Dear community,
I'm trying to migrate from Linux Debian/X11 + MATE to FreeBSD/Wayland and struggling with graphic desktop. My aim is to implement a stable, usable, non-bloated Wayland-based environment on my AMD laptop. Based on what I seen so far, Sway seems like a way to go.
I installed FreeBSD 14.2 with drm-61-kmod and tried to follow "6.5. The Sway Compositor" of the handbook. I tried to follow it exactly:
# pkg install sway swayidle swaylock-effects alacritty dmenu-wayland dmenu
% mkdir ~/.config/sway
% cp /usr/local/etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway
<content from the handbook here>
but when I launched
% seatd-launch sway
I got an empty Sway graphic desktop without mouse and squares instead of font.
After some research I found that installation of
pkg install noto-basic
required. After this, I seen the current date but empty desktop without mouse and still have no idea what to do with it.
I seen a lot of resources regarding Sway on the Internet, but the problem is they typically provide a lot of details and configurable options I don't need yet, while I'm trying to understand the basics -- what specific packages to install / how to configure them to implement a minimal but usable, working desktop. Ideally, I'm looking for a current step-by-step guide for beginners.
I'm flexible with other options instead of Sway if they are stable, usable, and (ideally) non-bloated (but no GNOME, please!). I like MATE and aware that they implemented Wayland support in 1.28 but not sure how to implement it and it is probably not stable yet. KDE Plasma 6 seems to be not stable also. Also, I would prefer to implement a Wayland desktop with pre-compiled packages only.
Highly appreciate if you could share a guide. And should I go with FreeBSD 15 as it has the latest packages that might be important in case of Wayland?
Thank you in advance!
I'm trying to migrate from Linux Debian/X11 + MATE to FreeBSD/Wayland and struggling with graphic desktop. My aim is to implement a stable, usable, non-bloated Wayland-based environment on my AMD laptop. Based on what I seen so far, Sway seems like a way to go.
I installed FreeBSD 14.2 with drm-61-kmod and tried to follow "6.5. The Sway Compositor" of the handbook. I tried to follow it exactly:
# pkg install sway swayidle swaylock-effects alacritty dmenu-wayland dmenu
% mkdir ~/.config/sway
% cp /usr/local/etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway
<content from the handbook here>
but when I launched
% seatd-launch sway
I got an empty Sway graphic desktop without mouse and squares instead of font.
After some research I found that installation of
pkg install noto-basic
required. After this, I seen the current date but empty desktop without mouse and still have no idea what to do with it.
I seen a lot of resources regarding Sway on the Internet, but the problem is they typically provide a lot of details and configurable options I don't need yet, while I'm trying to understand the basics -- what specific packages to install / how to configure them to implement a minimal but usable, working desktop. Ideally, I'm looking for a current step-by-step guide for beginners.
I'm flexible with other options instead of Sway if they are stable, usable, and (ideally) non-bloated (but no GNOME, please!). I like MATE and aware that they implemented Wayland support in 1.28 but not sure how to implement it and it is probably not stable yet. KDE Plasma 6 seems to be not stable also. Also, I would prefer to implement a Wayland desktop with pre-compiled packages only.
Highly appreciate if you could share a guide. And should I go with FreeBSD 15 as it has the latest packages that might be important in case of Wayland?
Thank you in advance!
