Woodland is a minimal lightweight wlroots-based window-stacking compositor for Wayland, inspired by Wayfire and TinyWl. For a minimal desktop environment experience you can use it together with:
Panel:
diowpanel
Menu:
diowmenu
Window list:
diowwindowlist
Application launcher:
diowapplauncher
Welcome Screen:
welcomescreen.
Woodland has no reliance on any particular Desktop Environment, Desktop Shell or session. Also it does not depend on any UI toolkits such as Qt or GTK.
The main goal of Woodland is to provide basic functionality, ease of use and keeping things simple. It was tested on Debian 12.
dwl
sway
labwc
tinywl
waybox
wayfire
wlroots
vivarium\
- Screen zooming.
- Idle timeout.
- Set background image (without relying on third-party utilities).
- Multiple keyboard layouts.
- Per application keyboard layout.
- Keyboard shortcuts.
- Multimedia keys support.
- User-defined window placement.
- Autostart applications.
Idle inhibitor, damage tracking, maximizing, decorations.
-
To build the project you need to install the following libs:
make pkgconf libstb-dev libdrm-dev libgles-dev libinput-dev libwayland-dev libwlroots-dev libpixman-1-dev libxkbcommon-dev -
Open a terminal and run:
chmod +x ./configure ./configure -
if all went well then run:
make sudo make install (if you just want to test it then run: make run)
If wlroots complains about missing header files then copy the header files from 'include' directory to '/usr/include/wlr/types/'
You have many options how to launch woodland (or pretty much any application). The simplest one is to just run woodland from a TTY or login manager. If you want to autostart woodland without any login manager then these are the steps:
-
Create this file:
sudo nano /etc/profile.d/woodland.sh -
The content of woodland.sh:
if [ -z $WAYLAMD_DISPLAY ] && [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ]; then exec woodland > /dev/null 2>&1 fi -
Make it executable:
sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/woodland.sh -
Modify '[email protected]' for autologin. (Disclaimer: Be cautious!!! This might be a security risk so do at your own risk.)
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/[email protected] -
Find the line that starts with 'ExecStart', comment it out and add this one instead:
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --skip-login --nonewline --noissue --autologin YOURUSERNAME --noclear - $TERM
You can launch woodland with arguments: woodland -s xfce4-terminal or you can launch it without any arguments. If you launch it without arguments for the first time then it will automatically look for the following terminals on the system:
foot
kitty
alacrity
xfce4-terminal
gnome-terminal
If it finds any of those installed, it will automatically launch the first one found. To disable this behavior you will need to set up at least one startup command in woodland.ini.
Woodland creates the following configuration file:
~/.config/woodland/woodland.ini
it is very straightforward and self-explanatory but we will go through each section
- Welcome screen
[ Welcome screen ]\
If you have any weclome screen application then it goes here,
for instance you can use my welcome screen application like this:\
welcome_screen = welcomescreen --resolution 1920x1080
- Idle
[ Idle ]
The timeout in milliseconds until the system is considered idle.
One minute is 60000 milliseconds.
idle_timeout = 0 disables the timeout.
d_power_path, the path to the file that controls the brightness level.
idle_timeout = 180000
d_power_path = /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
- Background image
[ Background ]
Provide the full path to the image.
background = /home/username/image.png
- Keyboard layouts
[ Keyboard layouts ]
Alt+Shift to switch layouts
e.g: xkb_layouts=us,de
xkb_layouts=us,de
- Multimedian keys
[ Multimedia keys ]
For default multimedia keys support install: playerctl, alsa-utils
or use your own commands.
play_pause = playerctl play-pause
volume_up = amixer set Master 3+
volume_down = amixer set Master 3-
volume_mute = amixer set Master toggle
- Keyboard shortcuts
[ Keyboard Shortcuts ]
Modifiers names:
WLR_MODIFIER_ALT
WLR_MODIFIER_CTRL
WLR_MODIFIER_SHIFT
WLR_MODIFIER_LOGO (Super key)
Key names here: /usr/include/xkbcommon/xkbcommon-keysyms.h
Default shortcuts:
<Super+Esc> to log out
<Super+x> to close the current window
<Alt+Tab> to switch to the next window
Example of user defined shortcuts:
NOTE: You have to preserve binding_ and command_ prefixes.
binding_thunar = WLR_MODIFIER_LOGO XKB_KEY_f
command_thunar = thunar
- Window placement
[ Window Placement ]
Open specified windows at the given fixed position.
to get the title and/or app_id, use wlrctl tool.
The placement model is as follows:
(declaration) window_place = (keyword) app_id: (app id) app_id (number) x (number) y
(declaration) window_place = (keyword) title: (title) title (number) x (number) y
Example of how to make 'thunar' start at position x=100 y=100:
window_place = app_id: thunar 100 100
or
window_place = title: "some title" 100 100
NOTE: Titles with spaces must be put between double quotes: e.g "New Document"
Placing thunar
window_place = app_id: thunar -15 -15
- Zoom
[ Zoom ]
Zooming is activated by pressing super key and scrolling.
zoom_speed defines how fast zooming area is moving around.
zoom_edge_threshold defines the distance from the edges to start panning.
zoom_top_edge if 'enabled' then you can scroll on the left top edge to zoom.
zoom_speed = 5
zoom_top_edge = enabled
zoom_edge_threshold = 30
- Autostart applications
[ Startup ]
Specify the startup commands.
If no startup command is specified then
it will automatically look for the following terminals:
foot, xfce4-terminal, kitty, gnome-terminal, alacritty.
Example (automatically start thunar and foot):
NOTE: the line must start with startup_command
My startup applications:
startup_command = mako
startup_command = polari
startup_command = diowmenu
startup_command = diowpanel
startup_command = diowwindowlist
That is it enjoy!
My Libera IRC support channel: #linuxfriends
Matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#linuxfriends2:matrix.org
Email: [email protected]