Qtile

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Revision as of 17:44, 1 June 2024 by Jooooscha (talk | contribs) (Simplify code example)

Qtile is a full-featured, hackable tiling window manager written and configured in Python.

Enabling

To enable Qtile as your window manager, set services.xserver.windowManager.qtile.enable = true. For example:

/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
{
  services.xserver.windowManager.qtile.enable = true;
}

To start Qtile from your display manager (sddm, lightdm, etc) you have to add a Desktop Entry to your config like this.

/etc/nixos/qtile.nix
{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }:

{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
  (self: super: {
    qtile-unwrapped = super.qtile-unwrapped.overrideAttrs(_: rec {
      postInstall = let
        qtileSession = ''
        [Desktop Entry]
        Name=Qtile Wayland
        Comment=Qtile on Wayland
        Exec=qtile start -b wayland
        Type=Application
        '';
        in
        ''
      mkdir -p $out/share/wayland-sessions
      echo "${qtileSession}" > $out/share/wayland-sessions/qtile.desktop
      '';
      passthru.providedSessions = [ "qtile" ];
    });
  })
];

services.xserver.displayManager.sessionPackages = [ pkgs.qtile-unwrapped ];
}

Warning

The installation of Qtile leads to several of its dependencies being leaked in the user's PATH. This prevents the user from running a custom installation of python3 as Qtile will shadow the systemPackages in the PATH with its own python3. For more information see: Cannot use Globally Defined Python Environment While Inside Qtile and Kitty leaks packages into system environment (Additional context)