1WESTON(1) General Commands Manual WESTON(1)
2
6 weston - the reference Wayland server
7
9 weston
10
12 weston is the reference implementation of a Wayland server. A Wayland
13 server is a display server, a window manager, and a compositor all in
14 one. Weston has several backends as loadable modules: it can run on
15 Linux KMS (kernel modesetting via DRM), as an X client, or inside
16 another Wayland server instance.
17 Weston supports fundamentally different graphical user interface para‐
19 digms via shell plugins. Two plugins are provided: the desktop shell,
20 and the tablet shell.
21 When weston is started as the first windowing system (i.e. not under X
23 nor under another Wayland server), it should be done with the command
24 weston-launch to set up proper privileged access to devices. If your
25 system supports the logind D-Bus API and the support has been built
26 into weston as well, it is possible to start weston with just weston.
27 Weston also supports X clients via XWayland, see below.
29
31 drm-backend.so
32 The DRM backend uses Linux KMS for output and evdev devices for
33 input. It supports multiple monitors in a unified desktop with
34 DPMS. See weston-drm(7), if installed.
35 wayland-backend.so
37 The Wayland backend runs on another Wayland server, a different
38 Weston instance, for example. Weston shows up as a single desk‐
39 top window on the parent server.
40 x11-backend.so
42 The X11 backend runs on an X server. Each Weston output becomes
43 an X window. This is a cheap way to test multi-monitor support
44 of a Wayland shell, desktop, or applications.
45 rdp-backend.so
47 The RDP backend runs in memory without the need of graphical
48 hardware. Access to the desktop is done by using the RDP proto‐
49 col. Each connecting client has its own seat making it a cheap
50 way to test multi-seat support. See weston-rdp(7), if installed.
51
53 Each of these shells have its own public protocol interface for
54 clients. This means that a client must be specifically written for a
55 shell protocol, otherwise it will not work.
56 Desktop shell
58 Desktop shell is like a modern X desktop environment, concen‐
59 trating on traditional keyboard and mouse user interfaces and
60 the familiar desktop-like window management. Desktop shell con‐
61 sists of the shell plugin desktop-shell.so and the special
62 client weston-desktop-shell which provides the wallpaper, panel,
63 and screen locking dialog.
64 Fullscreen shell
66 Fullscreen shell is intended for a client that needs to take
67 over whole outputs, often all outputs. This is primarily
68 intended for running another compositor on Weston. The other
69 compositor does not need to handle any platform-specifics like
70 DRM/KMS or evdev/libinput. The shell consists only of the shell
71 plugin fullscreen-shell.so.
72 IVI-shell
74 In-vehicle infotainment shell is a special purpose shell that
75 exposes a GENIVI Layer Manager compatible API to controller mod‐
76 ules, and a very simple shell protocol towards clients. IVI-
77 shell starts with loading ivi-shell.so, and then a controller
78 module which may launch helper clients.
79
81 XWayland requires a special X.org server to be installed. This X server
82 will connect to a Wayland server as a Wayland client, and X clients
83 will connect to the X server. XWayland provides backwards compatibility
84 to X applications in a Wayland stack.
85 XWayland is activated by instructing weston to load the XWayland mod‐
87 ule, see EXAMPLES. Weston starts listening on a new X display socket,
88 and exports it in the environment variable DISPLAY. When the first X
89 client connects, Weston launches a special X server as a Wayland client
90 to handle the X client and all future X clients.
91 It has also its own X window manager where cursor themes and sizes can
93 be chosen using XCURSOR_PATH and XCURSOR_SIZE environment variables.
94 See ENVIRONMENT.
95
97 Weston core options:
98 -Bbackend.so, --backend=backend.so
99 Load backend.so instead of the default backend. The file is
100 searched for in /usr/lib64/weston, or you can pass an absolute
101 path. The default backend is drm-backend.so unless the environ‐
102 ment suggests otherwise, see DISPLAY and WAYLAND_DISPLAY.
103 -cconfig.ini, --config=config.ini
105 Load config.ini instead of weston.ini. The argument can also be
106 an absolute path starting with a /. If the path is not abso‐
107 lute, it will be searched in the normal config paths, see
108 weston.ini(5). If also --no-config is given, no configuration
109 file will be read.
110 --debug
112 Enable debug protocol extension weston_debug_v1 which any client
113 can use to receive debugging messages from the compositor.
114 WARNING: This is risky for two reasons. First, a client may
116 cause a denial-of-service blocking the compositor by providing
117 an unsuitable file descriptor, and second, the debug messages
118 may expose sensitive information. Additionally this will expose
119 weston-screenshooter interface allowing the user to take screen‐
120 shots of the outputs using weston-screenshooter application,
121 which can lead to silently leaking the output contents. This
122 option should not be used in production.
123 --version
125 Print the program version.
126 -h, --help
128 Print a summary of command line options, and quit.
129 -iN, --idle-time=N
131 Set the idle timeout to N seconds. The default timeout is 300
132 seconds. When there has not been any user input for the idle
133 timeout, Weston enters an inactive mode. The screen fades to
134 black, monitors may switch off, and the shell may lock the ses‐
135 sion. A value of 0 effectively disables the timeout.
