead to conflicts. | |||
=== Install fonts === | |||
Install DejaVu fonts, which has good Unicode coverage: | |||
{{cmd|# apk add font-dejavu}} | |||
=== Install Sway === | |||
{{cmd|# apk add sway \ | |||
xwayland \ # if you need xserver | |||
foot \ # default terminal emulator. Modify $term in config for a different one. | |||
wmenu \ # default wayland native menu for choosing program and screensharing monitor | |||
swaylock swaylockd \ # lockscreen tool | |||
swaybg \ # display wallpaper | |||
grim \ # screenshot tool | |||
wl-clipboard \ # clipboard management | |||
i3status \ # simple status bar | |||
swayidle # idle management (DPMS) daemon | |||
}} | |||
For complimentary software alternatives, see [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway sway wiki] or [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/List_of_software_for_Wayland Gentoo Wiki.] | |||
== Configuration == | |||
Copy default sway configuration to <code>~/.config</code>: | |||
{{cmd|$ mkdir -p ~/.config/sway | |||
$ cp /etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway/}} | |||
Read through it to learn the default keybindings. | |||
Sway configuration is mostly backwards-compatible with that of [[I3wm|i3]] and if you are looking for a solution for a specific issue, you may also try checking if it hasn't been provided for i3WM. | |||
For additional information, start at <code>man 5 sway</code> and read the [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki upstream wiki]. | |||
== | === Starting sway === | ||
You can launch <Code>sway</Code> by issuing the command sway from TTY. {{Cmd|$ sway}} | |||
Instead of using {{Path|~.profile}} for environment variables, a wrapper script <Code>sway-run</Code> can be used to launch <Code>sway</Code> from both TTY and [[greetd]], a lightweight [[Display manager|display manager]]. Here is a [https://man.sr.ht/~kennylevinsen/greetd/#how-to-set-xdg_session_typewayland sample] wrapper script: {{Cat|/usr/local/bin/sway-run|<nowiki>#!/bin/sh | |||
# Session | |||
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland | |||
export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=sway | |||
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway | |||
== | # Wayland stuff | ||
export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 | |||
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland | |||
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland | |||
export _JAVA_AWT_WM_NONREPARENTING=1 | |||
# If using seatd instead of elogind uncomment the below line | |||
# export LIBSEAT_BACKEND=seatd | |||
# Launch Sway with a D-Bus server available, use: | |||
dbus-run-session -- sway | dbus-run-session -- sway | ||
</ | </nowiki>}} | ||
Make the file executable: {{Codeline|<Code># chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sway-run</Code>}} | |||
{{Note| [[D-Bus]] is required for PipeWire and screensharing in Firefox and Chromium. Running with <code>dbus-run-session</code> is a convenience wrapper that will explicitly export the path of the session bus.}} | |||
=== PipeWire and Screensharing === | |||
For audio playback, install [[PipeWire#Installation|PipeWire]]. The sway compositor has no involvement in audio playback. | |||
For screen sharing, applications are split into two categories: | |||
* Those which use the native wayland protocol, </code>wlr-screencopy</code> | |||
* Those which use the API from Flatpak's <code>xdg-desktop-portal</code> (this portal is also used by native non-Flatpak applications). | |||
Applications in the first group require no additional setup. Applications in the second group (which includes Firefox and Chromium) require setting up xdg portals in addition to [[PipeWire#Installation|PipeWire]]. | |||
{{Cmd|# apk add xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-wlr}} | |||
/usr/ | Launch PipeWire with Sway. Use your service manager of choice, or add the following to sway config: | ||
<pre> | |||
exec /usr/libexec/pipewire-launcher | |||
</pre> | |||
If your are using automatic [[D-Bus]] activation, you also need to set DBus variables for the portal and screensharing features to work: | |||
exec dbus-update-activation-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway | |||
=== Screen lock and suspend-to-RAM === | |||
If [[Elogind]] is not used, consider using {{Pkg|powerctl}}. | |||
Putting the system to sleep with elogind requires elevated privileges or additional configuration. | |||
For | For details on configuring <code>doas</code> with <code>elogind</code>, see [[Elogind#Doas]] | ||
To put the system to sleep after 600 seconds, use: | |||
exec swayidle -w timeout 600 'doas /bin/loginctl suspend' | |||
loginctl suspend command will trigger the screenlock, as mentioned in the section [[#Install elogind (optional)|Install elogind (optional)]] above. | |||
