Fedora Sway Spin
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.
Summary
NOTE: This is still in a draft state while it's discussed with the Sway SIG team.
Create an official Fedora Spin shipping the up and coming Sway window manager. Following the footsteps of the recently shipped i3 spin.
Owner
- Name: Aleksei Bavshin, Anthony Rabbito, Jiří (Jirka) Konečný as well as the rest of the sway-sig
- Email: hello@anthonyrabbito.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora Linux 37
- Last updated: 2022-09-26
- FESCo issue: TBD
- Tracker bug: TBD
- Release notes tracker: TBD
Detailed Description
Fedora window manager spins greatly benefit users who enjoy a minimal desktop. Sway is begging to become well polished and is continuing to gain traction from the community. Fedora particularly has a first-class Wayland experience making an even more compelling use case for having a Wayland window manager spin. On top of creating a proper workstation spin, also publish an ostree remote with workstation-ostree-config. The goal would be to make the default config file functional. This would mean to include only packages required for it. Aleksei Bavshin has begun an RFC for the sway package, including 3 sub-packages with Fedora's default sway configuration. More information can be found here.
More info possibly TBD after Sway SIG holds the next meeting.
Feedback
Feedback has been low at the moment. We have seen wildly different feedback, from people saying they liked the idea and would use it to others who do not see the value of it and will probably not use it. Some commenters highlighted that this isn't worthwhile for them as they would prefer to have Gnome installed alongside Sway. There have also been comments that some users like having a minimal package set that only includes Sway and don't want a two-step process to get to their environment, which would be the situation if they install a spin that is not Sway and then have to install Sway on top.
Benefit to Fedora
Much like i3, this Change benefits end-users who run Fedora on a desktop or laptop, particularly low-end consumer-grade hardware.
A Sway Spin would provide a better initial installation experience for Fedora users installing Sway for the first time. Currently, end-users who wish to use Sway on Fedora must install another Edition or Spin of Fedora, then install the Sway window manager (and related packages) separately (a process often requiring use of an external guide or tutorial). Additionally, this "two-step" method adds unnecessary packages to the user's system, particularly if the end-user does not wish to use another desktop environment. In Fedora's mission statement it's proven itself to be "First" and committed to innovation Wayland is definitely qualifies in that category. This will likely be the first Wayland Window Manager spin for Fedora.
Scope
- Proposal owners:
- kickstart composition. Owner TBA
- workstation-ostree-config. Create a 'tree-file' for Fedora ostree vairents. - Anthony Rabbito
- Work with RelEng to build. Work with Release Engineering to pick up the Sway Spin in regular composes.
- Test Day coordination. Work with the Fedora QA team to plan and run a series of Test Days to solicit early feedback.
- fedora-sway-configs. Aleksei Bavshin
- Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Release engineering: TBD
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Trademark approval: TBD
Upgrade/compatibility impact
Since the Fedora Sway Spin is a Spin, it assumes new installations only. There is no upgrade/compatibility impact from the Spin. rpm-ostree installations will be able to seamlessly rebase like users from Silverblue to Kinoite have.
How To Test
Proper Fedora Sway Spin:
1. Boot the Fedora Sway Spin ISO image either on bare-metal or in a virtual machine (V.M.).
2. Confirm successful boot into a configured Sway environment with basic packages available.
3. Launch Anaconda installer. The Anaconda installer can be launched either from a terminal or via the application launcher wofi.
4. Confirm no major issues with windows and display. The installed system uses greetd-gtkgreet as the login manager and comes preinstalled with i3 as the default desktop environment with default applications present for most uses cases.
Ostree Fedora Sway Spin on fresh install:
1. Use rpm-ostree to rebase to Fedora Sway or download a ostree variant ISO image either on bare-metal or in a virtual machine (V.M.).
2. Confirm successful boot into a configured Sway environment with basic packages available.
3. TBD
4. Confirm no major issues with windows and display. The installed system uses greetd-gtkgreet as the login manager and comes preinstalled with i3 as the default desktop environment with default applications present for most uses cases.
User Experience
Users are able to consume Sway from https://spins.fedoraproject.org instead of installing another desktop, and then manually installing Sway after the initial install. This reduces the number of steps needed to start using Sway.
The spin should remain as minimal as possible and only include small supplements on top of making the default configuration workable. For example integrate sway-systemd and a login manager. We should make the user experience as easy and simple as possible without defining too many opinions.
Dependencies
TBD
Contingency Plan
- Contingency mechanism: If a blocker bug comes up that breaks composes of the Sway Spin in time for Fedora 37, the Change can be bumped to a future Fedora release (e.g. F38).
- Contingency deadline: Change Checkpoint: Tue 2022-08-23 100% Code Complete Deadline
- Blocks release? No
Documentation
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
TBD?