Sway
Sway is a tiling Wayland compositor and a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager for X11. It works with your existing i3 configuration and supports most of i3's features, plus a few extras. i3 migration guide
Setup
You can install Sway by enabling it in NixOS directly, or by using Home Manager, or both.
Using NixOS
Here is a minimal configuration:
{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }:
{
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
grim # screenshot functionality
slurp # screenshot functionality
wl-clipboard # wl-copy and wl-paste for copy/paste from stdin / stdout
mako # notification system developed by swaywm maintainer
];
# Enable the gnome-keyring secrets vault.
# Will be exposed through DBus to programs willing to store secrets.
services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable = true;
# enable Sway window manager
programs.sway = {
enable = true;
wrapperFeatures.gtk = true;
};
}
A few general comments:
- There is some friction between GTK theming and Sway. Currently the Sway developers suggest using gsettings to set gtk theme attributes as described here [1]. There is currently a plan to allow GTK theme attributes to be set directly in the Sway config.
- Running Sway as a systemd user service is not recommended [2] [3]
Using Home Manager
To set up Sway using Home Manager, first you must enable Polkit in your nix configuration:
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
security.polkit.enable = true;
Then you can enable Sway in your home manager configuration. Here is a minimal example:
wayland.windowManager.sway = {
enable = true;
wrapperFeatures.gtk = true; # Fixes common issues with GTK 3 apps
config = rec {
modifier = "Mod4";
# Use kitty as default terminal
terminal = "kitty";
startup = [
# Launch Firefox on start
{command = "firefox";}
];
};
};
See Home Manager's Options for Sway for a complete list of configuration options.
You might need to active dbus manually from .zshrc to use i.e: dunst, see Dunst crashes if run as service
Systemd services
Kanshi is an output configuration daemon. As explained above, we don't run Sway itself as a systemd service. There are auxiliary daemons that we do want to run as systemd services, for example Kanshi [4], which implements monitor hot swapping. It would be enabled as follows:
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# kanshi systemd service
systemd.user.services.kanshi = {
description = "kanshi daemon";
environment = {
WAYLAND_DISPLAY="wayland-1";
DISPLAY = ":0";
};
serviceConfig = {
Type = "simple";
ExecStart = ''${pkgs.kanshi}/bin/kanshi -c kanshi_config_file'';
};
};
sway config
# give Sway a little time to startup before starting kanshi.
exec sleep 5; systemctl --user start kanshi.service
When you launch Sway, the systemd service is started.
Using greeter
Installing a greeter based on greetd is the most straightforward way to launch Sway.
Tuigreet does not even need a separate compositor to launch.
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
services.greetd = {
enable = true;
settings = {
default_session = {
command = "${pkgs.greetd.tuigreet}/bin/tuigreet --time --cmd sway";
user = "greeter";
};
};
};
Configuration
Sway can be configured for specific users using Home-Manager or manually through configuration files. Default is /etc/sway/config and custom user configuration in ~/.config/sway/config.
Keyboard layout
Changing layout for all keyboards to German (de)
input * xkb_layout "de"
High-DPI scaling
Changing scale for all screens to factor 1.5
output * scale 1.5
Brightness and volume
If you are on a laptop, you can set up brightness and volume function keys as follows:
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
users.users.yourusername.extraGroups = [ "video" ];
programs.light.enable = true;
environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.pulseaudio ];
sway config
# Brightness
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec light -U 10
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec light -A 10
# Volume
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec 'pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +1%'
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec 'pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ -1%'
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec 'pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle'
Troubleshooting
Cursor is too tiny on HiDPI displays
Using Home Manager try configuring a general mouse cursor size and theme
home-manager.users.myUser = {
home.pointerCursor = {
name = "Adwaita";
package = pkgs.gnome.adwaita-icon-theme;
size = 24;
x11 = {
enable = true;
defaultCursor = "Adwaita";
};
};
};
Replace myUser with your user running the graphical environment.
Missing fonts on Xorg applications
If fonts for certain languages are missing in Xorg applications (e.g. Japanese fonts don't appear in Discord) even though they're in the system, you can set them as default fonts in your configuration file.
fonts = {
packages = with pkgs; [
noto-fonts
noto-fonts-cjk
noto-fonts-emoji
font-awesome
source-han-sans
source-han-sans-japanese
source-han-serif-japanese
];
fontconfig.defaultFonts = {
serif = [ "Noto Serif" "Source Han Serif" ];
sansSerif = [ "Noto Sans" "Source Han Sans" ];
};
};
Swaylock cannot be unlocked with the correct password
Add the following to your NixOS configuration.
security.pam.services.swaylock = {};
The programs.sway.enable option does this automatically.
Inferior performance compared to other distributions
Enabling realtime may improve latency and reduce stuttering, specially in high load scenarios.
security.pam.loginLimits = [
{ domain = "@users"; item = "rtprio"; type = "-"; value = 1; }
];
Enabling this option allows any program run by the "users" group to request real-time priority.
WLR Error when trying to launch Sway
When this happens on a new nixos system, enabling opengl in configuration.nix may fix this issue.
hardware.opengl.enable = true;
Touchscreen input bound to the wrong monitor in multi-monitor setups
See this GitHub issue for Sway and the solution give in this response.
Using Home Manager add the following to your Sway configuration:
wayland.windowManager.sway = {
[...]
config = {
[...]
input = {
[...]
"type:touch" = {
# Replace touchscreen_output_identifier with the identifier of your touchscreen.
map_to_output = touchscreen_output_identifier;
};
};
};
};
Tips and tricks
Toggle monitor modes script
Following script toggles screen / monitor modes if executed. It can also be mapped to a specific key in Sway.
First add the Flake input required for the script
{
inputs = {
[...]
wl-togglescreens.url = "git+https://git.project-insanity.org/onny/wl-togglescreens.git?ref=main";
};
outputs = {self, nixpkgs, ...}@inputs: {
nixosConfigurations.myhost = inputs.nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
system = "x86_64-linux";
specialArgs.inputs = inputs;
[...]
Map the script binary to a specific key
{ config, pkgs, lib, inputs, ... }:{
home-manager.users.onny = {
programs = {
[...]
wayland.windowManager.sway = {
enable = true;
config = {
[...]
keybindings = lib.mkOptionDefault{
[...]
"XF86Display" = "exec ${inputs.wl-togglescreens.packages.x86_64-linux.wl-togglescreens}/bin/wl-togglescreens";
};
};
};
};