Do not lock the screen if program is running in full screen: | |||
for_window [app_id="^.*"] inhibit_idle fullscreen | |||
== | === Elogind and swayidle === | ||
<code>swayidle</code> has integration with <code>elogind</code> and can handle <code>before-sleep</code> events. | |||
If using <code>swayidle before-sleep</code>, there will be a race condition, so that when you resume the computer from suspend, the screen shows the contents of the unlocked screen for a second before showing the actual lock screen. This can be a privacy concern. | |||
To solve this issue, do the following: | |||
Create this file <code>/etc/elogind/system-sleep/10-swaylock.sh</code>, then add the following script to this file: | |||
#!/bin/sh | |||
if [ "${1}" == "pre" ]; then | |||
touch /tmp/swaylock-sleep | |||
sleep 1 | |||
fi | |||
Then set it to executable. | |||
Later, once sway is installed, add the following line to sway config: | |||
exec touch /tmp/swaylock-sleep && inotifyd swaylock /tmp/swaylock-sleep | |||
With this line, the screen will be promptly locked before suspend-to-RAM starts. | |||
=== Brightness control === | |||
Refer [[Backlight]] for information on brightness control utilities including the popular [[Backlight#Brightnessctl|brightnessctl]] utility. | |||
== Output scaling for high resolution displays == | === Output scaling for high resolution displays === | ||
Without further configuration, program interfaces might be too small to use on high resolution displays. | Without further configuration, program interfaces might be too small to use on high resolution displays. | ||
Line 191: | Line 167: | ||
However, fractional scaling is discouraged due to both the performance impact and the blurry output it produces. In this case, where 1x scaling is too small and 2x scaling is too large, program-specific GTK/QT based scaling is recommended. See below. | However, fractional scaling is discouraged due to both the performance impact and the blurry output it produces. In this case, where 1x scaling is too small and 2x scaling is too large, program-specific GTK/QT based scaling is recommended. See below. | ||
To enable Sway scaling, the user can first preview different scaling factors with <code>wdisplays</code> package. Note the output name (eDP-1, LVDS-1) and try apply scaling factors such as 1 and 2. To make changes permanent, add | To enable Sway scaling, the user can first preview different scaling factors with <code>wdisplays</code> package. Note the output name (eDP-1, LVDS-1) and try apply scaling factors such as 1 and 2. To make changes permanent, add below to ~/.config/sway/config. | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
output <name> scale <factor> | output <name> scale <factor> | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
To use toolkit scaling, use | To use toolkit scaling, use | ||
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}} | }} | ||
== Make clipboard content persistent == | |||
=== Screenshots === | |||
A simple tool that works well under Wayland is Grimshot. Example keybindings: | |||
<pre> | |||
bindsym Print exec grimshot copy area | |||
bindsym Shift+Print exec grimshot copy screen | |||
bindsym Control+Print exec grimshot save area ~/Pictures/$(date +%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S).png | |||
bindsym Control+Shift+Print exec grimshot save screen ~/Pictures/$(date +%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S).png | |||
</pre> | |||
See [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway the sway wiki's article] for a list of screenshot tools. | |||
=== Make clipboard content persistent === | |||
By default the clipboard content does not persist after terminating the program: you copy some text from Firefox and then exit Firefox, the copied text is also lost. | By default the clipboard content does not persist after terminating the program: you copy some text from Firefox and then exit Firefox, the copied text is also lost. | ||
Install clipman from testing repo and add the following to sway config: | Install {{Pkg|clipman}} from testing repo and add the following to sway config: | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
Line 220: | Line 208: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
== Firefox picture-in-picture mode/floating windows == | === Firefox picture-in-picture mode/floating windows === | ||
Add this to your sway config file (modify the numeric values to suit your needs and your display): | Add this to your sway config file (modify the numeric values to suit your needs and your display): | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
Line 226: | Line 215: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
== | === Start with NumLock enabled === | ||
Add this to your sway config file: | |||
input type:keyboard xkb_numlock enabled | |||
