Available distribution release Ubuntu Sway Remix 24.04 LTS, which provides a pre-configured and ready-to-use desktop based on the Sway tiled composite manager. The distribution is an unofficial edition of Ubuntu 24.04, created with an eye on both experienced GNU/Linux users and beginners who want to try the environment of tiled window managers without the need for a long setup. For loading prepared assemblies for amd64 and arm64 architectures (Raspberry Pi).
The distribution environment is built on the basis of Sway – a composite manager that uses the Wayland protocol and is fully compatible with the i3 tiled window manager, as well as the Waybar panel, the PCManFM-GTK3 file manager, and utilities from the project NWG-Shellsuch as desktop wallpaper manager Azotefull-screen application menu nwg-drawerutilities for displaying the contents of scripts on the screen nwg-wrapper (used to display hotkey hints on the desktop), GTK theme, cursor and font customization manager nwg-look and script Autotilingwhich automatically arranges windows of open applications in the manner of dynamic tiling window managers.
The distribution includes programs with both a graphical interface, such as Firefox, Qutebrowser, Audacious, Transmission, Libreoffice, Pluma and MATE Calc, and console applications and utilities, such as the Musikcube music player, MPV video player, Swayimg image viewer, Zathura PDF document viewer, Neovim text editor, Ranger file manager and others.
Another feature of the distribution is the complete refusal to use the Snap package manager; all programs are delivered in the form of regular deb packages, including the Firefox web browser, for installation of which the official Mozilla Team PPA repository is used. The distribution installer is based on the Calamares framework.
Main changes:
- The package base has been updated to the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release;
- Sway has been updated to release 1.9, bringing full support for fractional interface scaling and increased rendering performance thanks to the new API in the wlroots library.
- Provides support for restoring the specified keyboard backlight level when resuming from sleep mode. To control the backlight, brightnessctl is used instead of light;
- By default, the screen saver (idle_inhibitor) is disabled, which was caused by the dissatisfaction of some users, since during installation on slow drives, the system went into sleep mode after 10 minutes;
- A Qt6 version of the Kvantum design engine has been added, which made it possible to unify the appearance of applications using the Qt6 library with the system design;
- By default, desktop help for the hotkeys used is disabled. To activate it, a button has been added to the Waybar;
- GNOME Software is used as a graphical interface for installing applications, instead of gnome-packagekit;
- Sway Input Configurator utility updated for release 1.4.1which provides translation to Qt6, adds initial support for configuring graphics tablets, and also implements support for new libinput library options available in Sway 1.9, such as pointing device angle rotation (Rotation Angle) and holding the scroll button (Scroll Button Lock).
- Minor bugs have been fixed.
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