Post-Setup Documentation: Hyprland on openSUSE Tumbleweed

This document outlines the architectural changes and configuration logic applied to this workstation on March 22, 2026.

1. Keyboard & Localization

  • Change: System-wide and session-specific keyboard layout set to en-gb (gb).
  • Mechanism: Updated ~/.config/hypr/conf/input.conf and executed localectl set-x11-keymap gb.
  • Rationale: Ensures consistency between the TTY, the SDDM login screen, and the Hyprland Wayland session.

2. Security & Login Lifecycle

  • Change: Disabled auto-login for user victor.
  • Mechanism: Modified DISPLAYMANAGER_AUTOLOGIN in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager.
  • Rationale: Restores the mandatory password prompt at the SDDM login screen, improving system security and allowing for session selection if multiple environments (like IceWM) are present.

3. Configuration Architecture (Dotfiles)

  • Change: Centralized configurations into a ~/dotfiles repository using a “Symlink-only” approach.
  • Structure:
    • ~/.config/chrome-flags.conf -> ~/dotfiles/.config/chrome-flags.conf
    • ~/.config/dunst -> ~/dotfiles/.config/dunst
    • ~/.config/hypr -> ~/dotfiles/.config/hypr
    • ~/.config/imv -> ~/dotfiles/.config/imv
    • ~/.config/kitty -> ~/dotfiles/.config/kitty
    • ~/.config/mimeapps.list -> ~/dotfiles/.config/mimeapps.list
    • ~/.config/rofi -> ~/dotfiles/.config/rofi
    • ~/.config/starship.toml -> ~/dotfiles/.config/starship.toml
    • ~/.config/Thunar -> ~/dotfiles/.config/Thunar
    • ~/.config/waybar -> ~/dotfiles/.config/waybar
    • ~/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d -> ~/dotfiles/.config/wireplumber/wireplumber.conf.d
  • Bootstrap: Run ~/dotfiles/install.sh to create all symlinks on a fresh machine. It backs up any existing file or directory before replacing it and is safe to re-run.
  • Exclusion: ~/.config/nvim remains an independent repository (Git Submodule candidate) as it is already a managed fork of kickstart.nvim.
  • Rationale: Facilitates version control, easy backups, and portability across machines while respecting existing Git hierarchies.

4. Modular Hyprland Implementation

  • Change: Refactored the monolithic hyprland.conf into a modular system located in ~/.config/hypr/conf/.
  • Components:
    • monitors.conf: Hardware-specific display settings.
    • input.conf: Keyboard, mouse, and touchpad logic.
    • environment.conf: Toolkit and Wayland-specific environment variables.
    • looks.conf: Gaps, borders, animations, and shadows.
    • keybindings.conf: SUPER-based shortcuts for productivity.
    • rules.conf: Window-specific behavior (e.g., floating system dialogs).
    • autostart.conf: Lifecycle management for background daemons.

5. Productivity Stack

The following Wayland-native tools were configured with functional defaults:

  • Waybar: Top-mounted status bar for workspace navigation and system monitoring.
  • Hypridle/Hyprlock: Configured for a 5-minute security lock and 5.5-minute display power-down.
  • Dunst: Notification management.
  • imv: Wayland-native image viewer (configured as default in mimeapps.list).
  • Rofi (Wayland): Application launcher (mapped to SUPER+R).

6. Maintenance Notes

  • Update Command: Always use sudo zypper dup to maintain the rolling-release integrity.
  • Reloading: Changes to the modular .conf files are picked up when Hyprland reloads.
  • Window Rules: Using new unified windowrule syntax for compatibility with Hyprland 0.53+.

7. Customization & Wishlist Implementation (March 22, 2026)

Following the initial setup, several refinements were implemented to address specific user requirements:

🖥️ Display & Aesthetics

  • Wallpaper: Migrated hyprpaper.conf to the new block syntax (wallpaper { monitor = ..., path = ... }) required by hyprpaper v0.7+. Using monitor = (empty) as a fallback ensures the wallpaper applies to any connected display — laptop screen or external monitor.
  • SDDM Theme: Integrated the ML4W SDDM Theme for a modern login experience.
    • Script: scripts/setup-sddm.sh automates the installation and syncs the desktop wallpaper to the login screen.
  • Workspaces: Updated Waybar to only show active workspaces, reducing visual clutter.