== | === Change mouse cursor theme and size === | ||
Add to your sway config: | Add to your sway config: | ||
seat seat0 xcursor_theme my_cursor_theme my_cursor_size | seat seat0 xcursor_theme my_cursor_theme my_cursor_size | ||
For example, set a mouse cursor, using GNOME Adwaita theme: | |||
seat seat0 xcursor_theme Adwaita 16 | |||
You can inspect their values with <code>echo $XCURSOR_SIZE</code> and <code>echo $XCURSOR_THEME</code>. If reloading your config does not result in change, try logging out and in. | You can inspect their values with <code>echo $XCURSOR_SIZE</code> and <code>echo $XCURSOR_THEME</code>. If reloading your config does not result in change, try logging out and in. | ||
{{Note|Wayland allows for client-side cursors. It is possible that applications do not evaluate the values of <code>$XCURSOR_SIZE</code> and <code>$XCURSOR_THEME</code>.}} | |||
== Custom keyboard layout == | === Custom keyboard layout === | ||
To use custom keyboard layout, just use | To use custom keyboard layout, just use | ||
Line 259: | Line 244: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
== | === Changing default application fonts === | ||
See [[Fontconfig]] | |||
== Troubleshooting == | == Troubleshooting == | ||
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If you encounter any issues, try running <code>sway -Vc /etc/sway/config</code>. It will run sway with the default config file and set the output to be more verbose. It is generally a good idea to track your config files with git (when and if at all you use a remote repository for them, keep it private for security reasons). | If you encounter any issues, try running <code>sway -Vc /etc/sway/config</code>. It will run sway with the default config file and set the output to be more verbose. It is generally a good idea to track your config files with git (when and if at all you use a remote repository for them, keep it private for security reasons). | ||
== Flatpaks == | To capture the sway error log in a file for troubleshooting, replace <code>sway</code> in your startup file by | ||
<code>sway -d 2> ~/sway_error.log</code>. | |||
Alternately, you can also issue the below command from TTY. | |||
{{cmd|$ sway -d 2> ~/sway_error.log}} | |||
=== Video Driver Issues === | |||
After installing sway, while launching it for the first time, lack of proper [[#Install Graphics Drivers|video drivers]] causes various error messages such as: | |||
* "unable to create backend" | |||
* "Failed to create renderer" | |||
Do install necessary drivers for your [[#Install Graphics Drivers|graphics card]] for sway to work. | |||
=== Flatpaks === | |||
{{main|Flatpak}} | {{main|Flatpak}} | ||
Due to their sandboxing, flatpaks require the use of a portal frontend (xdg-desktop-portal) and backends (such as xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, xdg-desktop-portal-gnome) that implement the methods. When in doubt, install multiple backends. For more information on backends, see [https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/#using-portals flatpak's page on the subject]. In addition to the steps under the "Firefox Screensharing" section, it may also be necessary to launch additional backends in your Sway config file. Otherwise, you may run into GDBus errors as your flatpak fails to interface with the portal. This can cause issues such as with opening your file directories from a flatpak application. | Due to their sandboxing, flatpaks require the use of a portal frontend (xdg-desktop-portal) and backends (such as xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, xdg-desktop-portal-gnome) that implement the methods. When in doubt, install multiple backends. For more information on backends, see [https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/#using-portals flatpak's page on the subject]. In addition to the steps under the "Firefox Screensharing" section, it may also be necessary to launch additional backends in your Sway config file. Otherwise, you may run into GDBus errors as your flatpak fails to interface with the portal. This can cause issues such as with opening your file directories from a flatpak application. | ||
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This is only needed if they are not started automatically via other means. | This is only needed if they are not started automatically via other means. | ||
== Firefox (Flatpak) and/or GTK apps == | === Firefox (Flatpak) and/or GTK apps === | ||
=== Disappearing cursor === | |||
==== Disappearing cursor ==== | |||
