Installation

Aqueous targets Linux / Wayland. The window manager is written in C# / .NET 10 and the RiverDelta compositor (an in-tree fork of River) is written in Zig.

Requirements

• A Wayland-capable GPU + seatd/logind
• dotnet-runtime 10 (or the SDK to build the WM)
• zig (to build RiverDelta from source)
• A compatible shell/bar — Aqueous ships defaults for the Noctalia shell

Arch Linux

The repository ships a reference PKGBUILD that produces the aqueous and aqueous-wm packages, a Wayland session entry, and default configuration files.

From the PKGBUILD

git clone https://github.com/Seafoam-Labs/Aqueous.git
cd Aqueous
makepkg -si

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Seafoam-Labs/Aqueous.git
cd Aqueous
# Build the Zig compositor (RiverDelta)
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe
# Build and publish the C# window manager
dotnet publish -c Release

Note

Installing the package also drops default wm.toml, layout.toml, and rules.toml files and registers a Wayland session entry so Aqueous shows up in your display manager.

Starting a session

1. Select Aqueous from your display manager’s session list, or

2. Launch it manually from a TTY:

   aqueous

3. For development, use the nested-session launcher scripts in the repository to run Aqueous inside an existing Wayland session.

First-run configuration

Aqueous reads its configuration from ~/.config/aqueous/. Copy the shipped examples to start customizing:

mkdir -p ~/.config/aqueous
cp /usr/share/aqueous/wm.toml      ~/.config/aqueous/wm.toml
cp /usr/share/aqueous/layout.toml  ~/.config/aqueous/layout.toml
cp /usr/share/aqueous/rules.toml   ~/.config/aqueous/rules.toml

Continue with the Configuration guide.