Introduction

Greetings, everyone! My goal for this article was to set up a Wayland-based graphical environment on a minimal Arch Linux installation using Labwc.

Achieving this goal without Xwayland has proven basically impossible. A large number of Linux application’s are still based on X11, which prevents a pure Wayland installation. While not the focus here it does make me wonder why are mainstream distributions and desktop environments are so bent on leaving X11 behind?

But I need to get off the soap box and proceed with creating a mostly Wayland based light Graphical User environment.

Yes, Wayland is the future! So I need to learn something about it. However, X11 can do things that Wayland compositors may never support, just as Wayland can do things X11 will never be capable of. Which is why it is impossible to have a pure Wayland experience.

For this project, I’ve chosen Labwc, mainly because I’m not a fan of tiling window managers. I’ve tried them under X11, but I’m too old and set in my ways to change my workflow. Labwc follows in the tradition of Openbox, a classic X11 window manager.

While I wanted a native to Wayland setup, the lack of a good selection of Wayland based applications doesn’t make that practical.

When building out the graphical user environment, there are plenty of Wayland tools for taskbar, wallpaper, login, etc. The problem shows up with productivity applications; many haven’t been converted to run under Wayland, and some may never be.

Since my goal is a usable Graphical User Environment (GUI), and Labwc is a basic light weight stacking Window manager Compositor, I will need to add additional functionality with some third party programs.
Also I am aiming for working, and not overly worried about look and feel at this point. In depth configuration is a subject for an entire article unto itself.

So, as a mater of length, I will be skipping over a lot of the look and feel configuration, and focusing on the functionality stuff.

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