[Solved] Weston as wm?

IrvineHimself · 2019-06-05 05:26:04

Hi,

I am intending to move back to Arch after a short exploration of Fedora/SELinux and am currently planning out my new setup. In particular, I am thinking about using "Weston" as a window manager. As I understand things, this would function much like a Wayland compatible version of "Openbox".

Am I correct in my understanding of Weston?
Is anybody aware of any reason why this is an incredibly stupid idea?
Does anybody have any experience of using Weston in this manner, and, if so, could they, briefly, outline likely problems?
I have had no problems with Gnome and a second HDMI monitor/Tv, is this likely to be the case with Weston?
Is it possible to replace the Weston panel with, say the Xfce4-panel?

Irvine

Edit: I am aware of Sway and am very familiar with i3, it's just that I am quite taken with the idea of Weston.

Last edited by IrvineHimself (2019-06-10 17:27:22)

jasonwryan · 2019-06-05 06:21:37

Try it and make up your own mind. It's not like it is a critical or irrevocable move...

Trilby · 2019-06-05 12:25:48

IrvineHimself wrote:

As I understand things, this would function much like a Wayland compatible version of "Openbox".

In what way is weston anything like Openbox? Open is highly configurable, has easily-configured key bindings, mouse bindings, application/window rules, etc, etc. Weston ... puts windows on the screen.

IrvineHimself · 2019-06-05 13:51:01

Trilby wrote:

In what way is weston anything like Openbox? ....

I said: " .... it would function like ...." not "... it is like ..."

In other words, I understand it to be something that is configurable and can be run without the benefit of a full desktop environment. But then, I don't know, this is why I put it up for discussion.

Looking at the manual for weston.ini, it seems one can define launchers. If my understanding of what the manual is suggesting is correct, a couple of launchers for say: MenuTray and Oblogout would be a good start towards the basic functionality I had with both Openbox and I3.

Yes, key-bindings for anything other than manipulating windows may be a problem, but, I am also fairly sure that there is either an 'off-the-shelf-solution', or, alternatively, a low level tweak, (possibly udev?) that would allow customised key-bindings. But, like I say, I don't know, and, for this reason, your input is valued.

As @jasonwryan pointed, this may be a case of "bite it and see".However, I often wear rose-tinted glasses when considering a new project and value the comments of Arch forumites whose glasses tend to be more transparent and clearly focused.

Irvine
Edited to correct grammar

Last edited by IrvineHimself (2019-06-05 14:01:20)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2019-06-05 17:41:14

Weston has a panel but no systray and it doesn't have a menu system (AFAIK) so it's pretty limited.

I don't think menutray will work without a systray.

seth · 2019-06-05 19:56:46

I think it will, like oblogout, not work w/o xwayland…

IrvineHimself · 2019-06-06 05:29:46

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

.... so it's pretty limited. ....

Although it's impressive ability to manipulate windows is an added bonus, that is one of it's biggest attractions (From the demonstration video's I have seen, I would imagine Plasma enthusiasts are salivating at the prospect of the wide spread adoption of Weston-like visual effects.)

seth wrote:

....not work w/o xwayland

That is a given. There are many applications I use which have yet to adapt to Wayland, so it will not be be a problem.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

.... I don't think menutray will work without a systray.

I am currently on Fedora/Gnome, (which doesn't have a systray either,) and spent a couple of hour's last night trying to check this. I couldn't find rpm package for either menutray or a substantial number of the required perl modules. In addition, I don't have much experience with building/installing perl modules, and, as a result, I am unsure if all the perl modules were properly installed, (or even if they were the correct versions,) so the results were inconclusive. As far as they go, trying to generate a menu by running menutray -gtk3 -i in a terminal doesn't throw any errors, but the shell freezes. As far as I am concerned, this particular result is as likely to be caused by my inexperience with perl as the lack of a systray.

The upshot of all this is that, as @jasonwryan pointed out, I will just have to try it and see. Even with the limited out-of-the-box functionality, I should still be able to run pacman and experiment with various Application Launchers. If all else fails, and Weston proves to be impractical, then, so long as i have a working pacman, it should be fairly easy to implement my fall back option of a minimal gnome shell.

Actually, I just noticed that the gnome shell is required by gdm. So I am probably going to have to install it regardless of how Weston works out.

Anyway, thank you for your comments, they have helped focus my thoughts and brought to my attention things I was not fully aware of. My intention is to make the shift sometime over the next week. I will leave this thread open and post back to inform the forum of the results.