You may need to get an icon pack and possibly a theme from [https://www.pling.com/browse?cat=107&ord=latest Pling store] and set <code>GTK_THEME</code> environmental variable. Alternatively you can install a theme for all users (search [https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/ Alpine Linux Packages] for ''*-icon-theme'') using <code>apk add</code>. | You may need to get an icon pack and possibly a theme from [https://www.pling.com/browse?cat=107&ord=latest Pling store] and set <code>GTK_THEME</code> environmental variable. Alternatively you can install a theme for all users (search [https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/ Alpine Linux Packages] for ''*-icon-theme'') using <code>apk add</code>. | ||
=== Missing file picker/cannot download === | ==== Missing file picker/cannot download ==== | ||
Go to ''about:config'' and set <code>widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker</code> to 0. | Go to ''about:config'' and set <code>widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker</code> to 0. | ||
== | === Nvidia Issues === | ||
{{Main|NVIDIA}} | |||
As of Dec 31 2022, [https://developer.nvidia.com/docs/drive/drive-os/latest/linux/sdk/common/topics/window_system_stub/Gnome-WaylandDesktopShellSupport136.html Nvidia still doesn't fully support Wayland]. Therefore, the possible solutions are as outlined in the link, or setting your WLR_BACKENDS environmental variables to <code>drm,libinput</code> or <code>x11</code> (add libinput here as well if you cannot use your mouse and keyboard after starting Sway). The latter also works for AMD/ATI cards ('''make sure to install libinput first'''). | As of Dec 31 2022, [https://developer.nvidia.com/docs/drive/drive-os/latest/linux/sdk/common/topics/window_system_stub/Gnome-WaylandDesktopShellSupport136.html Nvidia still doesn't fully support Wayland]. Therefore, the possible solutions are as outlined in the link, or setting your WLR_BACKENDS environmental variables to <code>drm,libinput</code> or <code>x11</code> (add libinput here as well if you cannot use your mouse and keyboard after starting Sway). The latter also works for AMD/ATI cards ('''make sure to install libinput first'''). | ||
== See Also == | == See Also == | ||
* [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/ Sway Wiki] | |||
* [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sway Archwiki] | * [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sway Archwiki] | ||
* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sway Gentoo Wiki] | * [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sway Gentoo Wiki] | ||
* [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Sway PostmarketOS Wiki] | * [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Sway PostmarketOS Wiki] | ||
[[Category:Compositor]] | |||
[[Category:Desktop]] | [[Category:Desktop]] | ||
[[Category:Window Managers]] | [[Category:Window Managers]] | ||
[[Category:Wayland]] | [[Category:Wayland]] |
Latest revision as of 07:33, 21 December 2024
Sway is a tiling Wayland compositor and a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager. It works with your existing i3 configuration and supports most of i3's features, plus a few extras.
- Create a non-privileged user account for security reasons, if you skipped this step during Installation.
- Enable community repository. Setup-desktop script automatically does this for you.
- Install graphics driver for your video hardware.
Installation using setup-desktop
The Alpine Linux script for setting up a desktop quickly is setup-desktop.
# setup-desktop
On running the above command, you will be prompted to select a desktop environment.
Which desktop environment? ('gnome', 'plasma', 'xfce', 'mate', 'sway', 'lxqt' or 'none') [none]
Once you have chosen a desktop environment, this script installs the chosen desktop along with necessary packages, firefox browser and adds the necessary services to run on startup. You can reboot when complete and the system will boot into a graphical login screen with the desktop environment. Depending on the desktop chosen, the script also activates the necessary services like dbus, elogind, login manager etc..
To view all the packages that are installed by the script for the chosen desktop you can issue the below command:
# cat /usr/sbin/setup-desktop
Install appropriate video drivers for your hardware before you can launch sway. Without graphics drivers errors may occur.
Manual Installation
The below installation step allows you to pick and choose various componenents for your Sway Desktop.
Add a normal user
Use setup-user
to add a non-system normal user for running Sway.
# setup-user
Set up eudev
eudev is recommended and required for Sway. Without it, sway cannot connect to input devices.
# setup-devd udev
Install Graphics Drivers
Install graphics driver for your video hardware. Without proper driver, Sway will fail to start.
Setup up a seat manager
Wayland compositors need raw access to input and output devices. This is mediated by a seat manager.
Configure either seatd or elogind as both are supported. However using both may lead to conflicts.
