Sway WSL2

Sway Wayland compositor, running in WSL2 via Microsoft's WSLg. This is dedicated to all the people out there who are stuck using Windows for work

Working

• Multiple monitors
• Shared clipboard
• Audio

Not Working

• ?

To Install Manually

Assuming sway is already installed (I use this)

git clone https://github.com/jordankoehn/sway-wsl2.git
cd sway-wsl2
./install.sh

Post install

• Start sway by running start-sway
• See ~/.config/sway/config.d/wsl
  • Here you can set the number of displays you want to spawn and assign workspaces to specific displays

Resize/Move WSL2 Sway Windows

• win + up will maximize a window
• win + shift + left/right to to move a window to another monitors
• Window not filling the screen correctly? First do win + left/right to snap it to half the screen, then win + up to maximize the window. It should now fill the screen correctly

Super Key

Mod	Key
Mod1	Alt
Mod3	Num Lock
Mod4	Windows/Super key

By default, Sway defaults to the windows key as the super key. This is problematic when running within windows. One option would be to change Sway from mod4 to mod1 (alt). Some programs which use alt in Linux collide with this. My solution, is to set your super key to Mod3 (num lock). Then, using powertoys I remap my Windows key to num lock, and right control to windows key. Very few windows functions, like win + d will not recognize the remap. However, for general use this works perfectly. Alternatively, if your keyboard supports hardware remapping you could also go that route

Additional Tips

• To maximize the Window beyond the windows status bar, you can set Windows to automatically hide the taskbar
  • Alternatively, set your primary Windows display to your least important monitor, and only show the taskbar on your primary monitor. Use that monitor for chat applications and other Window stuff. Use your remaining monitors for Sway via WSL2
• If you're no longer primarily using Windows, consider allocating more memory to WSL2, this defaults to 50% of system ram

Known Issues

• Kitty terminal looks very low resolution. Uncomment some lines in ~/.bashrc if you'd like to try using kitty. I've had good luck with xfce4-terminal. All other programs render as they should
• Expect the UI to crash if you put your PC to sleep, have network changes, if you change the windows taskbar setting to auto hide while Sway is running, or just at random. YMMV, I generally go most days without any crashes

Versions

• 05.18.25: - Greatly improve performance of Windows -> WSL clipboard synchronization.