Irvine

Edit: punctuation

Last edited by IrvineHimself (2019-06-06 05:33:58)

IrvineHimself · 2019-06-10 17:26:48

Okay, I am finally back with Arch-Linux, (thank god,) and here is a brief summary of my initial experiments with the Weston window manager:

Firstly, feng-shui is important to me, and for this reason a nicely customised display manger is a must have. Since the object of the exercise is to run Wayland, this basically means GDM, which requires a minimal gnome-shell. As a result, Weston then becomes a vanity project, rather than a practical alternative solution.With this in mind, I am loathe to clutter up my minimal instalation with unneeded applications.

Using the larger of the two example configuration files, I set up a basic Weston shell with the following launchers:

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/org.gnome.Terminal.svg
path=/usr/bin/weston-terminal --shell=/usr/bin/bash

#[launcher]
#icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/32x32/apps/utilities-terminal.png
#path=/usr/bin/gnome-terminal

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/firefox.png
path=MOZ_GTK_TITLEBAR_DECORATION=client /usr/bin/firefox

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/preferences-color.png
path=/usr/bin/firetools

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/preferences-system-time.png
path=/usr/bin/oblogout

Remember, this was just a test, so I wasn’t to much bothered about the correct icons

Anyway, I had a lot of problems with erratic mouse behavior inside the Weston window, but I was able to succesfuly launch:

Firefox
Oblogout
Firetools

The significance of Firetools is that it can function as a splash screen applications menu for .desktop files held in $HOME/.config/firetools. Like I say, do not wish to fill up my fresh install with stuff I don’t need, but this proves that there are workable solutions to achieving basic functionality.

I was intending to run a weston shell from login and test whether I could set custom keybindings with either Xbindkeys or Gstreamer, but unfortunately it hung up when initialising the weston-drm module.

Both the problem with the mouse and the weston-drm module were probably due to me doing a sloppy configuration of weston.ini. So, I am not actually discouraged. But, for the moment, noting that I am stuck with the gnome-shell, I have more important things to worry about.

In conclusion:
With a little bit of creative imagination, it is evidently possible to set up the basic functionality needed to make Weston a practical proposition. However, as soon as you start trying for cosmetic improvements, like a display manager, you would be better off sticking with the minimal gnome-shell.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2019-06-11 12:25:33

IrvineHimself wrote:

Since the object of the exercise is to run Wayland, this basically means GDM

You should be able to run Weston from a console login, no display manager is required.

IrvineHimself · 2019-06-11 14:50:17

Yes, I know but remember the feng-shui, requires a cool, highly customised log-on prompt

Actually, since I posted that yesterday, I realised that GDM, has the xorg-server as a dependency. Since I am trying to keep my installation as pure Wayland, as possible, this is an unfortunate complication. Real world practicalities dictate the necessity of having the xwayland and qt5-wayland back-ends.... But actually installing the xorg-server , even if it is only as an unused dependency, is just a step too far.

So, as you can see, everything is still in a state of flux. At the moment, I am concentrating on restoring my installation to its former glory while avoiding having a mishmash of distro-specific un-shared dependencies. Due to my initial misunderstanding of the GDM xorg-server dependency, basically, for the moment, this means using the gnome-shell maintenance tools, along with lightweight, distro-independent applications: eg Geany, EpdfView, Geeqie, Vlc, Libre Office, ReText, Gimp, Blender.... etc

My sole exceptions to applications being distro-independent are Thunar and Catfish, while they are technically part of the Xfce desktop, they are so lightweight they could easily be classed as standalone applications. In addition, they are good, solid, practical file management tools. As a result, bearing in mind that words fail to express the utter loathing I have for Nautilus, using them is worth the hassle of forcing Gnome to forget Nautilus ever existed.

Anyway, forgive my rant, but getting back on topic: I still have a few problems to sort out, (like a certain daemon which the gome-shell can't start,) import and update my old apparmor profiles, run a more complete set of tests on my firewall and check my Vpn connection for leaks. But, once that is completed, I am going to re-visit this whole topic and may yet opt to run the Weston window manager.

How quickly this happens is anybodies guess. My main interest is in security, and I have a number of other projects in mind, for example: Using apparmor to enforce roll based access controls.

Irvine

Arch Linux

#1 2019-06-05 05:26:04

[Solved] Weston as wm?

#2 2019-06-05 06:21:37

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#3 2019-06-05 12:25:48

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#4 2019-06-05 13:51:01

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#5 2019-06-05 17:41:14

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#6 2019-06-05 19:56:46

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#7 2019-06-06 05:29:46

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#8 2019-06-10 17:26:48

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#9 2019-06-11 12:25:33

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

#10 2019-06-11 14:50:17

Re: [Solved] Weston as wm?

Board footer