labwc(1) General Commands Manual labwc(1) NAME labwc - a Wayland stacking compositor SYNOPSIS labwc [options...] DESCRIPTION Labwc is a wlroots-based stacking compositor for wayland. It is light-weight and independent with a focus on simply stacking windows well and rendering some window decorations. Where practicable it uses clients for wall-paper, panels, screenshots and so on. SIGNALS The compositor will exit or reload its configuration upon receiving SIGTERM and SIGHUP respectively. For example: kill -s <signal> $LABWC_PID killall -s <signal> labwc Each running instance of labwc sets the environment variable `LABWC_PID` to its PID. This is useful for sending signals to a specific instance and is what the `--exit` and `--reconfigure` options use. OPTIONS -c, --config <config-file> Specify a config file with path -C, --config-dir <config-directory> Specify a config directory -d, --debug Enable full logging, including debug information. See ENVIRONMENT VARI- ABLES section below for further options. -e, --exit Exit the compositor by sending SIGTERM to `$LABWC_PID` -h, --help Show help message and quit -m, --merge-config Merge user config/theme files in all XDG Base Directories -r, --reconfigure Reload the compositor configuration by sending SIGHUP to `$LABWC_PID` -s, --startup <command> Run command on startup -S, --session <command> Run command on startup and terminate compositor on exit. This is useful for session management as it allows the session client to terminate labwc by exiting itself. This is a Wayland specific use-case because under X, xinit starts the server and keeps it alive for as long as the session client. Thus either the session client starts the Window Man- ager, or the Window Manager can be launched independently first. On Wayland, the Compositor is both Display Server and Window Manager, so the described session management mechanisms do not work because the Compositor needs to be running before the session can function. As some session clients support both X11 and Wayland, this command line option avoids re-writes and fragmentation. -t, --title <fmtstr> Set the window title for labwc to use when it is running in a window (i.e. nested in a compositor). <fmtstr> is a format string to be used as the window title, replacing `%o` with the name of the output region. This is useful when simulating multiple screens, such as with running labwc with the environment variable `WLR_WL_OUTPUTS=2`. In this case, `%o` will be unique per simulated screen. -v, --version Show the version number and quit -V, --verbose Enable more verbose logging SESSION MANAGEMENT To enable the use of graphical clients launched via D-Bus or systemd ser- vice activation, labwc can update both activation environments on launch. Provided that labwc is aware of an active D-Bus user session (i.e., the en- vironment variable `DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS` is defined), the compositor will invoke the commands dbus-update-activation-environment systemctl --user import-environment (when available) to notify D-Bus and systemd with the values of the follow- ing environment variables: WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP XDG_SESSION_TYPE XCURSOR_SIZE XCURSOR_THEME LABWC_PID This behavior is enabled by default whenever labwc uses the "DRM" wlroots backend (which implies that labwc is the primary compositor on the con- sole). When other backends are employed (for example, when labwc runs nested in another Wayland compositor or an X11 server), updates to the ac- tivation environment are disabled by default. Updates to the activation en- vironment can be forced by setting the environment variable `LABWC_UP- DATE_ACTIVATION_ENV` to one of the truthy values `1`, `true`, `yes` or `on`; or suppressed by setting the variable to one of the falsy values `0`, `false`, `no` or `off`. Whenever labwc updates the activation environment on launch, it will also attempt to clear the activation environment on exit. For D-Bus, which does not provide a means for properly un-setting variables in the activation en- vironment, this is accomplished by setting the session variables to empty strings. For systemd, the command `systemctl --user unset-environment` will be invoked to actually remove the variables from the activation environ- ment. A systemd user unit named `labwc-session.target` is also shipped alongside the compositor for users who want to integrate labwc with systemd. It binds to the standard `graphical-session.target`, so systemd user services can start and stop in sync with the labwc session when they declare a WantedBy or PartOf relationship to that target. Labwc does not activate the target itself; users opt in by adding lines like the following to their autostart and shutdown files: systemctl --user --no-block start labwc-session.target systemctl --user stop graphical-session.target The example autostart and shutdown files shipped with labwc include these commented out. To have a user service automatically started with the ses- sion, enable it so the corresponding symlink under the graphical-ses- sion.target.wants directory exists, for example by running "systemctl --user enable dms.service". ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES Set the environment variables listed below to enable specific debug op- tions. This can be done in either the environment file or on the command line, for example: LABWC_DEBUG_FOO=1 labwc. LABWC_DEBUG_LIBSFDO Enable debug and info logging for libsfdo, for example for parsing of desktop files and searching for icons. Note that libsfdo error logging is always enabled regardless of this environment variable but will only be shown with the -V|--version option. LABWC_DEBUG_DIR_CONFIG_AND_THEME Increase logging of paths for config files (for example rc.xml, au- tostart, environment and menu.xml) as well as titlebar buttons. LABWC_DEBUG_CONFIG_NODENAMES Enable logging of all nodenames (for example policy.placement: Cascade for <placement><policy>Cascade</policy></placement>) for config and menu files respectively. LABWC_DEBUG_KEY_STATE Enable logging of press and release events for bound keys (generally key-combinations like Ctrl-Alt-t). SEE ALSO labwc-actions(5), labwc-config(5), labwc-menu(5), labwc-theme(5) 2026-08-29 labwc(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SIGNALS | OPTIONS | SESSION MANAGEMENT | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | SEE ALSO
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