nwg-iso

This repository is a part of the nwg-shell project. Please check the project website.

The nwg-iso project provides an ISO image built with archiso, with additions to ensure a simple way to install Arch Linux, sway & Hyprland Wayland compositors, and the nwg-shell toolbox.

The live environment comes with live Hyprland/sway environment, so that you can test compositors and the shell before installation. It also contains the installer command, which is a simplified version of the interactive installation with the archinstall script. Some must have stuff has already been pre-selected. All the AUR stuff comes packaged in the local repository. Besides, we only use Arch and AUR repositories.

Installation

1. Download the nwg-live ISO.
2. Create USB flash installation medium.
3. Boot from the flash drive, enjoy the live sway and Hyprland environment. User: nwg Password: nwg
4. If you decide to install, use the "Installer" item in the top panel menu. The script will run in the terminal emulator.

Post-installation

Find the 'Shell settings' item in the top panel menu. Review your settings here.

Click the (i) icon in the top panel to see key bindings help. Open the Controls menu in the top panel to see more configuration tools.

AUR helpers

Nwg-shell comes with the baph (Basic AUR Package Helper) preinstalled. It's simple and it just works. Starting from nwg-shell-config 0.5.24, support for yay AUR helper has been added. If you install the yay or yay-bin package, yay will be used instead of baph, as well by the tray notification applet, as by the nwg-system-update script.

Preinstalled stuff

• foot - Fast, lightweight and minimalistic Wayland terminal emulator (Super+T);
• baph - Basic AUR Package Helper;
• fastfetch - Like neofetch, but much faster because written in C;
• pacseek - TUI for searching and installing Arch Linux packages;
• swayimg - Image viewer for Sway/Wayland;
• A file manager, text editor and web browser of your choice;
• Optionally: extra GTK themes, icon themes and a cursor theme.

Aliases:

• cls for clear

sway session on Nvidia GPU

To be able to run sway on Nvidia GPU, you need to use the --unsupported-gpu flag. Since the 2023.11.09 ISO version the installer should do it for you, but I have no Nvidia in range and haven't yet tested it. So, just in case - the sway.desktop file should look as below:

# nano /usr/share/wayland-sessions/sway.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Sway
Comment=An i3-compatible Wayland compositor
Exec=sway --unsupported-gpu
Type=Application

Testing on a virtual machine

is neither recommended nor supported. Running sway and Hyprland on a VM is possible, but frustrating (well, Hyprland freezes for me very often). If you do need to do so, remember to enable 3D acceleration and EFI. Also remember to choose SDDM as your display manager. LightDM with the greeter that uses the cage wayland compositor won't behave well.

Known issues

• 2023-12-05: gtklock won't work in the Hyprland session, due to the wlr-input-inhibitor protocol missing from Hyprland 0.33.0. Reported here.

Contact

See my GitHub profile for contact info.