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andrew 8c07c10050 Stop pinning Sway output mode in dev config

Removes the hardcoded `output * mode 1920x1080` from the development Sway config and updates related docs to match. Dev sessions now rely on each output’s preferred mode at scale `1`, which better follows current display size (including VMware autofit behavior), while still documenting how to set a mode manually when needed.

2026-08-26 17:51:46 +12:00

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Compositor

Sway is the temporary Wayland compositor while Nebula Desktop is developed. Configuration lives in sway/nebula-sway.conf.

Sway currently provides:

Wayland compositor
application window management
XWayland
input and the pointer cursor
output handling

Nebula provides the visible shell (Qt Quick/QML via LayerShellQt). The Sway config must not enable a Sway bar.

A custom Nebula compositor is a later milestone. Do not treat this Sway setup as the final architecture.

Ubuntu/Linux
 ↓
Wayland
 ↓
Sway                 now
Nebula compositor    later
 ↓
Nebula Shell
Qt Quick/QML

Development session

From the NebulaOS repository root:

sway -c compositor/sway/nebula-sway.conf

Recommended on the Ubuntu VMware VM (repo-root cd, cursor environment, software cursors):

sh compositor/sway/dev/run-sway-vm.sh

Sway then autostarts Nebula Desktop through scripts/run-nebula-vm.sh.

Skip shell autostart:

NEBULA_SHELL_AUTOSTART=0 sh compositor/sway/dev/run-sway-vm.sh

Output / resolution

The development config uses scale 1 and does not pin a resolution. Sway uses the output's preferred mode, which follows the current display size (including VMware Autofit Guest).

swaymsg -t get_outputs
swaymsg output <name> scale 1

Cursor

seat * xcursor_theme Adwaita 24
XCURSOR_THEME=Adwaita
XCURSOR_SIZE=24

Requires adwaita-icon-theme. A Nebula-branded cursor theme is a later task.

WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1 is VMware-specific and is set by run-sway-vm.sh, not by production session files.

Emergency shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Super+Enter	open Foot
Super+Shift+E	exit Sway
Super+Shift+C	reload Sway config

Normal application launching is done from the Nebula launcher, not these shortcuts.

Rendering

scripts/run-nebula-vm.sh sets QT_QUICK_BACKEND=software for the VMware guest GPU. Production nebula-shell must not set that variable.

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