How do I install sway on Ubuntu

Question

How do I get sway installed on my system and configured on boot? Arch has this package in the repository.

Solution 1

An unofficial PPA ppa:samoilov-lex/sway exists (compatible with Ubuntu 19.04+):

Run following commands in order to install Sway from the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:samoilov-lex/sway
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sway

After installing, it should be possible to start Sway from the login screen.

See also

For installing Sway on distributions (that don't have a Sway package available in their official repositories) see the wiki page on Unsupported Packages.

Solution 2

There is a Snap named Sway that can be installed from Snap Store :

sudo snap install sway --beta

Note: as of writing this answer (2019-Nov-27) the snap is marked experimental and seems in beta stage.

See also

• installation instruction
• GitHub repository: sd-hd/sway-snap
• author of this snap: sdhd

Comments

[Evan Carroll]

What does the purge have to do with sway?

[hc_dev]

The answer provided by [user:FliegendeWurst] instructs installation (following the official guide), so please mark it as accepted or lay down why this doesn't work in a comment.

[phrogg]

Unfortunately not working anymore... :(

[FliegendeWurst]

Which error message do you get?

[phrogg]

That there is no release file on bionic.

[hc_dev]

Concise answer. I edited and improved clarity (compatibility) as well as added the See also section for further information.

[hc_dev]

Succeeded installation on Bionic Beaver (18.04 LTS) with following message: INFO snap "sway" has bad plugs or slots: dbus (cannot find attribute 'bus')

[l0b0]

"sway (beta) 1.3.0-1 from Sascha Dewald (sdhd) installed" with no error message on 18.04 LTS.

[l0b0]

However, this does not make Sway available as a desktop manager on the login menu, making this a bit of an exercise to set up.