Difference between revisions of "Sway"
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''sway'' can be [[install]]ed with the {{Pkg|sway}} package. | ''sway'' can be [[install]]ed with the {{Pkg|sway}} package. | ||
− | + | This will install the stable, but abandoned, ''0.15'' version which is based on the (also abandoned) [https://github.com/Cloudef/wlc wlc] library. | |
At the time of writing, ''sway 1.0-alpha'' - based on the new [https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots wlroots] library - is under active development and quite stable. | At the time of writing, ''sway 1.0-alpha'' - based on the new [https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots wlroots] library - is under active development and quite stable. | ||
− | Install the following two [[Arch User Repository]] packages instead: {{AUR|wlroots-git}} and {{AUR|sway | + | Install the following two [[Arch User Repository]] packages instead: {{AUR|wlroots-git}} and {{AUR|sway-git}}. |
+ | |||
+ | It's advisable to always update ''wlroots'' when you update ''sway'', due to tight dependencies. | ||
== Starting sway == | == Starting sway == |
Revision as of 21:47, 8 October 2018
sway is a compositor for Wayland designed to be fully compatible with i3. According to the official website:
- Sway is a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager, but for Wayland instead of X11. It works with your existing i3 configuration and supports most of i3's features, and a few extras.
Contents
Status
Sway is a work-in-progress so caution is advised. However, the project's creator, Drew DeVault (aka SirCmpwn) has deemed it ready for regular use.
A detailed accounting of what features have been implemented and what features are still outstanding can be found at the following links:
Installation
sway can be installed with the sway package. This will install the stable, but abandoned, 0.15 version which is based on the (also abandoned) wlc library.
At the time of writing, sway 1.0-alpha - based on the new wlroots library - is under active development and quite stable. Install the following two Arch User Repository packages instead: wlroots-gitAUR and sway-gitAUR.
It's advisable to always update wlroots when you update sway, due to tight dependencies.
Starting sway
From a TTY, on login
You can start sway by simply typing sway
from your TTY. To start sway from tty1 on login with default US keyboard edit .bash_profile
use this code:
~/.bash_profile
if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ]]; then XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=us exec sway fi
Using a display manager
The sway session is located at /usr/share/wayland-sessions/sway.desktop
. It is automatically recognized by modern display managers like GDM and SDDM.
Configuration
If you already use i3, then copy your i3 configuration to ~/.config/sway/config
and it should work out of the box. Otherwise, copy the sample configuration file to ~/.config/sway/config
. It is located at /etc/sway/config
, unless the DFALLBACK_CONFIG_DIR
flag has been set. See sway(5) for information on the configuration.
Keymap
By default, sway starts with the US QWERTY keymap. You can override this behaviour by starting sway with
$ export XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=gb; export XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=colemak; export XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=pc101; sway
This will launch sway with the keyboard set to the Colemak variant of the British keymap with the 101-key keyboard model.
If you are using a display manager, you can not simply prepend the above line to the sway.desktop
file. As root, create the following file:
/usr/bin/sway-gb-ck
#!/bin/sh XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=gb XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=colemak XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=pc101 sway
Then, create a sway-gb-ck.desktop
file that starts the above script:
/usr/share/wayland-sessions/sway-gb-ck.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Name=Sway British(Colemak) Comment=SirCmpwn's Wayland window manager with the British Colemak keyboard layout Exec=sway-gb-ck Type=Application
If none of the above solutions worked for you, you may want to add
$ export XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=gb; export XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=colemak; export XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=pc101
to either your .bash_profile
or .zprofile
.
If you want multiple keyboard layouts at startup edit .bash_profile
and add, for example US English and German layouts, switchable by Mod+Space:
~/.bash_profile
if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ]]; then export XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=us,de export XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS=grp:win_space_toggle exec sway fi
Other options for switching keyboard layout is Alt+Shift: grp:alt_shift_toggle
Statusbar
Installing the program i3status is an easy way to get a practical, default statusbar. All one has to do is add following snippet at the end of your sway config:
~/.config/sway/config
bar { status_command i3status }
If you want to achieve colored output of i3status, you can adjust following part in the i3status configuration:
~/.config/i3status/config
general { colors = true interval = 5 }
In both examples, the system-wide installed configuration files has been copied over to the user directory and then modified.
