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https://github.com/giucam/orbital

A Wayland compositor based on Weston and Qt
https://github.com/giucam/orbital

Last synced: 41 minutes ago
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A Wayland compositor based on Weston and Qt

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README 

        
Orbital

=======



Orbital is a Wayland compositor and shell, using Qt5 and Weston.

The goal of the project is to build a simple yet flexible and good looking

Wayland desktop. It is not a full fledged DE but rather the analogue of a WM

in the X11 world, such as Awesome or Fluxbox.



## Dependencies

Orbital depends on two things: Weston and Qt 5.

Since it uses QtQuick 2 to draw the interface it will make use of OpenGL,

so it is advisable to use a decent graphics driver, otherwise the performance

will not be good.

Orbital currently needs a patched weston from [here](https://github.com/giucam/weston),

branch libweston. You also need QtWayland, which is shipped with Qt starting with the 5.4 version.

You do not need QtCompositor, the platform plugin is enough.

There are also some optional dependencies: currently Orbital can use Solid from

KDE Frameworks 5, ALSA and Logind, but it can also work without them, losing some

functionality. You can enable or disable these dependencies by passing some options

to cmake: `-Duse_alsa=ON/OFF`, `-Duse_logind=ON/OFF` and `-Duse_solid=ON/OFF`.



## Building Orbital

To compile Orbital run this commands from the repository root directory:

```sh

mkdir build

cd build

cmake ..

make

sudo make install

```



Orbital will be installed in the */usr/local* prefix, unless you specified

otherwise using the `CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX` variable:

```sh

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/my/prefix ..

```



## Running Orbital

Now you can just run *orbital*, to run it if you are inside an X or a Wayland

session. To start its own dedicated session run *orbital-launch* from a tty.



If you are using a systemd system you can use this unit to start Orbital at

startup automatically:

```

[Unit]

Description=Orbital compositor



[Service]

ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/chvt %I

ExecStart=/usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/orbital-launch

User=giulio

TTYPath=/dev/tty%I

TTYReset=yes

TTYVHangup=yes

TTYVTDisallocate=yes

PAMName=login

WorkingDirectory=/home/giulio

Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000

Environment=QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI=96

Environment=QT_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/plugins/

Environment=QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct

Restart=always

RestartSec=2

StandardInput=tty

StandardError=journal

StandardOutput=journal

Nice=-5



[Install]

WantedBy=graphical.target

```



Save it as `/etc/systemd/system/[email protected]`, change the 'User' option to your

own user, and then enable it with

```

sudo systemctl enable orbital@7

```

for having it run on tty7, or change the option to the tty you prefer. Note that

there must not be getty running on that tty or else the unit will fail. If you

know how to get it running on all ttys please tell me ;).



## Configuring Orbital

The first time you start Orbital it will load a default configuration. If you

save the configuration (by closing the config dialog or by going from edit mode

to normal mode) it will save the configuration file *orbital/orbital.conf*, in

`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` or, if not set, in `$HOME/.config`. You can manually modify

the configuration file, but Orbital has (or will have) graphical tools

for configuring the environment.



You can use a tool like [qt5ct](http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/Qt5+Configuration+Tool?content=168066)

to configure Qt5 apps, and Orbital will obey many of those settings.



You can see a screencast of some of Orbital functionalities at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1hguj2bPE