Complete Guide to Sway 1.12: How to Install and Configure the New Wayland Compositor

Introduction to Sway 1.12

Sway 1.12 is the latest version of the i3-compatible tiling window compositor for Wayland. This release introduces several significant new features, improving color management, output, and screen sharing capabilities.

This guide is useful for technical users who want to leverage the new features of Sway 1.12, especially those working with HDR displays, needing advanced color management, or requiring the ability to capture single windows for screen sharing and recordings.

• HDR10 Support: Allows using HDR10 output when using the Vulkan renderer, enhancing the experience on high dynamic range displays.
• Single Window Capture: Useful for sharing or recording only a single application, simplifying workflows.
• Advanced Color Management: New options for color management, such as --device-primaries to use the display's EDID data.
• Support for Unsupported GPUs: Improved behavior with unsupported GPUs, such as those with proprietary NVIDIA drivers, showing an informative message instead of failing.
• Display Manager Support: It is now possible to start Sway from a display manager, a feature requested by many users.
• Default Keyboard Bindings: Default configuration with keyboard bindings for playerctl, improving media management.

For more details, check the official changelog.

Prerequisites

• Operating System: Compatible Linux distribution
• Hardware: Supported graphics card (excluding some NVIDIA models with proprietary drivers)
• Software: wlroots version 0.20 or higher
• Building from Source: Standard Linux development tools (gcc, make, pkg-config, meson, ninja, wayland-protocols)

Procedure: Installing and Configuring Sway 1.12

By the end of this guide, you will have successfully installed and configured Sway 1.12 on your system.

Step 1: Verify System Requirements

• Ensure you have a Wayland-compatible Linux system.
• Verify that your system has wlroots 0.20 or higher.

Step 2: Download Sway 1.12

• Visit the Sway releases page on GitHub.
• Download the latest version of Sway 1.12.

Step 3: Install Dependencies

• Update your system:
• Install the necessary dependencies for building from source.

Step 4: Build and Install Sway 1.12

• Extract the downloaded archive.
• Navigate to the extracted directory.
• Run the following commands:

./configure
make
sudo make install

Step 5: Configure Sway 1.12

• Copy the example configuration file:

Step 6: Start Sway 1.12

• Close your current session.
• Select Sway 1.12 from your display manager.

Step 7: Verify New Features

• Test the new features such as HDR10 support, single window capture, and improved color management.
• Check the changelog for more details.

Verification and Troubleshooting

After configuring and installing Sway 1.12, it is important to verify proper functionality and address any issues. Follow these steps to test the system and handle potential errors.

Functionality Test

• Starting Sway: Run the command to start Sway. If everything works correctly, you should see the compositor interface.
• Verification of Main Features:
  • Check if color management is correct using the new --device-primaries parameter for the colorprofile.
  • Test single window capture to ensure screen sharing and recording functionality works as expected.
  • Verify media management with the new playerctl key bindings.

Troubleshooting

• Unsupported GPU Message: If you want to disable the informative message for unsupported GPUs, use the --unsupported-gpu parameter or set the SWAYUNSUPPORTED_GPU environment variable.
• Display Manager Startup Issues: If Sway does not start correctly from a display manager, check the display manager configuration and ensure it is compatible with Sway.
• Color Management Issues: If you encounter problems with color management, try using the gamma22 profile to revert to the previous behavior.
• Source Build Issues: Ensure you have wlroots 0.20 installed before building Sway from source. If you encounter build errors, verify the compatibility of dependencies.

Educational Summary and Practical Invitation

By the end of this guide, you will have understood the main new features introduced by Sway 1.12, the i3-compatible tiling compositor for Wayland. Here is a summary of the key features:

• Single Window Capture: New feature to capture single windows, useful for screen sharing and recordings.
• Protocol Support: Added new protocols such as color-management-v1, color-representation-v1, xdg-toplevel-tag-v1, ext-workspace-v1 and wlfixes.
• Behavior with Unsupported GPUs: Sway now shows an informative message instead of failing to start on unsupported GPUs, such as those with proprietary NVIDIA drivers.
• Support for Keypad Slide Switches: New feature added.

Now that you know the new features of Sway 1.12, it's time to put them into practice. Download the latest version from the GitHub project and start experimenting with the new possibilities offered by this Wayland compositor.