📊 Waybar Modules

  • Weather Widget: Added a custom weather.sh script using wttr.in. It features Nerd Font icons (󰖙, 󰖐, etc.) and auto-detects location via IP.
  • Network: Simplified the module to a single icon with nm-connection-editor accessible on click.
  • Clock: Refined format to HH:MM | Day, Date Month (omitting year for space) and fixed duplicate month display in tooltips.

⌨️ Keybindings & Utilities

  • Image Viewer: Installed imv (Wayland-native) and configured it as the default MIME application for all image types via mimeapps.list.
  • Hardware Controls: Added functional mapping for Volume (wpctl) and Brightness (brightnessctl) keys.
  • Screenshots: Integrated grim and slurp:
    • Print: Full screen to file.
    • Shift+Print: Area selection to file.
    • SUPER+Print: Area selection to clipboard.
  • Clipboard Management: Configured wl-paste with cliphist. History is accessible via SUPER+H using a Rofi selector.
  • Auto-mount: Added udiskie to the background autostart for automatic USB/Disk mounting.

🔔 Notifications

  • Dunst Style: Applied a custom Catppuccin Mocha color scheme to dunstrc with rounded corners (10px) and JetBrainsMono Nerd Font support.

📁 File Management (Thunar)

  • Terminal Integration: Fixed the “Open Terminal Here” custom action in Thunar to use kitty --directory %f directly, resolving the exo-open “TerminalEmulator not found” error.
  • Environment: Defined env = TERMINAL,kitty in environment.conf for system-wide consistency.

8. Work-Ready Refinements (March 22, 2026)

🎨 Theming

  • Rofi: Added ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi with a self-contained Catppuccin Mocha theme. Compact dropdown from top of screen, Papirus-Dark icons, JetBrainsMono Nerd Font. Explicitly overrides all element states to prevent rofi’s built-in Solarized Light defaults bleeding through.
  • Hyprlock: Replaced plain dark background with a blurred screenshot of the desktop. Added a live clock and date label. Styled the input field with Catppuccin Mocha colours (mauve accent, yellow for checking, red for failure).
  • Qt Theming: Replaced deprecated QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3 with qt6ct. Added missing Wayland Qt env vars: QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland;xcb, QT_WAYLAND_DISABLE_WINDOWDECORATION=1, QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1. Requires qt6ct package (sudo zypper install qt6ct).

⌨️ Keybindings

  • Lock Screen: Added SUPER+L → hyprlock for quick screen locking.
  • Window Switcher: Added ALT+TAB → rofi -show window for switching between open windows across all workspaces.
  • Resize Mode: Added SUPER+W submap — enter to resize active window with arrow keys, exit with ESC/ENTER.
  • Workspace Navigation: Added SUPER+TAB (toggle last workspace), SUPER+SHIFT+left/right (move window to prev/next workspace).

🖥️ Multi-Monitor

  • Layout: Laptop (eDP-1, 1920x1200) on the left, Philips 4K (HDMI-A-1, 3840x2160) on the right, both at 1.5x scale.
  • Workspace rule: Workspace 1 prefers HDMI-A-1 when connected, falls back to laptop when not.
  • Lid close: When external monitor is connected, closing the laptop lid does not suspend (systemd default). When no external monitor is connected, lid close suspends as normal.

🔵 Bluetooth

  • Stack: Installed bluez and blueman. Enabled bluetooth.service via systemd.
  • Autostart: Added blueman-applet to autostart.conf for system tray integration.
  • First-time pairing: Use blueman-manager to pair devices.

🌐 Default Applications

  • Browser: Set Google Chrome as default browser for text/html and x-scheme-handler/* in mimeapps.list.