Install fonts
Install DejaVu fonts, which has good Unicode coverage:
# apk add font-dejavu
Install Sway
# apk add sway \ xwayland \ # if you need xserver foot \ # default terminal emulator. Modify $term in config for a different one. wmenu \ # default wayland native menu for choosing program and screensharing monitor swaylock swaylockd \ # lockscreen tool swaybg \ # display wallpaper grim \ # screenshot tool wl-clipboard \ # clipboard management i3status \ # simple status bar swayidle # idle management (DPMS) daemon
For complimentary software alternatives, see sway wiki or Gentoo Wiki.
Configuration
Copy default sway configuration to ~/.config
:
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/sway $ cp /etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway/
Read through it to learn the default keybindings. Sway configuration is mostly backwards-compatible with that of i3 and if you are looking for a solution for a specific issue, you may also try checking if it hasn't been provided for i3WM.
For additional information, start at man 5 sway
and read the upstream wiki.
Starting sway
You can launch sway
by issuing the command sway from TTY.
$ sway
Instead of using ~.profile for environment variables, a wrapper script sway-run
can be used to launch sway
from both TTY and greetd, a lightweight display manager. Here is a sample wrapper script:
Contents of /usr/local/bin/sway-run
Make the file executable: # chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sway-run
dbus-run-session
is a convenience wrapper that will explicitly export the path of the session bus.PipeWire and Screensharing
For audio playback, install PipeWire. The sway compositor has no involvement in audio playback.
For screen sharing, applications are split into two categories:
- Those which use the native wayland protocol, wlr-screencopy
- Those which use the API from Flatpak's
xdg-desktop-portal
(this portal is also used by native non-Flatpak applications).
Applications in the first group require no additional setup. Applications in the second group (which includes Firefox and Chromium) require setting up xdg portals in addition to PipeWire.
# apk add xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
Launch PipeWire with Sway. Use your service manager of choice, or add the following to sway config:
exec /usr/libexec/pipewire-launcher
If your are using automatic D-Bus activation, you also need to set DBus variables for the portal and screensharing features to work:
exec dbus-update-activation-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway
Screen lock and suspend-to-RAM
If Elogind is not used, consider using powerctl.
Putting the system to sleep with elogind requires elevated privileges or additional configuration.
For details on configuring doas
with elogind
, see Elogind#Doas
To put the system to sleep after 600 seconds, use:
exec swayidle -w timeout 600 'doas /bin/loginctl suspend'
loginctl suspend command will trigger the screenlock, as mentioned in the section Install elogind (optional) above.
Do not lock the screen if program is running in full screen:
for_window [app_id="^.*"] inhibit_idle fullscreen
Elogind and swayidle
swayidle
has integration with elogind
and can handle before-sleep
events.
If using swayidle before-sleep
, there will be a race condition, so that when you resume the computer from suspend, the screen shows the contents of the unlocked screen for a second before showing the actual lock screen. This can be a privacy concern.
To solve this issue, do the following:
Create this file /etc/elogind/system-sleep/10-swaylock.sh
, then add the following script to this file:
#!/bin/sh if [ "${1}" == "pre" ]; then touch /tmp/swaylock-sleep sleep 1 fi
Then set it to executable.
Later, once sway is installed, add the following line to sway config:
exec touch /tmp/swaylock-sleep && inotifyd swaylock /tmp/swaylock-sleep
With this line, the screen will be promptly locked before suspend-to-RAM starts.
Brightness control
Refer Backlight for information on brightness control utilities including the popular brightnessctl utility.
Output scaling for high resolution displays
Without further configuration, program interfaces might be too small to use on high resolution displays.
Sway supports the per-display configuration of
- fractional (e.g., 1.5x), and
- integer scaling (e.g., 2x)
However, fractional scaling is discouraged due to both the performance impact and the blurry output it produces. In this case, where 1x scaling is too small and 2x scaling is too large, program-specific GTK/QT based scaling is recommended. See below.
