Installation

Which Distro are you using?

• Alpine
• Arch
• Fedora
• Fedora Silverblue
• FreeBSD
• Gentoo
• openSUSE
• NixOS
• Ubuntu and Debian
• Void
• Other

Alpine

Since Alpine v3.11, you can install the waybar package from the community repository. As a superuser, type:

apk add waybar

Arch

On Arch, you can simply install waybar from extra. You can also install waybar-git from the AUR.

Another option is to use Omarchy an opinionated Arch-based distribution that already ships with a preconfigured Waybar and Hyprland setup. This approach can save time if you prefer to start with ready-made defaults instead of manually configuring Waybar from scratch.

Fedora

On Fedora, Waybar is also in the official repositories. Install with dnf install waybar.

Fedora Silverblue

Fedora Silverblue uses an immutable ostree-based filesystem, meaning ordinarily you would not install packages directly. There are three main approaches to installing Waybar.

Package layering (easiest)

You can install Waybar from the official repositories, using package layering with:

rpm-ostree install waybar

This functions similarly to packages installed with dnf and requires a reboot to take effect. rpm-ostree update will work as normal.

Flatpak

Flatpak is the usual approach to installing software on Silverblue. There are no official Flatpak packages for Waybar at this time.

Customised ostree image

A customised ostree image could be prepared already including Waybar. You can do this by modifying workstation-ostree-config. Guidance is available here.

Gentoo

On Gentoo, the package is in the official repositories. Install with emerge -a waybar. Note that all versions are currently unstable, so you will have to accept keywords for it.

FreeBSD

You may also need to run pkg install pavucontrol for volume control if not yet installed.

pkg install waybar

openSUSE

On openSUSE, Waybar is in the official repositories. Install with zypper in waybar. See devel project.

NixOS

On NixOS, you can try out Waybar with: nix-shell -p waybar, then run waybar once you are inside the shell. This will launch a default waybar immediately and imperatively.

You can persistently add it to your configuration with NixOS or Home-Manager options.

NOTE: they may sound similar, but are entirely different scopes and those options cannot be mixed together. Use NixOS options only in system configs and Home-Manage ones only in home configs. You can add your home config to your system config, see Home-Manager documentation for more information on this.

In NixOS:

  programs.waybar.enable = true;

This will install the bar, to which you can configure as you would on any other distribution via classic dotfiles.

Home-Manager allows for more declarative configuration of waybar itself in your configuration. Check the options for the most up-to-date information on how to accomplish this.

Ubuntu and Debian

On Ubuntu, since version 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa"), Waybar is available as waybar in universe. Install with apt-get install waybar. See the Ubuntu Packages page.

The required fonts have been available as packages since 22.04 LTS ("Jammy Jellyfish"), use apt-get install fonts-font-awesome fonts-fork-awesome.

The same packages are available in Debian since 1.2.0 ("bookworm").

Void

On Void, the package is available as Waybar. Install with xbps-install -S Waybar.

Other

To build and install Waybar just run:

git clone https://github.com/Alexays/Waybar && cd Waybar && sudo make install

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How to use with Sway?

First, ensure you have the otf-font-awesome package installed. These are free fonts provided by Fonts Awesome and commonly used in Waybar configurations. You can also download the OTF fonts package from this link.

You can use Waybar by defining in your Sway config file:

bar swaybar_command waybar

or at the end of your sway config file

exec waybar