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docs: the docs catch up with five releases of shipped work
~1150 feat/fix commits landed since v0.19 and the docs drifted badly. This is a
full sweep of every page against the code as shipped: ~280 verified corrections,
nine new pages, and one deletion.

The worst of what was wrong: the quickstart's five-minute path could not work
(`serve` never started the web console, so step 3 had no PIN to read); every
packaged Linux host runs `serve --gamestream` while security.md told readers to
leave GameStream off; HDR was documented as Windows-only; `PUNKTFUNK_SECURE_DDA`
was documented as a working knob that nothing reads; `PUNKTFUNK_INPUT_BACKEND`
listed a `uinput` value that does not exist and named libei for KDE instead of
kwin; README linked three pages deleted on 2026-07-05; and the rpm-ostree update
command pointed at a script no package installs.

Completeness: about half of what shipped since v0.19 had no page at all. New:
support-matrix (what works where, from 217 verified capability cells), input
(mouse/touch/pen — and the in-stream chords, so the docs finally say how to get
your mouse back), client-settings, profiles-and-links, game-library, clipboard,
wake-on-lan, hdr, uninstall. Updating existed but had zero inbound links.

status.md is gone: its facts moved into the support matrix, its shell stays as a
redirect so the public URL does not 404. roadmap.md is themes now, not a feature
checklist — checkboxes are what rotted.

Debian is no longer claimed. The .deb's Depends resolve against Ubuntu images,
nothing in CI builds or tests Debian, and Debian 12 is below the glibc 2.39
floor. The `debian` in the repo URL is the package format.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 17:37:06 +02:00

4.6 KiB

title, description
title description
Sway / wlroots Configure a Punktfunk host on sway.

Sway can host: the host adds a per-client headless output at the client's exact mode with swaymsg create_output and captures it through the xdg-desktop-portal-wlr (xdpw) ScreenCast portal, injecting input via the wlroots virtual pointer/keyboard protocols.

Despite the backend's name, this path is sway specifically. Everything it does for video — creating the headless output, setting its mode, listing your monitors — goes through sway's IPC (swaymsg), so a wlroots compositor without that IPC (River, dwl, …) cannot host: the session fails straight away with swaymsg get_outputs (is the host inside the sway session env — SWAYSOCK?). Input would be fine there — it uses the wlroots virtual pointer/keyboard protocols, which those compositors do have — but with no video there is no stream.

On Hyprland? It's a separate first-class backend (its own hyprctl IPC and xdph portal) — see Hyprland. This page is for sway.

This is not a primary target. It works and is validated live on sway 1.11 (zero-copy), but it sees far less testing than the KDE and GNOME paths — expect rougher edges. If you have a choice, KDE or GNOME are the better-exercised desktops.

This page assumes the package is already installed — see Arch, Ubuntu, or Fedora.

New here? Read Security & Safe Use first — a streaming host is remote control of the machine, so keep it on a trusted LAN or VPN and require pairing.

host.env

The host auto-detects a wlroots session, so the starter ~/.config/punktfunk/host.env is one line:

PUNKTFUNK_VIDEO_SOURCE=virtual
# GPU zero-copy capture→encode is ON by default; auto-falls back to CPU. Set PUNKTFUNK_ZEROCOPY=0 to force CPU.

To force the backend (CI/testing — note that pinning turns live-session auto-detection off, so the host stops following session switches):

PUNKTFUNK_COMPOSITOR=wlroots      # aliases: sway, wlr
PUNKTFUNK_INPUT_BACKEND=wlr

See Configuration for the full reference.

How it works

  • Video — the host adds a headless output at the client's exact mode with swaymsg create_output. This uses sway's IPC specifically, and so does everything else on the video side (mode setting, monitor listing). (Hyprland is driven by its own backend, not this one.)
  • Capture — it captures that output through the xdg-desktop-portal-wlr (xdpw) ScreenCast portal. The host writes a managed chooser config so the output pick is automatic — no interactive picker dialog to answer.
  • Input — mouse and keyboard are injected via the wlroots virtual pointer and virtual keyboard protocols.

For how long the virtual output lives, and extend-vs-exclusive topology, see Virtual displays.

Requirements

  • A running sway session — its IPC socket (SWAYSOCK) is what the whole video path runs on. You don't have to export it: the host finds the live sway instance itself on every connect, so a systemd --user host works even though it never inherited your login shell's environment. On Hyprland, use the Hyprland backend instead.

  • xdg-desktop-portal-wlr (xdpw) installed and running — the host captures through its ScreenCast portal. Without it there is no video.

  • ScreenCast routed to xdpw — only if another portal backend (gtk, gnome) is installed alongside it. xdg-desktop-portal picks one implementation per interface, and if it hands ScreenCast to the wrong backend the host steers an xdpw chooser nobody is reading. Pin it for your session by creating ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/sway-portals.conf:

    [preferred]
    default=gtk
    org.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=wlr
    

    Then systemctl --user restart xdg-desktop-portal. On a box with only xdpw installed there is nothing to choose between, so you can skip this.

Start the host

With the backend selected, start the host from inside your Sway session:

systemctl --user enable --now punktfunk-host
journalctl --user -u punktfunk-host -f

This unit runs serve --gamestream, so it serves stock Moonlight clients as well as the native ones. For a native-only host, see What the unit starts.

Bring up the console and pair

Enable the web console, read its login password, and arm PIN pairing — see The Web Console. Then connect a client.