To enable Sway scaling, the user can first preview different scaling factors with wdisplays
package. Note the output name (eDP-1, LVDS-1) and try apply scaling factors such as 1 and 2. To make changes permanent, add below to ~/.config/sway/config.
output <name> scale <factor>
To use toolkit scaling, use
# for GTK-based programs such as firefox and emacs: export GDK_DPI_SCALE=2 # for QT-based programs export QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI="physical" # or if still too small, use a custom DPI export QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI=192 # 2x scaling export QT_QPA_PLATFORM="wayland-egl"
Screenshots
A simple tool that works well under Wayland is Grimshot. Example keybindings:
bindsym Print exec grimshot copy area bindsym Shift+Print exec grimshot copy screen bindsym Control+Print exec grimshot save area ~/Pictures/$(date +%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S).png bindsym Control+Shift+Print exec grimshot save screen ~/Pictures/$(date +%d-%m-%Y-%H-%M-%S).png
See the sway wiki's article for a list of screenshot tools.
Make clipboard content persistent
By default the clipboard content does not persist after terminating the program: you copy some text from Firefox and then exit Firefox, the copied text is also lost.
Install clipman from testing repo and add the following to sway config:
exec wl-paste --type text/plain --watch clipman store --histpath="~/.local/state/clipman-primary.json" bindsym $mod+h exec clipman pick --tool wofi --histpath="~/.local/state/clipman-primary.json"
Firefox picture-in-picture mode/floating windows
Add this to your sway config file (modify the numeric values to suit your needs and your display):
for_window [app_id="firefox" title="^Picture-in-Picture$"] floating enable, move position 877 450, sticky enable, border none
Start with NumLock enabled
Add this to your sway config file:
input type:keyboard xkb_numlock enabled
Change mouse cursor theme and size
Add to your sway config:
seat seat0 xcursor_theme my_cursor_theme my_cursor_size
For example, set a mouse cursor, using GNOME Adwaita theme:
seat seat0 xcursor_theme Adwaita 16
You can inspect their values with echo $XCURSOR_SIZE
and echo $XCURSOR_THEME
. If reloading your config does not result in change, try logging out and in.
$XCURSOR_SIZE
and $XCURSOR_THEME
.Custom keyboard layout
To use custom keyboard layout, just use
input type:keyboard { xkb_file /path/to/my/custom/layout }
Changing default application fonts
See Fontconfig
Troubleshooting
If you encounter any issues, try running sway -Vc /etc/sway/config
. It will run sway with the default config file and set the output to be more verbose. It is generally a good idea to track your config files with git (when and if at all you use a remote repository for them, keep it private for security reasons).
To capture the sway error log in a file for troubleshooting, replace sway
in your startup file by
sway -d 2> ~/sway_error.log
.
Alternately, you can also issue the below command from TTY.
$ sway -d 2> ~/sway_error.log
Video Driver Issues
After installing sway, while launching it for the first time, lack of proper video drivers causes various error messages such as:
- "unable to create backend"
- "Failed to create renderer"
Do install necessary drivers for your graphics card for sway to work.
Flatpaks
Due to their sandboxing, flatpaks require the use of a portal frontend (xdg-desktop-portal) and backends (such as xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, xdg-desktop-portal-gnome) that implement the methods. When in doubt, install multiple backends. For more information on backends, see flatpak's page on the subject. In addition to the steps under the "Firefox Screensharing" section, it may also be necessary to launch additional backends in your Sway config file. Otherwise, you may run into GDBus errors as your flatpak fails to interface with the portal. This can cause issues such as with opening your file directories from a flatpak application.
After installing different backends, you might need to add the relevant backends to your sway config file similarly to in the "Firefox Screensharing" section above. For example, an autostart section of your sway config file may include:
exec /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk exec /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr exec /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
This is only needed if they are not started automatically via other means.
Firefox (Flatpak) and/or GTK apps
Disappearing cursor
You may need to get an icon pack and possibly a theme from Pling store and set GTK_THEME
environmental variable. Alternatively you can install a theme for all users (search Alpine Linux Packages for *-icon-theme) using apk add
.
Missing file picker/cannot download
Go to about:config and set widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker
to 0.
Nvidia Issues
As of Dec 31 2022, Nvidia still doesn't fully support Wayland. Therefore, the possible solutions are as outlined in the link, or setting your WLR_BACKENDS environmental variables to drm,libinput
or x11
(add libinput here as well if you cannot use your mouse and keyboard after starting Sway). The latter also works for AMD/ATI cards (make sure to install libinput first).