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Sweets builds with Cargo and stable Rust. The workspace produces the sweets compositor and the sweets-session native login-session launcher.

Sweets uses a pinned Smithay revision. It does not use wlroots, Meson, Ninja, or SceneFX. Lua 5.4 is built into the configuration crate, so a system Lua package is not required.

Sweets is Linux-only, Wayland-only, and pre-release software. Test the nested backend first, and keep another login session or SSH access available when testing the native backend.

Requirements

Install Rust 1.85 or newer, Cargo, Git, a C compiler, pkg-config, and the development files for these system libraries:

Library	Used for
DRM, GBM, and EGL	Native display access and rendering
libinput and libudev	Physical input and device discovery
libseat	Native seat acquisition and VT switching
Wayland	Server and nested-backend integration
libxkbcommon	Keyboard keymaps and key handling
Pango and Cairo	Config-error bar text and pixel rendering

Use your distribution packages or follow the official Rust installation guide for the Rust toolchain.

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git rustup pkgconf libdrm mesa libinput \
  libseat systemd-libs wayland libxkbcommon pango cairo
rustup default stable

Install seatd as well when the native session will use seatd instead of systemd-logind.

Fedora

sudo dnf install gcc git rust cargo pkgconf-pkg-config libdrm-devel \
  mesa-libEGL-devel libgbm-devel libinput-devel libseat-devel \
  libudev-devel wayland-devel libxkbcommon-devel pango-devel cairo-devel

Debian and Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential git pkg-config libdrm-dev libegl1-mesa-dev \
  libgbm-dev libinput-dev libseat-dev libudev-dev libwayland-dev \
  libxkbcommon-dev libpango1.0-dev libcairo2-dev

The distribution-provided Rust compiler must still be version 1.85 or newer. Use rustup when the packaged compiler is older.

Recommended runtime packages

A working libseat provider, such as systemd-logind or seatd, is required for the native backend.
foot is opened by the built-in Super+Return recovery binding. Install it or replace that binding in your configuration before starting a native session.
Xwayland 24.1.0 or newer enables X11 applications. Version 24.1.13 is the accepted runtime. Native Wayland applications remain available without it.
Screen sharing through XDG portals requires xdg-desktop-portal, xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, PipeWire, a PipeWire session manager such as WirePlumber, and a source chooser supported by the wlr portal.

Build

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/naurissteins/Sweets.git
cd Sweets

Build the complete release workspace:

cargo build --release --locked --workspace --all-features

Cargo downloads the pinned Smithay revision and the locked Rust dependencies. The resulting binaries are target/release/sweets and target/release/sweets-session.

Verify the binary and the maintained Lua configuration:

./target/release/sweets --version
./target/release/sweets --check-config config/sweets.lua

Configuration validation exits without opening a Wayland socket or acquiring the seat.

Test the nested backend

Stage the maintained defaults under the build prefix, then start Sweets from an existing Wayland session:

install -Dm644 config/sweets.lua target/share/sweets/sweets.lua
SWEETS_BACKEND=nested ./target/release/sweets

The nested backend opens Sweets in a window and does not acquire the physical seat. Press Super+Return to open Foot and Super+Shift+Q to exit. A user configuration at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/sweets/sweets.lua, when present, is applied over the staged defaults.

For more diagnostics, set a standard Rust tracing filter:

RUST_LOG=sweets=debug SWEETS_BACKEND=nested ./target/release/sweets

Install system-wide

Install the release binaries, maintained defaults, and display-manager session entry:

sudo install -Dm755 target/release/sweets /usr/local/bin/sweets
sudo install -Dm755 target/release/sweets-session \
  /usr/local/bin/sweets-session
sudo install -Dm644 config/sweets.lua \
  /usr/local/share/sweets/sweets.lua
sudo install -Dm644 packaging/sweets.desktop \
  /usr/share/wayland-sessions/sweets.desktop

Sweets derives the installed configuration path from the compositor binary. For /usr/local/bin/sweets, the matching defaults belong at /usr/local/share/sweets/sweets.lua.

Optional session integration

Install the systemd user target when the host uses a systemd user manager:

sudo install -Dm644 packaging/systemd/sweets-session.target \
  /usr/local/lib/systemd/user/sweets-session.target
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Sweets also has a portable non-systemd startup path. Do not install the target on a system that does not use systemd.

Install the portal preference when using XDG desktop portals:

sudo install -Dm644 packaging/xdg-desktop-portal/sweets-portals.conf \
  /usr/local/share/xdg-desktop-portal/sweets-portals.conf

This selects the wlr backend for Screenshot and ScreenCast and the GTK backend for the remaining portal interfaces.

Start a native session

Log out after installation and select Sweets from your display manager. The sweets-session launcher prepares the native Wayland environment, checks the XWayland version when available, creates a private session log, and starts the compositor with SWEETS_BACKEND=native.

The native backend owns the seat and displays. Do not start it from a terminal inside another graphical session. Use the nested backend for development inside an existing desktop.

Session logs

The session launcher stores private logs under:

${XDG_STATE_HOME:-$HOME/.local/state}/sweets/sessions/

The sweets.log symbolic link points to the current session log:

tail -f "${XDG_STATE_HOME:-$HOME/.local/state}/sweets/sweets.log"

Sweets retains the newest ten managed session logs. Set SWEETS_SESSION_LOG to an absolute path to use one custom log instead.

Next steps

Configuration — create a small Lua override without editing the installed defaults
Key bindings — review and customize the keyboard workflow
Desktop integration — configure session services and desktop components

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