136 --log=file.log
138 Append log messages to the file file.log instead of writing them
139 to stderr.
140 --xwayland
142 Ask Weston to load the XWayland module.
143 --modules=module1.so,module2.so
145 Load the comma-separated list of modules. Only used by the test
146 suite. The file is searched for in /usr/lib64/weston, or you can
147 pass an absolute path.
148 --no-config
150 Do not read weston.ini for the compositor. Avoids e.g. loading
151 compositor modules via the configuration file, which is useful
152 for unit tests.
153 -Sname, --socket=name
155 Weston will listen in the Wayland socket called name. Weston
156 will export WAYLAND_DISPLAY with this value in the environment
157 for all child processes to allow them to connect to the right
158 server automatically.
159 --wait-for-debugger
161 Raises SIGSTOP before initializing the compositor. This allows
162 the user to attach with a debugger and continue execution by
163 sending SIGCONT. This is useful for debugging a crash on start-
164 up when it would be inconvenient to launch weston directly from
165 a debugger. There is also a weston.ini option to do the same.
166 DRM backend options:
168 See weston-drm(7).
169 Wayland backend options:
171 --display=display
172 Name of the Wayland display to connect to, see also WAYLAND_DIS‐
173 PLAY of the environment.
174 --fullscreen
176 Create a single fullscreen output
177 --output-count=N
179 Create N Wayland windows to emulate the same number of outputs.
180 --width=W, --height=H
182 Make all outputs have a size of WxH pixels.
183 --scale=N
185 Give all outputs a scale factor of N.
186 --use-pixman
188 Use the pixman renderer. By default, weston will try to use EGL
189 and GLES2 for rendering and will fall back to the pixman-based
190 renderer for software compositing if EGL cannot be used. Pass‐
191 ing this option will force weston to use the pixman renderer.
192 X11 backend options:
194 --fullscreen
195 --no-input
197 Do not provide any input devices. Used for testing input-less
198 Weston.
199 --output-count=N
201 Create N X windows to emulate the same number of outputs.
202 --width=W, --height=H
204 Make the default size of each X window WxH pixels.
205 --scale=N
207 Give all outputs a scale factor of N.
208 --use-pixman
210 Use the pixman renderer. By default weston will try to use EGL
211 and GLES2 for rendering. Passing this option will make weston
212 use the pixman library for software compsiting.
213 RDP backend options:
215 See weston-rdp(7).
216
218 If the environment variable is set, the configuration file is read from
219 the respective path.
220 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/weston.ini
222 $HOME/.config/weston.ini
223
225 DISPLAY
226 The X display. If DISPLAY is set, and WAYLAND_DISPLAY is not
227 set, the default backend becomes x11-backend.so.
228 WAYLAND_DEBUG
230 If set to any value, causes libwayland to print the live proto‐
231 col to stderr.
232 WAYLAND_DISPLAY
234 The name of the display (socket) of an already running Wayland
235 server, without the path. The directory path is always taken
236 from XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. If WAYLAND_DISPLAY is not set, the socket
237 name is "wayland-0".
238 If WAYLAND_DISPLAY is already set, the default backend becomes
240 wayland-backend.so. This allows launching Weston as a nested
241 server.
242 WAYLAND_SOCKET
244 For Wayland clients, holds the file descriptor of an open local
245 socket to a Wayland server.
246 WESTON_CONFIG_FILE
248 Weston sets this variable to the absolute path of the configura‐
249 tion file it loads, or to the empty string if no file is used.
250 Programs that use weston.ini will read the file specified by
251 this variable instead, or do not read any file if it is empty.
252 Unset variable causes falling back to the default name
253 weston.ini.
254 XCURSOR_PATH
256 Set the list of paths to look for cursors in. It changes both
257 libwayland-cursor and libXcursor, so it affects both Wayland and
258 X11 based clients. See xcursor (3).
259 XCURSOR_SIZE
261 This variable can be set for choosing an specific size of cur‐
262 sor. Affect Wayland and X11 clients. See xcursor (3).
263 XDG_CONFIG_HOME
265 If set, specifies the directory where to look for weston.ini.
266 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
268 The directory for Weston's socket and lock files. Wayland
269 clients will automatically use this.
270
272 Bugs should be reported to the freedesktop.org bugzilla at
273 https://bugs.freedesktop.org with product "Wayland" and component
274 "weston".
275
277 http://wayland.freedesktop.org/
278
280 Launch Weston with the DRM backend on a VT
281 weston-launch
282 Launch Weston with the DRM backend and XWayland support
284 weston-launch -- --xwayland
285 Launch Weston (wayland-1) nested in another Weston instance (wayland-0)
287 WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0 weston -Swayland-1
288 From an X terminal, launch Weston with the x11 backend
290 weston
291
293 weston-drm(7) weston-rdp(7)
294Weston 6.0.0 2012-11-27 WESTON(1)