Learn What Mir Can Do¶

This tutorial will guide you through using some example programs that showcase Mir’s capabilities in different setups. You will see how Mir supports a range of capabilities that can be used by Mir based compositors. Mir makes it easy to write compositors as shown in the developer tutorial.

Installation¶

Mir demos are available on Debian derivatives, Fedora, and Alpine. For distros that don’t have prebuilt binaries, examples can be built from source.

To install Mir demos on Debian and its derivatives:

sudo apt install mir-demos mir-graphics-drivers-desktop

Installing Demos on Other Distros

Installing Mir demos on Fedora

sudo dnf install mir-demos

Installing Mir demos on Alpine

sudo apk add mir-demos mir

Running¶

The main script you’ll want to play around with is miral-app. It runs a shell with some eyecandy by default, but you can run it in kiosk mode if that fits your usecase more.

For the uninitiated: The shell mode runs a floating window manager just like GNOME and such where you can move windows and maximize or minimize them. Kiosk mode on the other hand assumes you want one (or more) applications in fullscreen mode all the time.

To run in shell mode, just run:

miral-app

for kiosk mode:

miral-app -kiosk

Note: By default, Mir does not enable Wayland extensions that normal applications should not be using. For demonstration purposes we will override this and allow all supported extensions in some of the following examples by passing --add-wayland-extensions all when running the example.

Running Natively¶

The previous section showed how you can run Mir demos under an X11 or Wayland session. But Mir compositors can also run “natively” by launching them from a virtual terminal or a greeter.

Launching from a virtual terminal¶

To switch to a virtual terminal, you can press CTRL+ALT+F<Number>. You can then log in and run:

miral-app

Launching from a greeter¶

You can also launch miral-shell from your greeter by opening the window manager list (bottom right cog on Ubuntu) and choosing “Miral Shell”. Once you log in, you’ll see miral-shell running fullscreen!

Using On-screen Keyboards¶

Mir based compositors can easily support on-screen keyboards. Note that due to security reasons, the Wayland extensions needed are disabled by default.

For the purpose of demonstation, we’ll use ubuntu-frame-osk, but you’re free to use any Wayland compatible on-screen keyboard.

You can install ubuntu-frame-osk by running:

sudo snap install ubuntu-frame-osk
sudo snap connect ubuntu-frame-osk:wayland

To test your favourite on-screen keyboard, you can start miral-app as follows:

miral-app --add-wayland-extensions all

Once the shell loads, you can start the terminal, then run:

ubuntu-frame-osk&

And an on-screen keyboard should pop up!

Mixing Wayland and X11 Clients¶

You can easily run X11 applications inside Mir based compositors. For example, to enable x11 support in miral-shell, you can run the following command:

miral-app --enable-x11 true

When it loads, you can start a terminal and run xclock or any other X11 application alongside Wayland applications!

Remote Desktop¶

Mir also supports remote desktops via the VNC protocol. To demo this, we’ll use wayvnc. You can install it by running:

sudo apt install wayvnc

Start the shell with all extensions enabled:

miral-app --add-wayland-extensions all

From inside, you can run the terminal and run wayvnc:

wayvnc

This should start wayvnc and make it listen to localhost. To connect, run your favourite VNC viewer and connect to localhost. You should see the exact same view in both Mir compositor and the VNC viewer. For example:

gvncviewer localhost