Wayland
Wayland is a new windowing protocol for Linux. Utilization of Wayland requires changes to and re-installation of parts of your system's software. For more information on Wayland see its homepage.
Contents
Requirements
Currently Wayland will only work on systems utilizing KMS.
Installation
Wayland is most likely installed on your system already, as it is an indirect dependency of gtk2 and gtk3. If it is not installed, you will find the wayland package in the official repositories.
Usage
As Wayland is only a library, it is useless on its own. To replace X Server, you need a compositor (like Weston).
Weston
Installation
You need to install weston from the official repositories.
Usage
Cmd | Action |
---|---|
Ctrl + Alt + Backspace | Quit Weston |
Super + Scroll (or PageUp/PageDown) | Zoom in/out of desktop |
Super + Tab | Switch windows |
Super + LMB | Move Window |
Super + MMB | Resize Window |
Super + RMB | Rotate Window ! |
Super + Alt + Scroll | Change window opacity |
Super + K | Force Kill Active Window |
Super + KeyUp/KeyDown | Switch Prev/Next Workspace |
Super + Shift + KeyUp/KeyDown | Grab Current Window and Switch Workspace |
Super + Fn | Switch to Workspace n |
Super + S | Take a screenshot |
Super + R | Record a screencast. |
Now that Wayland and its requirements are installed you should be ready to test it out.
It is possible to run Weston inside a running X session:
$ weston
Alternatively, to launch Weston natively, try switching to a terminal and running:
$ weston-launch
Then at a TTY within Weston, you can run the demos. To launch a terminal emulator:
$ weston-terminal
To move flowers around the screen:
$ weston-flower
To test the frame protocol (runs glxgears
):
$ weston-gears
To display images:
$ weston-image image1.jpg image2.jpg...
To display PDF Files:
$ weston-view doc1.pdf doc2.pdf...
Configuration
Example configuration file for keyboard layout, module selection and UI modifications. See man weston.ini
for full details:
~/.config/weston.ini
[core] ### uncomment this line for xwayland support ### #modules=xwayland.so [shell] background-image=/usr/share/backgrounds/gnome/Aqua.jpg background-color=0xff002244 panel-color=0x90ff0000 locking=true animation=zoom #binding-modifier=ctrl #num-workspaces=6 ### for cursor themes install xcursor-themes pkg from Extra. ### #cursor-theme=whiteglass #cursor-size=24 ### tablet options ### #lockscreen-icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/256x256/actions/lock.png #lockscreen=/usr/share/backgrounds/gnome/Garden.jpg #homescreen=/usr/share/backgrounds/gnome/Blinds.jpg #animation=fade [keyboard] keymap_rules=evdev #keymap_layout=gb #keymap_options=caps:ctrl_modifier,shift:both_capslock_cancel ### keymap_options from /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst ### [terminal] #font=DroidSansMono #font-size=14 [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/24x24/apps/utilities-terminal.png path=/usr/bin/gnome-terminal [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/24x24/apps/utilities-terminal.png path=/usr/bin/weston-terminal [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/firefox.png path=/usr/bin/firefox [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/24x24/apps/arts.png path=./clients/flower [screensaver] # Uncomment path to disable screensaver path=/usr/libexec/weston-screensaver duration=600 [input-method] path=/usr/libexec/weston-keyboard ### for Laptop displays ### #[output] #name=LVDS1 #mode=1680x1050 #transform=90 #[output] #name=VGA1 # The following sets the mode with a modeline, you can get modelines for your preffered resolutions using the cvt utility #mode=173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync #transform=flipped #[output] #name=X1 #mode=1024x768 #transform=flipped-270
Minimal weston.ini
:
~/.config/weston.ini
[core] modules=xwayland.so [keyboard] keymap_layout=gb [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/24x24/apps/utilities-terminal.png path=/usr/bin/weston-terminal [launcher] icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/firefox.png path=/usr/bin/firefox [output] name=LVDS1 mode=1680x1050 transform=90
XWayland
You can find an official xorg-server-xwayland package in extra.
