In praise of xfce wayland on Solus

lf-araujo

Since January using this DE, two laptops. Although locking screen is not currently supported, it is a very good experience. My system was never as snappy, better resource use than gnome. Absolute hidden gem. Thank you Solus team for this experience!

If you are in NVIDIA it may or may not work alongside Gnome, for some reason. In AMD Radeon the experience is smoother.

Here is my labwc config if anyone else is curious about the experience:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<labwc_config>
  <core>
    <gap>5</gap>
  </core>

  <theme>
    <name>WhiteSur-Light-solid</name>
    <cornerRadius>8</cornerRadius>
    <font name="sans" size="10"/>
  </theme>

  <desktops number="4" />
  <desktops>
    <popupTime>1000</popupTime>
    <names>
      <name>1:💻</name>     <!-- Coding or general work -->
      <name>2:🧪</name>     <!-- Science desktop -->
      <name>3:🌐</name>     <!-- Web or communication -->
      <name>4:🎵</name>     <!-- Media or music -->
    </names>
  </desktops>


  <regions>
    <region name="top-left"     x="0%"  y="0%"  height="50%"  width="60%"  />
    <region name="top"          x="0%"  y="0%"  height="50%"  width="100%" />
    <region name="top-right"    x="60%" y="0%"  height="50%"  width="40%"  />
    <region name="left"         x="0%"  y="0%"  height="100%" width="60%"  />
    <region name="center"       x="10%" y="10%" height="80%"  width="80%"  />
    <region name="right"        x="60%" y="0%"  height="100%" width="40%"  />
    <region name="bottom-left"  x="0%"  y="50%" height="50%"  width="60%"  />
    <region name="bottom"       x="0%"  y="50%" height="50%"  width="100%" />
    <region name="bottom-right" x="60%" y="50%" height="50%"  width="40%"  />
  </regions>

  <placement>
    <policy>automatic</policy>
  </placement>

  <keyboard>
    <default/>

    <!-- Terminal -->
    <keybind key="W-Return">
      <action name="Execute" command="alacritty"/>
    </keybind>

    <!-- Disable Win+F4 -->
    <keybind key="W-F4">
      <action name="None"/>
    </keybind>

    <!-- Audio keys -->
    <keybind key="XF86_AudioLowerVolume">
      <action name="Execute" command="amixer -D pulse sset Master 5%-"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="XF86_AudioRaiseVolume">
      <action name="Execute" command="amixer -D pulse sset Master 5%+"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="XF86_AudioMute">
      <action name="Execute" command="amixer -D pulse sset Master toggle"/>
    </keybind>
<!--     <keybind key="XF86_MonBrightnessUp">
      <action name="Execute" command="brightnessctl set +10%" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="XF86_MonBrightnessDown">
      <action name="Execute" command="brightnessctl set 10%-" />
    </keybind> -->

    <!-- Window management -->
    <keybind key="W-q">
      <action name="Close"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="A-Tab">
      <action name="NextWindow"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-Tab">
      <action name="ToggleMaximize"/>
    </keybind>

    <!-- Desktop switching -->
    <keybind key="W-1">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="1"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-2">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="2"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-3">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="3"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-4">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="4"/>
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-right">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="right" />
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-left">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="left" />
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-up">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="top-right" />
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-down">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="bottom-right" />
    </keybind>

    <!-- Whisker menu -->
    <keybind key="W-Space">
      <action name="Execute" command="xfce4-popup-whiskermenu"/>
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-S-Right">
      <action name="SendToDesktop" to="right" follow="no"/>
    </keybind>

    <keybind key="W-S-Left">
      <action name="SendToDesktop" to="left" follow="no"/>
    </keybind>

    <!-- Snap to corners -->
    <keybind key="W-u">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="top-left" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-i">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="top-right" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-n">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="bottom-left" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-m">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="bottom-right" />
    </keybind>

    <!-- Snap to sides -->
    <keybind key="W-h">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="left" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-l">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="right" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-j">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="bottom" />
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-k">
      <action name="SnapToRegion" region="top" />
    </keybind>
  </keyboard>

  <snapping>
    <range>10</range>
  </snapping>

  <libinput>
    <!-- Enable natural scrolling for touchpad only -->
    <device category="touchpad">
      <naturalScroll>yes</naturalScroll>
    </device>

    <!-- Disable natural scrolling for mouse -->
    <device category="non-touch">
      <naturalScroll>no</naturalScroll>
    </device>
  </libinput>

  <windowSwitcher show="yes" preview="yes" outlines="yes" allWorkspaces="yes">
    <fields>
      <field content="icon" width="15%" />
      <field content="desktop_entry_name" width="15%" />
      <field content="title" width="65%" />
      <!--
        Just as for window-rules, you can use 'identifier' or
        'trimmed_identifier' to show the app_id for native wayland clients or
        WM_CLASS for XWayland clients.

