Ubuntu 21.04 build system for sway and related tools.
Even though most of these tools (including sway and wlroots) are now available in Ubuntu, they move and evolve pretty quickly and I personally prefer to keep up to date with those.
This repository contains a Makefile based build system for all of these. We are NOT building deb packages (see my old repository which did if you want to do so), but we're directly building from source and installing as root.
This means you should make sure you do not install any of the ubuntu provided packages, and indeed dependents (for instance other tools that depend on wlroots) should also be compiled here.
Apps provided (make sure you do not install these via Ubuntu's package repos):
- Sway
- wlroots
- clipman
- kanshi
- mako
- swaylock-effects
- waybar
- wf-recorder
- wofi
- swayidle
- nwg-panel
- xdg-dekstop-portal-wlr (for screen sharing)
Debs:
- network-manager-gnome: supersedes Ubuntu hirsute's version, hides unmanaged interfaces (eg virtualbox, docker, etc)
- wayland 1.19 (required for sway 1.6+)
You must make sure that
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
is set on your environment prior to starting Sway. This is required so that any apps you compile here can find each other's library, as they're placed somewhere else than Ubuntu's default library path.
Some operations require root to complete. While building sudo will be run at some point to do so and your password will be asked.
Make sure you uninstall meson and ninja if you've already installed them via Ubuntu's package manager. We need newer versions than what's available in 21.04 and we'll be installing the latest versions using pip instead.
You need make. That's it really, everything else can be installed via the provided targets in the Makefile.
First time, you should probably run
make yolo
This will clone all the app's git repos, install dev dependencies and tools required to build everything, then it proceeds to build each project in sequence.
Have a look at the Makefile for all the different build targets, in case you want to build this or the other app. I for instance build wlroots and sway once a week, for which I have
make core
If you just want to update the apps (not wlroots and sway):
make apps
Simply pass -e UPDATE=true to make:
make mako -e UPDATE=true
At the top of the Makefile you'll see one variable per app that defines which version of that app to build that you can override via environment. By version, I mean either a git hash, or a branch, or a tag - we will simply be running git checkout $APP_VERSION before building that app.
For instance, if I wanted to build wlroots 0.11.0, sway 1.5 and swaylock-effects master, while making sure we're on the absolute latest commits for each:
make core swaylock-build -e SWAY_VERSION=1.5 -e WLROOTS_VERSION=0.11.0 -e UPDATE=true
Note the lack of SWAYLOCK_VERSION up there - master is already the default.
When installing the stuff we're compiling, ninja will be copying the relevant files wherever they need to be in the system, without creating a deb package. Therefore, apt autoremove app won't work.
So far all the apps in the repo except for clipman use meson and ninja for building. As long as you don't delete the APP/build repository you can uninstall from the system anything ninja installs:
cd APP
sudo ninja -C build uninstall
If you deleted the build folder on the app, simply build the app again before running the command above.
This goes without saying, but if you're updating wlroots make sure it's built first so that any of the other apps that link against it (like sway) have the right version to link against instead of linking against the version you're replacing.
Ubuntu 21.04 finally comes with all the plumbing to make it all work:
- pipewire 0.3
- xdg-desktop-portal-gtk with the correct build flags
xdg-desktop-portal-wlr does not support window sharing, only entire outputs. No way around this. Apps won't show anything on the window list.
make xdg-desktop-portal-wlr -e UPDATE=true
This will compile & install & make available the wlr portal to xdg-desktop-portal.
After that, make sure systemd has the following env var XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway. This won't work by merely setting that env var before you start sway. The best way is to create a file containing that at ~/.config/environment.d/xdg.conf, like so. Then reboot.
When choosing to share a screen from an app, xdpw won't give it a list of available windows or screens to the app to display and for you to choose from. Instead, you'll need to tell your app to share everything and after that the xdpw's output chooser will kick in.
By default it'll be slurp - your cursor will change to a crosshairs and you'll be able to click on a screen to share only that one.
The chooser is configurable, see docs here: https://github.com/emersion/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/blob/master/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr.5.scd#output-chooser
For instance, if you'd like to use wofi/dmenu, place the following on ~/config/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/config
[screencast]
chooser_type=dmenu
chooser_cmd=wofi --show=dmenu
The actual defaults (if you had no config file) are:
[screencast]
chooser_type=simple
chooser_cmd="slurp -f %o -o"
Should work out of the box on Firefox 84+ using the wayland backend.
When you start screensharing, on the dialog asking you what to share tell it to "Use operating system settings" when prompted. After that, the output chooser for xdpw will kick in, as explained on the previous section.
Ubuntu's Chromium snap currently does not seem to have webrtc pipewire support.
Open chrome://flags and flip WebRTC PipeWire support to enabled. Should work after that.
It looks like this option has disappeared and is not available anymore.
Nothing at the moment.