Samuel Onoja
cf540f1feb
Repeated panel updates rebuilt unchanged controls and SVG artwork, cloned composition data, and kept unused workspace icon resources. This reuses controls when their layout stays the same, bounds the SVG cache, removes temporary layout allocations, and releases icon resources when apps close or the workspace style changes. Rapidly closing a modal could also leave a native surface behind when its asynchronous creation finished after the close. Late openings now get destroyed when their owner is gone. Ferese uses the published `ferese-v0.1.2` Iced/libcosmic fixes so a temporary software buffer/viewport size mismatch retries the frame instead of crashing. Two runs per version of the same workspace/overview/reload workload measured **26% fewer allocated bytes and 23% fewer allocation calls**. A separate 1,800-cycle notification/modal stress run retained about **40 MiB less shell memory**, including shared-buffer retention falling from 28.2 MiB to 272 KiB. These are measured workload results, not an overall desktop speedup claim. Validation: - 1,350 workspace tests passed, including GPU Settings text rendering (50 optional tests ignored); formatting and Clippy passed. - Native continuous/island panel tests passed rapid notification resizing, modal cancellation, and live material/input-region changes. - A Wayland lifetime trace confirmed all 280 created modal surfaces were destroyed; longer DHAT traces and Intel GPU memory measurements were checked separately. - All installation binaries rebuilt and the installation bundle passed inventory and checksum verification.
A configurable Wayland desktop
Install · Configure · Screenshots · Documentation
Ferese combines a window manager and desktop shell with one configuration.
Features
- Scrolling columns with window grouping, tree tiling and floating windows that remember their size and placement
- Workspace overview and recent-window switching
- Remappable keyboard shortcuts and touchpad gestures
- Continuum motion: interruptible springs, gesture momentum and motion settings shared by the compositor and shell
- Multiple monitors with fractional scaling and automatic refresh-rate switching on low battery
- Themes, wallpapers and blur that update live, with Light/Dark/Auto modes and custom KDL themes
- Continuous corners across windows and shell
- Desktop widgets, including a clock and sticky notes
- Screenshots with annotation, screen sharing and built-in recording
- A built-in lock screen and authentication dialogs
- Idle inhibition during fullscreen media playback, with rules for selected apps
- Settings and Control Center with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and audio controls
How Ferese compares
Ferese combines scrolling and tree layouts with its own desktop controls. The table compares current upstream features and names separate tools where they are needed.
| Feature | Ferese | Hyprland | niri |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiling layouts | Scrolling columns and tree tiling; switch per workspace | Scrolling, dwindle, master and monocle; per-workspace layouts | Scrolling columns |
| Floating windows | Built in | Built in | Built in |
| Workspace overview | Built in | Plugins such as HyprExpo | Built in |
| Animations | Continuum: interruptible springs, gesture momentum; speed and reduced-motion settings shared by the compositor and shell | Bézier and spring curves | Spring and easing animations; custom shaders |
| Corner shapes | Continuous corners across windows and shell | Rounded corners and squircles | Rounded corners with optional clipping |
| Live configuration reload | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monitor mirroring | Built in | Built in | Separate tool, such as wl-mirror |
| Desktop controls | Included Settings and Control Center | Separate utilities or a desktop shell | Separate desktop shell or tools |
| Notifications | Included in ferese-shell | Separate notification daemon | Separate notification daemon or shell |
| Lock screen | Included ferese-lock | Separate hyprlock | Separate locker, such as swaylock or hyprlock |
| Screen-sharing backend | xdg-desktop-portal-ferese | xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland | xdg-desktop-portal-gnome |
Ferese's shell, Settings, lock screen and dialogs use a shared theme. Other desktop shells, including DankMaterialShell and Noctalia, also include desktop controls; their features depend on the shell and tools you install.
Install
Start with the dependencies, then clone Ferese and build it as your normal user:
git clone https://github.com/ferese-wm/ferese.git
cd ferese
./scripts/install.sh
Once it’s installed, log out and choose Ferese at your login screen, or run
ferese-session from a TTY or a greeter that accepts a command. The installation
guide also walks you through previews, updates and recovery.
Configure
Configure Ferese through Control Center → Settings or ~/.config/ferese/config.kdl.
Changes apply live. Invalid edits leave the last working configuration in place.
The configuration reference and example config cover appearance, window layouts, displays and startup apps.
Default shortcuts
Use Super, usually the Windows key, to move around your desktop, and open Settings →
Shortcuts whenever you want to change a shortcut or gesture.
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| Super + Enter | Open a terminal |
Display Fn key (XF86Display) |
Choose the display mode |
| Media Play / Pause, Next, Previous | Control the selected MPRIS player |
| Super + H / J / K / L | Focus left / down / up / right |
| Super + Backspace | Return to the last focused window |
| Super + Escape | Toggle between the last two visited workspaces on this monitor |
| Alt + Tab / Alt + Shift + Tab | Preview recent windows forward / backward; release Alt to select, Escape to cancel |
| Super + F | Maximize the window |
| Super + Shift + F | Toggle fullscreen |
| Super + R | Cycle column width |
| Super + Tab | Open overview |
| Super + M | Switch scrolling / tree layout |
| Print Screen | Capture the active monitor and open Satty |
| Super + Shift + S | Select a screenshot area |
| Super + Shift + E | Ask to log out |
| Super + left-button drag | Move a floating window |
| Super + right-button drag | Resize a floating window |
| Three-finger swipe up / down | Next / previous workspace |
| Three-finger swipe left / right | Focus the window to the right / left |
See all shortcuts and mouse actions for window and workspace controls.
Documentation
The documentation index lists the desktop guides. Development instructions cover building, testing and contributing.
Ferese is written in Rust using Smithay. Development happens on GitHub. If something goes wrong, open an issue with the steps to reproduce it and any relevant logs.