bakawm

A Wayland compositor/window manager built with Rust and Smithay.

bakawm is an early-stage Wayland WM that uses Smithay as its compositor framework. The project is currently in active development and not yet ready for daily use.

Build Dependencies

Before building bakawm, make sure the following system libraries and tools are installed:

• Rust toolchain (1.85+)
• pkg-config
• clang
• libudev
• libdrm
• libgbm
• libinput
• libxkbcommon
• libseat (seatd)
• libdisplay-info
• wayland-server
• libEGL (Mesa / libglvnd)
• libxcb (optional, for the winit backend when running as a nested X11 window)
• libpipewire-0.3 (optional, for screen recording)
• libdbus-1 (optional, for screen recording)

Note: several features are pure Rust and need no system library: the libei input-emulation backend uses the reis crate, and the X11 backend and XWayland use x11rb (no libx11/libxcb needed to build). The only X11-related system library is libxcb, which the winit backend dlopens at runtime when running as a nested X11 window.

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config clang libudev-dev libdrm-dev libgbm-dev \
    libinput-dev libxkbcommon-dev libseat-dev libdisplay-info-dev \
    libwayland-dev libegl-dev libpixman-1-dev \
    libpipewire-0.3-dev libdbus-1-dev

libdisplay-info-dev needs libdisplay-info >= 0.1: Debian 13+ and Ubuntu 24.04+ work out of the box. On Debian 12 (bookworm) the packaged version is too old (0.0.x) — enable bookworm-backports; on Ubuntu 22.04 (jammy) it is not available in the official repositories.

On Fedora:

sudo dnf install gcc pkg-config clang systemd-devel libdrm-devel mesa-libgbm-devel \
    libinput-devel libxkbcommon-devel libseat-devel libdisplay-info-devel \
    wayland-devel libglvnd-devel pixman-devel \
    pipewire-devel dbus-devel

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S base-devel clang systemd-libs libdrm libinput \
    libxkbcommon seatd libdisplay-info mesa pixman wayland \
    pipewire dbus

On Void Linux:

sudo xbps-install base-devel clang pkg-config eudev-libudev-devel libdrm-devel \
    libgbm-devel libinput-devel libxkbcommon-devel libseat-devel \
    libdisplay-info-devel wayland-devel MesaLib-devel pixman-devel \
    pipewire-devel dbus-devel

On Alpine Linux:

sudo apk add build-base pkgconf clang eudev-dev libdrm-dev mesa-gbm \
    libinput-dev libxkbcommon-dev libseat-dev libdisplay-info-dev \
    wayland-dev mesa-dev pixman-dev \
    pipewire-dev dbus-dev

Distribution Packages

Arch Linux (AUR)

• Thanks ShinKouyo

yay -S bakawm-git

Building

cargo build --release

Feature Flags

bakawm uses Cargo features to control which backends and integrations are compiled. The default features include systemd integration. If your system does not use systemd, you need to adjust the feature flags.

Feature	Default	Description
udev	Yes	DRM/KMS backend for running on a TTY
winit	Yes	Nested window backend (X11/Wayland client)
x11	Yes	X11 backend
egl	Yes	EGL hardware acceleration
xwayland	Yes	XWayland support
libei	Yes	libei input emulation support
systemd	Yes	systemd service integration (sd-notify)
dinit	No	dinit service integration marker
xdp-gnome-screencast	Yes	Screen recording via PipeWire (org.gnome.Mutter.ScreenCast D-Bus interface)

Building without systemd

The systemd feature only adds sd-notify integration; it can be swapped for dinit or dropped entirely without affecting any other feature. Screen recording (xdp-gnome-screencast) does not depend on systemd, so it stays enabled here — remove it separately if you don't need it (see below).

For distributions that use dinit (e.g. Artix Linux):

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features "egl,winit,x11,udev,xwayland,libei,dinit,xdp-gnome-screencast"

For distributions without any service manager (e.g. Void Linux, Alpine Linux):

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features "egl,winit,x11,udev,xwayland,libei,xdp-gnome-screencast"

Building without screen recording

To build without PipeWire/D-Bus screen recording support:

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features "egl,winit,x11,udev,xwayland,libei,systemd"

Installation

Using Makefile

The Makefile installs the binary, session script, desktop file, and portal configuration. Service files for systemd and dinit are installed separately.

First build the binaries as a regular user (see Building), then install:

sudo -E make install

The install target only invokes cargo when the binaries are missing, so build before installing — this way sudo make install does not need cargo on root's PATH.

Install systemd service files (systemd-based distributions):

sudo -E make install-systemd

Install dinit service files (dinit-based distributions):

sudo -E make install-dinit

The default installation prefix is /usr. You can change it, e.g. for a user-local install:

make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local

File Locations

With the default prefix (/usr), files are installed to:

File	Destination
bakawm	/usr/bin/
bakawm-ctl	/usr/bin/
bakawm-session¹	/usr/bin/
bakawm.desktop	/usr/share/wayland-sessions/
bakawm-portals.conf	/usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/
bakawm.portal	/usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/portals/
bakawm.service (systemd)	/usr/lib/systemd/user/
bakawm-shutdown.target (systemd)	/usr/lib/systemd/user/
dinit/bakawm (dinit)	/usr/lib/dinit.d/user/
dinit/bakawm.target (dinit)	/usr/lib/dinit.d/user/

¹ Only installed when a service manager (systemd or dinit) is detected; otherwise the desktop file runs bakawm --tty-udev directly.

Uninstall

sudo -E make uninstall

Running

From a display manager (GDM, SDDM, etc.)

After installation, bakawm will appear in your display manager's session list. Select "bakawm" and log in.

From a TTY

With systemd or dinit:

bakawm-session

Without any service manager:

bakawm --session

As a nested window (for testing)

bakawm --winit

Configuration

The configuration file is located at ~/.config/bakawm/config.lua. If no config file exists, bakawm will create a default one on first launch.

The config file is watched for changes and will be automatically reloaded.

Acknowledgments

• Smithay - The Wayland compositor framework that bakawm is built upon. Neat!
• niri - A scrollable-tiling Wayland WM. bakawm references portions of niri's source code during development. Very Thanks!
• Hyprland - I like this WM's lua config file format, so I use it. Very Thanks!

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.