sway-on-ubuntu

Sway on non-NixOS Distributions

Walkthrough - NixGL + Sway on Ubuntu

This guide will walk you through running sway on Ubuntu 18.10 via nix and nixpkgs.

At a high-level:

1. Install nix
2. Configure nix to use our binary cache where these packages are built against various versions of nixpkgs
3. Install NixGL allowing us to use OpenGL nix packages on non-NixOS distros
4. Install sway-beta from nixpkgs and this overlay
5. Configure sway-beta with some settings for this demo
6. Drop to a TTY and run it!

Quick Version

If you'd like the quick version, you can use the quickshot execute.sh script in this directory:

cd /tmp
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colemickens/nixpkgs-wayland/master/docs/sway-on-ubuntu/execute.sh
chmod +x execute.sh
./execute.sh

You can then skip to the end.

Detailed Version

Install Nix

Per the instructions on the NixOS Wiki: Nix Installation Guide - Single User Install:

sudo apt update; sudo apt install curl git
sudo install -d -m755 -o $(id -u) -g $(id -g) /nix
curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
source .nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh

(I recommend you logout/login here, so you don't need to continue to source the nix profile in each shell.)

Install Cachix

cachix is a service that provides binary caching and a CLI that enables easy uploading to and trusting of binary caches.

This will install cachix from a specific snapshot of nixpkgs and make it available in your environment. It will then trust the binary cache that contains builds from this overlay.

nix-env -iA cachix -f https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tarball/889c72032f8595fcd7542c6032c208f6b8033db6

# note that only the official NixOS cache is listed (cache.nixos.org)
cat ~/.config/nix

# ignore errors from this command (https://github.com/cachix/cachix/issues/148)
cachix use nixpkgs-wayland

# note that now the nixpkgs-wayland.cachix.org server is trusted
cat ~/.config/nix

This will cause future nix commands to check with our binary cache instead of building everything from scratch. This repository is built against nixpkgs-unstable which is what you're now using, so you shouldn't have to build anything. Even if you did, nix effectively guarantees it will "just build"m, assuming enough RAM, CPU, etc.

Enable the nixpkgs-wayland overlay

mkdir -p $HOME/.config/nixpkgs/overlays
git clone https://github.com/colemickens/nixpkgs-wayland.git \
  $HOME/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/nixpkgs-wayland

Install NixGL and Sway

OpenGL enabled Nix applications on non-NixOS operating systems require the use of a wrapper. I've added some summary details to the NixOS Wiki: Nixpkgs with OpenGL on non-NixOS

Install NixGL and OpenGL drivers

(Change the attribute to be installed per your GL vendor.)

curl -L --fail https://raw.githubusercontent.com/guibou/nixGL/master/default.nix > /tmp/nixgl.nix

Install Sway and related tools

nix-env -iA nixGLIntel -f /tmp/nixgl.nix
nix-env -iA nixpkgs.sway-beta nixpkgs.dmenu nixpkgs.mako nixpkgs.slurp nixpkgs.grim

This will install sway-beta the default configured channel for the Nix install you performed at the beginning, which is named nixpkgs. In our case though, sway-beta is overriden to a newer version by use of this overlay.

Install a demo Sway config Install the default sway config:

mkdir -p $HOME/.config/sway
wget 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swaywm/sway/master/config.in' \
  -O $HOME/.config/sway/config

sed -i 's|Mod4|Mod1|g' ~/.config/sway/config
sed -i '/Sway_Wallpaper_Blue_1920x1080.png/d' ~/.config/sway/config
sed -i 's|urxvt|gnome-terminal|g' ~/.config/sway/config

Run Sway

Let's drop to a TTY and try sway. Note, this will stop GDM and your current session!

# stop the graphical session
sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target

# switch to another TTY
# ctrl+alt+f3

# on TTY
nixGLIntel sway

You can run sway under GNOME as well, but there are some oddities about where windows spawn.