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Getting Started

Labwc is designed to be easy to get started with.

To use the compositor for the first time, there is no need for configuration files, theme files or even a session file. It should be enough to simply run the labwc binary from a TTY or Wayland/X11 session.

If labwc is not packaged by your OS/distribution of choice, it is quite easy to build (which should take no more than a few seconds) and run from the build directory.¹

The first time you run labwc, you’ll be greeted by a blank screen. If you click on the desktop you will see your root-menu containing ‘Reconfigure’ and ‘Exit’. Although this initial appearance is minimalist and sparse, it is easy to get started.

Before doing any configuration, you can start labwc with the following command to start an application (alacritty is used in the example, but it could of course be any application):

labwc -s alacritty

Alternatively, if you have bemenu installed, you can use the default keybind Alt-F3 to launch applications.

Configuration

User config files are located at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config/labwc/} (usually ~/.config/labwc/) with the following five files being used: rc.xml, menu.xml, autostart, environment and themerc-override.

The example rc.xml has been kept simple. For all options and default values, see rc.xml.all

For full details on configuration options, see the man pages: labwc(1), labwc-config(5), labwc-theme(5), labwc-actions(5) and labwc-menu(5).

Run labwc --reconfigure to reload configuration and theme files.

Your OS/Distribution of choice may include these example configuration files in /usr/share/doc/labwc/ or similar. If not, you could download them with:

mkdir -p ~/.config/labwc
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/labwc/labwc/master/docs/environment -O ~/.config/labwc/environment
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/labwc/labwc/master/docs/autostart -O ~/.config/labwc/autostart
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/labwc/labwc/master/docs/menu.xml -O ~/.config/labwc/menu.xml
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/labwc/labwc/master/docs/rc.xml -O ~/.config/labwc/rc.xml

NOTE: Before using these configuration files, please read them through and modify the content to suit your specific needs.

For more information about each configuration file and to help create a setup that work for you, please read through the sections below.

If you get stuck, do reach out on the IRC Channel or Github Discussions.

Step 1 - Set your keyboard layout

Set the environment variable XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT with your country code.

For example to start with Swedish keyboard layout, run

XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=se labwc

Or simply add this line to ~/.config/labwc/environment

XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=se

If you are unsure what your country code is, refer to the ‘layout’ section of /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst

See further details, see docs/environment and xkeyboard-config(7).

Step 2 - Add some items to the root-menu

Create a ~/.config/labwc/menu.xml to hand-craft a menu. See docs/menu.xml for inspiration, or use the simple example below

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<openbox_menu>
<menu id="root-menu" label="">
  <item label="Web browser"><action name="Execute" command="firefox" /></item>
  <item label="Terminal"><action name="Execute" command="alacritty" /></item>
  <item label="Reconfigure"><action name="Reconfigure" /></item>
  <item label="Exit"><action name="Exit" /></item>
</menu>
</openbox_menu>

See integration#menu-generators for ideas on how to automatically create menu.xml files.

Step 3 - Set a shortcut to a launcher

If you want to bind a key-combination to a launcher such as rofi or wofi, or simply a terminal, create a configuration file ~/.config/labwc/rc.xml and add a <keybind> entry as shown below. In this example Super-d is bound to the terminal sakura:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<labwc_config>

  <keyboard>
    <default />
    <keybind key="W-d"><action name="Execute" command="sakura" /></keybind>
    <keybind key="W-z"><action name="Execute" command="wofi --show drun" /></keybind>
  </keyboard>

</labwc_config>

See docs/rc.xml.all for all available configuration options.

To figure out the name of a key, you can use either xev (widely available, runs via xwayland) or wev. Alternatively, search for keysym names directly in xkbcommon-keysyms.h.

Step 4 - Start a background-image client and a panel

To use a background-color/image client or a panel, simply add the command to ~/.config/labwc/autostart. See example below for using swaybg and waybar:

swaybg -i foo.png >/dev/null 2>&1 &
waybar >/dev/null 2>&1 &

The >/dev/null 2>&1 is simply there to hide the logging. Don’t forget the & at the end otherwise the compositor will get stuck on that line.

See further examples in docs/autostart

Step 5 - install some themes for server-side-decorations

Some commonly packaged themes support openbox (and therefore labwc) out of the box, for example Numix and Adapta.

Install a theme and set it in rc.xml:

  <theme>
    <name>Numix</name>
  </theme>

To just use the current GTK theme, you can use labwc-gtktheme

Refer to the man pages for full documentation.

Enjoy!