Wallpaper
This line, which can be appended at the end of your sway configuration, sets a background image on all displays (output matches all with name "*"
):
~/.config/sway/config
output "*" background /home/onny/pictures/fredwang_norway.jpg fill
Of course you have to replace the file name and path according to your wallpaper.
Input devices
Its possible to tweak specific input device configurations. For example to enable tap-to-click and natural scolling for a touchpad, add an input block:
~/.config/sway/config
input "2:14:ETPS/2_Elantech_Touchpad" { tap enabled natural_scroll enabled }
Where as the device identifier can be queried with:
swaymsg -t get_inputs
The output from the command, sometimes has a "\" to escape symbols like "/" (ie "2:14:ETPS\/2_Elantech_Touchpad"
) and it needs to be removed.
More documentation and options like acceleration profiles can be found in sway-input(5).
HiDPI
Set your displays scale factor with the output
command in your config file. The scale factor must be an integer, and is usually 2 for HiDPI screens.
output <name> scale <factor>
You can find your display name with the following command:
swaymsg -t get_outputs
Custom keybindings
Special keys on your keyboard can be used to execute commands, for example to control your volume or your monitor brightness:
~/.config/sway/config
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec pactl set-sink-volume $(pacmd list-sinks |awk '/* index:/{print $3}') +5% bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec pactl set-sink-volume $(pacmd list-sinks |awk '/* index:/{print $3}') -5% bindsym XF86AudioMute exec pactl set-sink-mute $(pacmd list-sinks |awk '/* index:/{print $3}') toggle bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec brightnessctl set 5%- bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec brightnessctl set +5%
To control brightness you can use brightnessctlAUR. For a list of utilities to control brightness and color correction see Backlight
.Xresources
Copy .Xresources
to .Xdefaults
to use them in sway.
Tips and tricks
As dmenu runs on XWayland, the applicions tends to become unresponsive if the focus is moved elsewhere, requiring a sway restart, to fix the broken, always visible and unresponsive dmenu. Rofi is a nice option, yet, to automatically focus rofi as a menu, it needs to be run from urxvt or other non-wayland-native virtual terminal. Invoking it as menu in sway will not focus on the menu (you have to hover the mouse on rofi, for rofi to grab your input) One of the best workarounds could be found https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1367#issuecomment-332910152 :
Known issues
i3-dmenu-desktop is not usable directly from sway, but a patch is available here: https://github.com/i3/i3/pull/2265/files Unfortunately, the patch cannot be merged because it breaks when used from i3 in some corner cases.
See here for more information: https://github.com/SirCmpwn/sway/issues/521
You can still apply the patch manually through installing sway-dmenu-desktopAUR[broken link: package not found]. This creates a new binary called sway-dmenu-desktop
to be using within sway.
An alternative is to use j4-dmenu-desktopAUR, which is advertised as faster than i3-dmenu-desktop.
Using VirtualBox
Sway doesn't work well (or at all) under VirtualBox.
Sway Socket Not Detected
Using a swaymsg
argument, such as swaymsg -t get_outputs
, will sometimes return the message
sway socket not detected. ERROR: Unable to connect to
when run inside a terminal multiplexer (such as gnu screen or tmux). This means swaymsg
could not connect to the socket provided in your SWAYSOCK
.
To view what the current value of SWAYSOCK
is, type:
$ env | fgrep SWAYSOCK SWAYSOCK=/run/user/1000/sway-ipc.1000.4981.sock
To work around this problem, you may try attaching to the first available sway socket, and retrying your command:
$ export SWAYSOCK=$(ls /run/user/*/sway-ipc.*.sock | head -n 1)
To avoid this error, run the command outside of a multiplexer.
Incorrect Monitor Resolution
Config options such as output "HDMI-A-1" res 1280x1024
may not successfully change the resolution. The compositor wlc is responsible for setting the resolution, and attempts to figure out monitor resolution from the TTY.
You may be able to alter your TTY resolution (thus also altering the WLC and Sway resolution) by passing a kernel parameter such as video=HDMI-A-1:1280x1024:e
or with with custom edid binaries (see Kernel Mode Setting).