labwc(1)                    General Commands Manual                   labwc(1)

NAME
       labwc - a Wayland stacking compositor

SYNOPSIS
       labwc [options...]

DESCRIPTION
       Labwc is a wlroots-based stacking compositor for wayland.

       It is light-weight and independent with a focus on simply stacking
       windows well and rendering some window decorations. Where practicable
       it uses clients for wall-paper, panels, screenshots and so on.

SIGNALS
       The compositor will exit or reload its configuration upon receiving
       SIGTERM and SIGHUP respectively. For example:

           kill -s <signal> $LABWC_PID
           killall -s <signal> labwc

       Each running instance of labwc sets the environment variable
       `LABWC_PID` to its PID. This is useful for sending signals to a
       specific instance and is what the `--exit` and `--reconfigure` options
       use.

OPTIONS
       -c, --config <config-file>
           Specify a config file with path

       -C, --config-dir <config-directory>
           Specify a config directory

       -d, --debug
           Enable full logging, including debug information

       -e, --exit
           Exit the compositor by sending SIGTERM to `$LABWC_PID`

       -h, --help
           Show help message and quit

       -m, --merge-config
           Merge user config/theme files in all XDG Base Directories

       -r, --reconfigure
           Reload the compositor configuration by sending SIGHUP to
           `$LABWC_PID`

       -s, --startup <command>
           Run command on startup

       -S, --session <command>
           Run command on startup and terminate compositor on exit. This is
           useful for session management as it allows the session client to
           terminate labwc by exiting itself. This is a Wayland specific use-
           case because under X, xinit starts the server and keeps it alive
           for as long as the session client. Thus either the session client
           starts the Window Manager, or the Window Manager can be launched
           independently first. On Wayland, the Compositor is both Display
           Server and Window Manager, so the described session management
           mechanisms do not work because the Compositor needs to be running
           before the session can function.  As some session clients support
           both X11 and Wayland, this command line option avoids re-writes and
           fragmentation.

       -v, --version
           Show the version number and quit

       -V, --verbose
           Enable more verbose logging

SESSION MANAGEMENT
       To enable the use of graphical clients launched via D-Bus or systemd
       service activation, labwc can update both activation environments on
       launch. Provided that labwc is aware of an active D-Bus user session
       (i.e., the environment variable `DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS` is defined),
       the compositor will invoke the commands

           dbus-update-activation-environment
           systemctl --user import-environment

       (when available) to notify D-Bus and systemd with the values of the
       following environment variables:

           WAYLAND_DISPLAY
           DISPLAY
           XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
           XDG_SESSION_TYPE
           XCURSOR_SIZE
           XCURSOR_THEME
           LABWC_PID

       This behavior is enabled by default whenever labwc uses the "DRM"
       wlroots backend (which implies that labwc is the primary compositor on
       the console). When other backends are employed (for example, when labwc
       runs nested in another Wayland compositor or an X11 server), updates to
       the activation environment are disabled by default. Updates to the
       activation environment can be forced by setting the environment
       variable `LABWC_UPDATE_ACTIVATION_ENV` to one of the truthy values `1`,
       `true`, `yes` or `on`; or suppressed by setting the variable to one of
       the falsy values `0`, `false`, `no` or `off`.

       Whenever labwc updates the activation environment on launch, it will
       also attempt to clear the activation environment on exit. For D-Bus,
       which does not provide a means for properly un-setting variables in the
       activation environment, this is accomplished by setting the session
       variables to empty strings. For systemd, the command `systemctl --user
       unset-environment` will be invoked to actually remove the variables
       from the activation environment.

SEE ALSO
       labwc-actions(5), labwc-config(5), labwc-menu(5), labwc-theme(5)

                                  2024-12-26                          labwc(1)