When you want to run an X application from within Weston, it spins up Xwayland to service the request. The following configuration file is required:
~/.config/weston.ini
[core] modules=xwayland.so
Screencast recording
Weston has build-in screencast recording which can be started and stopped by pressing the Super + R key combination. Screencasts are saved to the file capture.wcap
in the current working directory of Weston.
The WCAP format is a lossless video format specific to Weston, which only records the difference in frames. To be able to play the recorded screencast, the WCAP file will need to be converted to a format which a media player can understand.
To convert the file to webm, execute:
$ wcap-decode capture.wcap --yuv4mpeg2 | vpxenc --target-bitrate=1024 --best -t 4 -o foo.webm -
To convert the file to ogv, execute:
$ wcap-decode capture.wcap --yuv4mpeg2 | theora_encode - -o cap.ogv
High DPI displays
Use
~/.config/weston.ini
[output] name=... scale=2
for "retina" or "HiDPI" displays.
GUI libraries
See details on the official website.
GTK+ 3
The gtk3 package from the official repositories now has the Wayland backend enabled.
GTK+ 3 gained support for multiple backends at runtime and can switch between backends in the same way Qt can with lighthouse.
When both Wayland and X backends are enabled, GTK+ will default to the X11 backend, but this can be overridden by modifying an environment variable: GDK_BACKEND=wayland
.
Qt 5
You need to install qt5-wayland.
To run a Qt 5 app with the Wayland plugin, set the QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland-egl
environment variable.
Clutter
The Clutter toolkit has a Wayland backend that allows it to run as a Wayland client. The backend is enabled in the official package in extra.
To run a Clutter app on Wayland, set CLUTTER_BACKEND=wayland
.
SDL
Experimental wayland support is now in SDL 2.0.2 and enabled by default on Arch Linux.
To run a SDL application on Wayland, set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
.
glfw
Version 3.1 will have wayland support through a compile flag that you have to enable. In the mean time you can install the package from the AUR glfw3-git and add -DGLFW_USE_WAYLAND=ON
to the CMake flags.
EFL
EFL has complete Wayland support. To run a EFL application on Wayland, see Wayland project page.
Window managers and desktop shells
GNOME
With version 3.14, GNOME supports running the desktop using Wayland. The Gnome compositor can be run without using X, and will act as a Wayland system compositor. It is considered stable for production use, but there are still some features that are not yet supported (refer Gnome documentation). Under this desktop, applications using X will run using XWayland.
To start up a Gnome Wayland session, GDM login manager needs to be used, and the user must select the "Gnome on Wayland" session before logging in.
Hawaii
See Hawaii.
i3
Some developers from i3 are thinking of starting a completely new project for implementing a shell plugin for Weston to implement the same features and style of i3.
KDE
KDE 4.11 added support for KWin under Wayland system compositor. There is currently no support for using KWin as a session compositor.
Loliwm
loliwm is a tiling WM for Wayland.
Velox
velox is a simple window manager based on swc. It is inspired by dwm and xmonad.
Orbital
Orbital is a Wayland compositor and shell, using Qt5 and Weston. The goal of the project is to build a simple yet flexible and good looking Wayland desktop. It is not a full fledged DE but rather the analogue of a WM in the X11 world, such as Awesome or Fluxbox.
Papyros Shell
Papyros Shell is the desktop shell for Papyros, built using QtQuick and QtCompositor as a compositor for Wayland.
Maynard
Maynard is a desktop shell client for Weston based on GTK. It was based on weston-gtk-shell, a project by Tiago Vignatti.
Motorcar
Motorcar is a wayland compositor to explore 3D windowing.
Troubleshooting
LLVM assertion failure
If you get an LLVM assertion failure, you need to rebuild mesa without Gallium LLVM until this problem is fixed.
This may imply disabling some drivers which require LLVM. You may also try exporting the following, if having problems with hardware drivers:
$ export EGL_DRIVER=/usr/lib/egl/egl_gallium.so
Weston fails to launch after update to 1.7
This is possibly caused by the `desktop-shell.so` module being loaded by your weston.ini. This used to be required, but is not anymore.
To remove it simply look for a line similar to this line.
~/.config/weston.ini
[core] modules=xwayland.so,desktop-shell.so
Remove the `desktop-shell.so` from that line.
~/.config/weston.ini
[core] modules=xwayland.so