owl

minimal tiling wayland compositor based on wlroots.

features

• tiling and floating toplevels
• master layout with support for multiple masters, ideal for wide monitors
• keyboard focused workflow
• great multitasking with multimonitor support and workspaces out of the box
• smooth and customizable animations
• easy configuration with custom keybinds, monitor layouts etc
• ipc for integrating with other apps

owl is made mainly for myself, implementing just enough for my workflow. that means a lot of things is just not there. if you are looking for something more mature take a look at hyprland, sway or river.

showcase

dependencies

• make
• wayland-protocols
• wayland-scanner
• wayland-server
• pixman
• libdrm
• libinput
• xkbcommmon
• wlroots >= 19.0 (git version on aur)

building

git clone https://github.com/dqrk0jeste/owl
cd owl
make

installation

nixos

you can install owl by using chaotic-cx/nyx flake!

in chaotic-cx/nyx are available both owl-wlr_git package and chaotic.owl-wlr option. to enable owl just add:

chaotic.owl = {
  enable = true;
  extraPackages = with pkgs; [
    kitty
    rofi
    grimblast
  ];
};

to your nixos configuration!

other distros

it is recommended to install owl by running

make install

it will also install the default config to /usr/share/owl/default.conf

if you want to uninstall it you can do so with make unistall.

usage

owl

it is recommended to run owl from a tty.

configuration

configuration is done in a configuration file found at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/owl/owl.conf or $HOME/.config/owl/owl.conf. if no config is found a default config will be used (you need owl installed, see above).

for detailed documentation see examples/example.conf. you can also find the default config in the repo.

todos

• issues need fixing, see known-issues.md
• monitor hotplugging
• more natural (output layout aware) output switching
• mouse clicks for keybinds (for moving and resizing toplevels)
• more ipc capabilities
• opacity settings
• animations