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
Installation
NixOS
programs.sway = {
enable = true;
wrapperFeatures.gtk = true; # so that gtk works properly
extraPackages = with pkgs; [
swaylock
swayidle
wl-clipboard
mako # notification daemon
alacritty # Alacritty is the default terminal in the config
dmenu # Dmenu is the default in the config but i recommend wofi since its wayland native
];
};
Home Manager
wayland.windowManager.sway = {
enable = true;
wrapperFeatures.gtk = true ;
};
home.packages = with pkgs; [
swaylock
swayidle
wl-clipboard
mako # notification daemon
alacritty # Alacritty is the default terminal in the config
dmenu # Dmenu is the default in the config but i recommend wofi since its wayland native
];
Info
Clipboard
For clipboard support
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ wl-clipboard ];
to use wl-clipboard-x11 which is a wrapper to use wl-clipboard as a drop-in replacement to X11 clipboard tools
nixpkgs.overlays = [
(self: super: {
wl-clipboard-x11 = super.stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
pname = "wl-clipboard-x11";
version = "5";
src = super.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "brunelli";
repo = "wl-clipboard-x11";
rev = "v${version}";
sha256 = "1y7jv7rps0sdzmm859wn2l8q4pg2x35smcrm7mbfxn5vrga0bslb";
};
dontBuild = true;
dontConfigure = true;
propagatedBuildInputs = [ super.wl-clipboard ];
makeFlags = [ "PREFIX=$(out)" ];
};
xsel = self.wl-clipboard-x11;
xclip = self.wl-clipboard-x11;
})
];
Brightness and volume
Brightnessctl has worked better for me than light
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ brightnessctl ];
users.users.yourusername.extraGroups = [ "video" ];
# or
programs.light.enable = true;
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ pactl ];
sway config
# Brightness
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec "brightnessctl set 2%-"
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec "brightnessctl set +2%"
# 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'
Autostart Sway
It is possible to use greetd, a minimal login manager, to autostart Sway. Where myuser needs to be replaced with the username which should execute Sway:
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
services.greetd = {
enable = true;
settings = rec {
initial_session = {
command = "${pkgs.sway}/bin/sway";
user = "myuser";
};
default_session = initial_session;
};
};
Note that this approach starts Sway without asking for a user password. See greetd for alternative configuration examples.
Alternatively, using loginShellInit Sway will automatically get started after user login. Use getty if you also want to skip the login and automatically get into tty1 with myuser:
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
services.getty.autologinUser = "myuser";
environment.loginShellInit = ''
if [ -z $DISPLAY ] && [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ]; then
exec sway
fi
'';
Polkit
nix generated sway config
${pkgs.polkit_gnome}/libexec/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
normal sway config
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ polkit_gnome ];
environment.pathsToLink = [ "/libexec" ];
# NixOS
exec /run/current-system/sw/libexec/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
# Home Manager | pathsToLink is not needed
exec ~/.nix-profile/libexec/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
Theming
Gtk
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
gtk-engine-murrine
gtk_engines
gsettings-desktop-schemas
lxappearance
];
open lxappearance and pick your themes
Qt
programs.qt5ct.enable = true;
open qt5ct and pick your theme
Additional packages
- waybar — Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors
- autotiling — Script for sway and i3 to automatically switch the horizontal / vertical window split orientation
- gammastep — Reduces bluelight and saves your eyes
- clipman — Simple clipboard manager for Wayland
- wofi — Launcher/menu program for wlroots based wayland compositors such as sway
- flashfocus — Simple focus animations for tiling window managers
- wf-recorder — Screen recorder for wlroots-based compositors such as sway
- i3-ratiosplit — Configurable window size on creation
more packages here i3 migration guide
Systemd integration
In an article on the sway wiki [1], a way to integrate Sway with systemd user services is proposed. Starting sway that way has some benefits:
- Services like Waybar, kanshi, redshift can depend on
graphical-session.targetand can therefore be started as their own user service, including convenient service management and logging.
{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }: {
programs.sway = {
enable = true;
extraPackages = with pkgs; [
swaylock # lockscreen
swayidle
xwayland # for legacy apps
waybar # status bar
mako # notification daemon
kanshi # autorandr
];
};
environment = {
etc = {
# Put config files in /etc. Note that you also can put these in ~/.config, but then you can't manage them with NixOS anymore!
"sway/config".source = ./dotfiles/sway/config;
"xdg/waybar/config".source = ./dotfiles/waybar/config;
"xdg/waybar/style.css".source = ./dotfiles/waybar/style.css;
};
};
systemd.user.targets.sway-session = {
description = "Sway compositor session";
documentation = [ "man:systemd.special(7)" ];
bindsTo = [ "graphical-session.target" ];
wants = [ "graphical-session-pre.target" ];
after = [ "graphical-session-pre.target" ];
};
services.redshift = {
enable = true;
# Redshift with wayland support isn't present in nixos-19.09 atm. You have to cherry-pick the commit from https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/68285 to do that.
package = pkgs.redshift-wlr;
};
programs.waybar.enable = true;
systemd.user.services.kanshi = {
description = "Kanshi output autoconfig ";
wantedBy = [ "graphical-session.target" ];
partOf = [ "graphical-session.target" ];
serviceConfig = {
# kanshi doesn't have an option to specifiy config file yet, so it looks
# at .config/kanshi/config
ExecStart = ''
${pkgs.kanshi}/bin/kanshi
'';
RestartSec = 5;
Restart = "always";
};
};
}
And then simply add the following to the end of your sway configuration
exec "systemctl --user import-environment; systemctl --user start sway-session.target"Note: swayidle will fail cryptically if it cannot find sh in PATH, so you must provide this if you create a service file for it. An example is below:
systemd.user.services.swayidle = {
description = "Idle Manager for Wayland";
documentation = [ "man:swayidle(1)" ];
wantedBy = [ "sway-session.target" ];
partOf = [ "graphical-session.target" ];
path = [ pkgs.bash ];
serviceConfig = {
ExecStart = '' ${pkgs.swayidle}/bin/swayidle -w -d \
timeout 300 '${pkgs.sway}/bin/swaymsg "output * dpms off"' \
resume '${pkgs.sway}/bin/swaymsg "output * dpms on"'
'';
};
};