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Running sway without systemd

Anonymous - over 2 years ago -

Hi,

I am a happy Parabola user but I consider switching to the OpenRC Parabola edition to get a leaner system.

I run Wayland instead of X11 through the window manager sway. I stumbled across their wiki page on Running Sway without systemd. Now, it says that the preferred method is to use elogind, but, in order to do that, wlroots must be compiled with the proper options. Since it is an Arch package, it does not have this option, according to its PKGBUILD.

My question is: are there OpenRC Parabola users running sway that could tell me if they had issues with this? In case they did, what were the solutions to fix this? And, in case all else failed, what about packaging wlroots with these specific compile time options in the [nonsystemd] repo?

Thank you for your support.


Replies (9)

RE: Running sway without systemd - wout - about 2 years ago -

Boarim,

I am currently running sway on manjaro, and might consider the switch to arch. Would you recommend the sway setup on parabola or do you notice that some things aren't working as they are not 100% free? I just learned about Parabola and GNU today, so I wanted to see if I could give it a try.

RE: Running sway without systemd - Anonymous - about 2 years ago -

Hi wout,

There are two ‘versions’ of Parabola: one with systemd as the init system (like Arch and Manjaro) and one with OpenRC. I am currently using the one with systemd so I cannot speak for the OpenRC one (that is my question in the original post).

As for my experience with sway in Parabola systemd, I am quite happy about it. Things that do not work as expected are linked to Wayland–and can be encountered on Arch as well–and not to the fact that I am on Parabola.

RE: Running sway without systemd - bill-auger - about 2 years ago -

it is important to note that parabola with systemd vs openrc are
not distinct systems - the concept of "init-freedom" requires
them to be the same system - there is only one parabola system,
which offers multiple init-systems, just as it offers multiple
web browsers - systemd and openrc are merely two of the possible
configurations that parabola can run in, currently

systemd and openrc are interchangeable programs, no different
than two different web browsers - they both serve exactly the
same purpose; and each can replace the other at any time - ie: if
parabola with systemd vs openrc are distinct systems, then
likewise, manjaro with KDE by default, would be a distinct
system than manjaro with XFCE by default - they are the same
system though, only with different DEs installed - in the
same way, parabola with systemd or openrc is the same system, but
with different init-systems installed

systemd vs openrc, KDE vs XFCE, firefox vs chromuum are
interchangeable programs; and whichever are installed
(initially, or at any other time) is decided by each user, not
the distro maintainers - any of these combinations of
alternatives are possible; and they may all be installed at
the same time

which software to use yesterday, today, or tomorrow, is only a
matter of each user's preference on that day - that is the
concept of "init-freedom" - it is simply for the distro to offer
the option of choosing one's preferred init-system (and a clear
migration path between them), rather than imposing one and only
one init-system on all users of the distro

RE: Running sway without systemd - bill-auger - about 2 years ago -

WRT sway, i know that some people run sway on their parabola
systems - i do not know if any also run openrc; but if for some
reason, sway does not run with openrc, then a bug report would
be justified and welcome

so, the best answer (also the general answer to most such
questions) is to simply "try it and see" - see if it works, and
open a bug report if it does not work and no bug report already
exists on the topic, or if a bug report does exist, add your
experience to it - currently, there is only one bug report
regarding sway:

https://labs.parabola.nu/issues/1832

RE: Running sway without systemd - Anonymous - about 2 years ago -

Thank you for this detailed insight.

However, since changing init system is not as painless as switching Web browser—or even window manager for that matter—it does require a little more involvement on the user part. That is why I intend to do a clean openrc install on another machine for testing purpose first. Then, I will be able to report any bug I encounter on the way.

RE: Running sway without systemd - gap - about 2 years ago -

I use Sway on Parabola with OpenRC.
AFAICT everything works fine.

As boarim mentioned, a [nonsystemd] version of wlroots compiled with `-Dlogind-provider=elogind` would be preferable, if someone opens a bug for it.

In general, if you have an idea, just try it out!
Hack away!
(Although I understand in this case why asking first would be preferable because switching init systems is painful due to the all-encompassing tendrils and dependencies of systemd.)

RE: Running sway without systemd - nona - about 2 years ago -

boarim wrote:

Thank you for this detailed insight.

... That is why I intend to do a clean openrc install on another machine for testing purpose first.

Have you considered a virtual machine?

RE: Running sway without systemd - gap - about 2 years ago -

The trouble with spinning up a virtual machine for debugging is that, if something does happen to go wrong, it might be difficult and painful to figure out whether the problem is with the VM or the software in question, although VMs should work fine most of the time.

RE: Running sway without systemd - Anonymous - about 2 years ago -

nona wrote:

boarim wrote:

Thank you for this detailed insight.

... That is why I intend to do a clean openrc install on another machine for testing purpose first.

Have you considered a virtual machine?

Well, I prefer to do it on a spare SSD instead. I’m not familiar with VMs to be honest.

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