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Install

awob is Wayland-only and Linux-only. You'll need a compositor that supports wlr-layer-shell-v1 — Hyprland, Sway, KDE Plasma 6, Wayfire, river, and most other wlroots-based compositors do. GNOME's mutter has had layer-shell support landing in stages — see the GNOME setup page for the current state.

Distro packages​

Arch (AUR)​

The full set of awob packages on AUR:

PackageContents
awob-binDaemon + CLI + stock themes + systemd user unit. The minimum viable install.
awob-listener-pipewire-binPipeWire volume / mute listener.
awob-listener-battery-binBattery + AC state listener.
awob-listener-backlight-binDisplay backlight listener.
awob-listener-keyboard-backlight-binKeyboard backlight listener.
awob-listener-wob-binwob-protocol FIFO bridge.
awob-listeners-allMeta-package — pulls every listener above. No payload.
awob-gitFrom-source build of main: daemon + CLI + every listener + themes + systemd unit.

Quick paths:

# Kitchen-sink: daemon + every listener.
paru -S awob-bin awob-listeners-all

# Daemon + a hand-picked listener subset.
paru -S awob-bin awob-listener-pipewire-bin awob-listener-battery-bin

# Track main from source.
paru -S awob-git

yay works identically. Then enable the systemd user unit:

systemctl --user enable --now awob.service

Once enabled, the auto-discovery in the daemon spawns each awob-listener-* binary it finds on PATH — no extra config.

Other distros​

No apt / dnf package yet. Build from source (below) — open an issue if you'd like to maintain a package.

From source​

You'll need:

  • Rust 1.85 or later (rustup install stable)
  • pkg-config
  • fontconfig + freetype dev headers
  • PipeWire dev headers (only if you want the PipeWire listener)
  • libudev (only if you want the battery or backlight listeners — both use udev for hot-plug / state-change events)

On Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config \
  libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev \
  libpipewire-0.3-dev libdbus-1-dev \
  libudev-dev libxkbcommon-dev

On Arch:

sudo pacman -S base-devel pkgconf fontconfig freetype2 \
  pipewire dbus libxkbcommon

just deps-hint prints the equivalent for whichever distro you're on.

Then:

git clone https://github.com/jmylchreest/awob
cd awob

# Install everything to ~/.cargo/bin (including all listeners).
just install

# Or just the daemon + CLI:
just install-min

cargo install --path … works directly too if you'd rather skip just. Each crate under crates/ is independently installable.

systemd user service (optional)​

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp contrib/systemd/awob.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now awob.service

The unit:

  • Starts automatically on graphical-session login.
  • Refuses to start if WAYLAND_DISPLAY isn't set.
  • Restarts on failure but not on clean exit (Restart=on-failure).
  • Sandbox: ProtectSystem=strict, ProtectHome=read-only, MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes, etc.
  • Logs to journalctl --user -u awob.

If you're on a compositor that uses uwsm or any other tool that manages systemd graphical-session targets, the unit fits right in because it's wired to WantedBy=graphical-session.target.

Verify​

awob version
# client: 0.0.1
# daemon: 0.0.1
# protocol: 1

If awob version errors with "connection refused", the daemon isn't running. Either start it manually (awob-daemon) or enable the systemd unit above.

Next​