If you are tired of trying between different types of desktop environments and none meet your expectations in terms of performance, visual appearance, among other things. On this occasion I invite you to get to know miracle-wm, which is positioned as a new Wayland window manager based on Mir, whose style will be very familiar to i3 and sway.
Miracle-wm is an alternative to what is already known on desktops and as mentioned, The goal of the project is to create a composite server that uses tiled windows, but that is more functional and elegant than projects like Swayfx.
It is worth mentioning that The project is currently in the development phase and its use is marked as "experimental." Currently, the project has support for various Wayland protocols and its use is mainly based on floating window managers for individual windows.
Miracle-wm It is on version 0.3 and among the changes and improvements offered by the new version, the following stands out
- Implemented support for animation effects when opening, closing and moving windows, as well as when switching between virtual desktops.
- Active windows can now be visually highlighted, displaying a frame around each one, with different colors for the active window.
- Support for the IPC protocol of the i3 window manager, on which the IPC protocol is based for interaction with the Sway composite manager, has been significantly expanded.
- Added commands to change focus, launch applications, split areas, move window groups, and dock floating windows. Response analysis is also provided with detailed information about the version, configured link modes, link status, and list of output devices.
- The snap package libraries have been updated to Ubuntu Core 24.
- Added the ability to determine the default mode for working with windows on the virtual desktop, whether in tiled or floating mode.
It is mentioned that The release of version 0.4 is expected at the end of August, before reaching the first stable version, 1.0, which is expected in October. Version 0.4 will include capabilities for stacked window design, multi-monitor setups, display adjustments and full i3 support. Ideas for version 1.0 include:
- Browse mode to navigate between windows and desktops GNOME style.
- Graphical interface for configuration.
- Contextual menus with actions in the windows.
- Picture in picture mode.
- Function to center the active application window.
- Minimal shell with panel and program launch interface.
- Large virtual desktop that can be moved beyond the screen.
- Free mosaic layout mode, without limitations by screen frames.
How to install Miracle-wm in Ubuntu and derivatives?
For those who are interested in being able to install Miracle-wm on their system, you should know that in the case of Ubuntu and derivatives of it There are 3 different ways to install this window manager.
The first of them and which applies in general for any version of Ubuntu or derived from it, as long as you have the support of Snap, is by performing the installation using this type of packages. And to perform the installation just run the following command in a terminal:
sudo snap install miracle-wm --classic
Now the second installation method of Miracle-wm in Ubuntu or some derivative, is by adding the repository to the system and installing the packages from this repo. It should be noted that in order to install Miracle-wm with this method you must be on Ubuntu mantic (23.10) or Noble (24.04), although in the latter case it was not functional for me, since the repository was not available.
We can add the repository by typing:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:matthew-kosarek/miracle-wm sudo apt update
And we can install with:
sudo apt install miracle-wm
Finally, the latest method available and that applies to any distribution of Linux (as long as you comply with the dependencies), is compiling the source code and to do this we must type the following:
git clone https://github.com/mattkae/miracle-wm.git cd miracle-wm cmake -Bbuild cmake --build build WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-98 ./build/bin/miracle-wm
And that's it, with that we can start using or testing Miracle-wm. To do this, simply log out of the user session and choose from the screen manager before logging in (in most environments, this is presented as a small configuration button) Miracle-wm or Miracle-wm Snap (if you installed from Snap).
Likewise, you can consult its documentation so that you can learn more about the configurations and keyboard shortcuts that this window manager works with. The link is this.