        <field content="trimmed_identifier" width="65%" />
      -->
    </fields>
  </windowSwitcher>

</labwc_config>

brent

lf-araujo . My system was never as snappy, better resource use than gnome. Absolute hidden gem

same as @Original-Syn said, this stuff is good to hear.
Jeez I think I jumped on it right after release and the experience was buggy and I reported a lot of bugs and then it was too much to be a DD at the time and that was it for me.
Having used (tried) XFCE elsewhere I thought Solus's approach was crisp.
I knew it came a long way and I said i would revisit. Your DD since January says a lot.

but labwc? is xfce wayland? i forgot. Why would you need this? I thought that was openbox/WM stuff?
or is this just a pure compositor?

Original-Syn

Always great to hear! Thanks for sharing.

lf-araujo

brent thanks. To my use it does not show many bugs, it is a bit incomplete, like the locking, which is not a bit issue to me at the moment.

I haven't done extensive research, but my understanding is that labwc will be the compositor for the wayland version. It works nicely. The most important feature to me is that it supports zoom screen sharing, which is fundamental to my work.

No visual glitches, a snappy system, that uses less memory than gnome is very useful to my case. I need to use as much memory+swap as possible in statistical analyses using R, and avoid working over ssh.

EbonJaeger

lf-araujo labwc will be the compositor for the wayland version.

This is true until Xfwm4 becomes a Wayland compositor. That probably won't be any time soon, though, as changing it for Wayland is a ton of work.

Technically, Xfce4 will run with any compositor that supports the protocols they need. Some people use it with Wayfire, Mir/Miriway aim to be fully compatible with it, and even Niri works. You have to craft your own desktop session files to do any of that, though.

brent

lf-araujo thank you for the reply.

minh

Thanks for the post. I switched now to the Wayland session and it looks very positive. Only few things are missing, but I could leave with it.

One thing that took me quite sometime to figure out is the location of config files. I was following the document from labwc and thought the files are in .config/labwc. But actually they are in .config/xfce4/labwc. Since I figured out correct location, the customization was straight forward.

lf-araujo

I needed Zoom working, which was daunting in wayland based tiling wm. When I managed to get it working under labwc I sealed the deal.

minh

lf-araujo could you share how did you manage screen sharing? For me, it works only with tabs in MS Edge, but it shows error when I try to change to share Window or Screen. It seems org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast is not there yet.

[17412:17412:1004/224641.023478:ERROR:third_party/webrtc/modules/desktop_capture/linux/wayland/screen_capture_portal_interface.cc:54] Failed to request session: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.ScreenCast” on object at path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop [17412:17412:1004/224641.023501:ERROR:third_party/webrtc/modules/desktop_capture/linux/wayland/base_capturer_pipewire.cc:93] ScreenCastPortal failed: 3

lf-araujo

minh Sorry, I only saw this question now. Solution is what the user above provided.

minh

It's not perfect, but it works by appending 1 line org.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=wlr
at the end of this file /usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/xfce-portals.conf

minh

Found solution for lock screen. Add this to rc.xml

<keybind key="W-l">
   <action name="Execute" command="swaylock -i /usr/share/backgrounds/solus/waves-of-blue.jpg -s fill" />
</keybind>

And replace Xfce lock with

xfconf-query --channel xfce4-session --property /general/LockCommand --set "swaylock -i /usr/share/backgrounds/solus/waves-of-blue.jpg -s fill -f" --create -t string

For background image, add new item in "Session and Startup" app (Application Autostart)
command: swaybg -i /usr/share/backgrounds/solus/waves-of-blue.jpg -m fill
trigger: on Login.

minh

And screenshot with shortcut F9 setup in rc.xml

<keybind key="F9">
 	  <action>
 	  	<name>Execute</name>
 	  	<command>sh -c 'grim -g "`slurp`" - | wl-copy -f'</command>
 	  </action>
 </keybind>```

lf-araujo

Here's a silly discovery. If you miss live wallpapers, it works on xfce + labwc:

mpvpaper ALL -p -o "--playlist=/home/luis/Pictures/Wallpapers/wallpapers.m3u \
                   --loop-playlist --shuffle no-audio --speed=0.2 --hwdec=auto --image-display-duration = 10000 --panscan=1"