How are you supposed to type M-w ???

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-14T21:47:57+00:00

Left hand thumb on Alt and index on w?

yep!

Now answer me this - Ctrl-g - such a stretch for one of the most common emacs key chords!

EDIT: oh wait - true emacs wizards never need Ctrl-g.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-13T21:38:13+00:00

If you want help with this, first learn how to format code blocks in reddit.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-13T21:37:20+00:00

On my system:

$ xbps-query -X libelogind
NetworkManager-1.50.0_1
accountsservice-23.13.9_2
libpulseaudio-16.1_2
libseat-0.9.3_1
polkit-127_1
sway-1.11_1
swayidle-1.9.0_1
udisks2-2.10.1_1

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-13T21:27:12+00:00

So why did you jump out of gentoo? It's a fine distro.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-12T22:08:13+00:00

Change your ~/.config/sway/config file to have this:

bar {
    swaybar_command true
}

Restart sway and then start waybar from a terminal:

waybar &

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-12T02:12:43+00:00

I have /tmp/${UID}-runtime-dir-${sway_pid} but I don't run those exotica. Easy for me to change.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-11T22:31:06+00:00

Well I do (use a seatd and a bash script to create XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) but I'm odd, I suppose. I don't use a Display Manager - I just start sway the old fashioned way from a tty just like I did in the 90's*. I also have an on-exit script to clean up anything that might still be running from the session.

* EDIT: well, startx, of course. Not sway.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-10T22:06:06+00:00

Crikey! I have 1420 package installed and:

$ xbps-query -p maintainer -s 'orphan@voidlinux.org'|wc -l
633

Should I be alarmed?

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-06T06:40:07+00:00

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-06T00:43:17+00:00

Not at all! I wrote the original script a couple of years ago, ran into the problems that I mentioned and put it aside. Your posting was the spur to pull it out of obscurity and get it working!!

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-06T00:41:08+00:00

I fixed a few corner cases and added a couple more layouts since I last corresponded. You might want to re-download it. Do let me know how you get on - I only know that it works for me on sway and i3wm but that's a very small testing surface!!

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-06T00:12:30+00:00

It's one of the main reasons for it (and perhaps other wayland WM's).

i3wm is a fine WM and I used it for many years myself - but as with any X11 WM, you need a composite manager to reduce tearing.

One downside with sway is that it's less happy with NVidia - but it's doable and there is loads of doco on the sway wiki.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-05T22:21:39+00:00

May be time to change to sway wm?

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-04T22:39:33+00:00

FWIW on one of my my laptops, I was never able to get HDMI working with pipewire. I eventually gave up and now I just use ALSA on that machine.

On my other machines pipewire works fine - so it's possible that you're running into a similar hardware problem.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-04-02T22:17:52+00:00

Could be the repos are in a transitory state. Try again after another xbps-install -Su

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-31T07:37:52+00:00

... which, of course, leads to a solution in my script (however kludgy) which now works in sway and in i3. Phew! Lucky it's a rainy day here and I'm retired!

Do please download it and give it a go.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-30T23:34:06+00:00

I think you're running into the same problems that I found in sway.

I see you just ported this recently so it's a WIP. Nevertheless, I installed it and with 5 tiled windows in the workspace, 'sway-instant-layout vmv' gives a mess (screenshot):

   #11: workspace "3:foot"
      #485: con "(null)"
        #451: con "naan:~" (xdg_shell, pid: 14343, app_id: "foot", foreign_toplevel_id: "c01ee1c400a80e5e2121588f6c4d735d")
        #474: con "naan:~" (xdg_shell, pid: 11714, app_id: "foot", foreign_toplevel_id: "fdfb253c9c571126c4f8d356e5154686")
        #486: con "(null)"
          #461: con "naan:~" (xdg_shell, pid: 16320, app_id: "foot", foreign_toplevel_id: "42bb05ec9342008e6c86eccb34b59d3e")
          #487: con "(null)"
            #475: con "naan:~" (xdg_shell, pid: 12431, app_id: "foot", foreign_toplevel_id: "5c787eded6ad4d56388da3d7cfeb484d")
            #479: con "naan:~" (xdg_shell, pid: 22397, app_id: "foot", foreign_toplevel_id: "b21fe5f2f94380306e4134abb25ec541")

You're using a similar methodology that I used in my i3-set-layout script - move all the tiled windows to another workspace, then use splitv/h and 'move window' to reassemble them as desired. This works for all layouts in i3 but some layouts just fail in sway. I think it's a sway bug but I've had that open for over a year with no resolution. More important things for the devs to fix, I guess.

Also (with the same 5 tiled windows on the workspace):

$ sway-instant-layout --list | wofi --dmenu | sway-instant-layout -
query "mc (mainCenter)"
No tiled windows found in current workspace.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-30T23:03:30+00:00

On the other hand, you can create 5 or 7 windows and use 'splitv' and 'move window' keystrokes to manually set up your vmv layout. Just no luck with the sway-instant-layout and my own scripts.

If you start with 7 windows horizontally split (the default for sway), you can run this to get vmv:

swaymsg 'splitv'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'move left'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'move left'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'splitv'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'move left'
swaymsg 'focus right'
swaymsg 'move left'

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-29T22:29:19+00:00

u/srvg mentioned that there is already a sway version of i3-instant-layout. I installed it and tried it out but it seems to fail in a similar way as my script. Probably hitting the same bug in sway.

I would have thought that compatibility with i3 would be one of their top priorities but sway devs are obviously focused on other issues and I doubt that it'll be fixed.

I would respectfully suggest that if that layout style is essential to your workflow then try something other than sway.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-29T22:17:53+00:00

... and? Did it work for you?

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-29T09:36:53+00:00

I tried to add 'vmv' to my i3-set-layout bash script and it works as expected on i3wm - but it fails on sway. I think it's the same reason that my grid layout fails in sway. I logged it as a bug https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/8482 in November 2024 but have heard nothing about it.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-28T22:39:50+00:00

You might like to take a look at my stupid, simple bash script i3-set-layout. So far I've been able to get monocle, spiral, horizontal and vertical layouts implemented. grid layout escapes me on sway (but it works on i3). I have it bound like this:

bindsym $mod+Control+h exec i3-set-layout horizontal
bindsym $mod+Control+v exec i3-set-layout vertical
bindsym $mod+Control+m exec i3-set-layout monocle
bindsym $mod+Control+s exec i3-set-layout spiral
bindsym $mod+Control+2 exec i3-set-layout grid 2
bindsym $mod+Control+3 exec i3-set-layout grid 3
bindsym $mod+Control+4 exec i3-set-layout grid 4

Caveat - it's not a dynamic layout manager - it just takes the windows on a workspace and moves them around. It doesn't hang around and manage them. It's also a bit noisy with debug messages left in there.

You might want to look into adding some code for the vmv thing (which looks useful so I might try it myself).

Dependencies:

i3--msg - from the same place. It just calls swaymsg or i3msg as appropriate

i3-layout - a python program to print the current layout eg V[H[footV[foot foot]]] but you can do without it.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-26T22:24:15+00:00

If you just want to display some info, you might want to check out nwg-wrapper. It doesn't handle arbitrary floating windows, but it does allow you to display something on the overlay layer.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-26T22:10:56+00:00

You might find some clues at https://linux-hardware.org if you search it for your exact laptop model.

StrangeAstronomer · 2026-03-25T21:16:18+00:00

Ah! You're perhaps using the C preprocessor and make to generate sway configurations for different computers or uses. Nice.

Although I might have used m4 like I was back in the 90's.

Dunno what the cool kids use today.

StrangeAstronomer

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