Getting started with Mir¶
This tutorial will introduce you to the basic functionality of Mir by running a demo compositor. By the end of the tutorial, you will install and run a demo compositor, learn how to use Mir in different environments, and learn about features that Mir provides.
Install Mir demos¶
First, we will install the Mir demo compositors.
Mir demos are available on Debian derivatives, Fedora, and Alpine. For distros that don’t have pre-built binaries, examples can be built from source.
On Debian and its derivatives¶
sudo apt install mir-demos mir-graphics-drivers-desktop
On Fedora¶
sudo dnf install mir-demos
On Alpine¶
sudo apk add mir-demos mir
On Arch Linux (AUR)¶
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mir
Run a Mir compositor nested in Wayland or X11¶
Next, we will run one of the demos that we just installed, namely miral-app.
miral-app is a a script that handles running a Mir shell with a basic GUI.
Within your current graphical session, run:
miral-app
You should see an X11 window on your desktop. This is a full Wayland compositor running nested inside your current session.
Run a Mir compositor natively¶
Now that we’ve run miral-app in a nested session, let’s run it natively from a
virtual terminal.
To do this, you can “vt-switch” from your current graphical session to a virtual
terminal. This is typically done by pressing CTRL+ALT+F\<Number\> and logging
in.
Once logged in, run:
miral-app
The compositor should appear across your outputs.
Note: Mir supports NVIDIA graphics cards but they can cause stability issues due to quirks on the driver side.
Run clients¶
Whether you’re running Mir nested in your current session or from a virtual terminal, you will be able to run Wayland clients in your current session.
Run Wayland applications¶
To start, let’s open up a terminal using CTRL+ALT+T. This will open up a
Wayland terminal client.
Run X11 applications¶
Rerun miral-app with the following flags:
miral-app --enable-x11 true
Next, you may open an X11 client using CTRL+ALT+X. You should see an
xterm session open if it is available on your system.
At this point, you may experiment opening other applications as well.
Run shell component applications¶
In addition to traditional applications, Mir provides the facilities for you to run applications which are actually shell components, such as backgrounds, bars, panels and more.
Some examples of shell components that work well with Mir are: wofi, waybar, synapse, sway-notification-center, swaybg, swaylock, xfce-appfinder, and xfce-panel.
As an example, we will demonstrate running waybar.
First, install waybar on your system.
Next, rerun miral-app with the following:
miral-app --add-wayland-extensions all
Finally, run waybar from within your compositor session. You should see a bar
appear at the top of your compositor.
Next steps¶
Check out the developer tutorial to build your first compositor with Mir.