Installation

This guide explains how to install LWE and what you need before the first launch.

Prerequisites

LWE works with Wallpaper Engine content from Steam Workshop. Before using Workshop-related features, make sure that:

• your Steam account owns Wallpaper Engine;
• the Steam client is installed and signed in on the Linux desktop;
• Wallpaper Engine is installed in Steam;
• the desktop session supports the runtime path you want to test.

The currently verified desktop environment is a Wayland session with niri. Other compositors or desktop environments may work, but they should be treated as unverified until tested.

Arch Linux AUR

Two AUR packages are published:

Package	Channel	Use when
lwe	Stable	You want the latest stable release.
lwe-git	Prerelease/development	You want newer builds from the active development branch.

Install the stable package with an AUR helper such as yay:

yay -S lwe

Install the development package when you intentionally want prerelease changes:

yay -S lwe-git

GitHub Releases

Stable and prerelease builds publish Linux artifacts from GitHub Actions. Download the package that matches your distribution from the repository Releases page.

Published artifact types include:

• .deb
• .rpm
• .AppImage

Use your distribution's normal package tooling for .deb or .rpm files. For AppImage builds, mark the file executable before launching it.

chmod +x LWE*.AppImage
./LWE*.AppImage

Build from source

Use this path when contributing or when you need to validate a local change.

Required tooling:

• Node.js 20 or newer
• pnpm
• Rust stable toolchain
• Tauri 2 build dependencies for your distribution

Install JavaScript dependencies:

pnpm install

Run frontend checks:

pnpm check
pnpm test

Run Rust checks:

cargo check --workspace

For local application development, use the Tauri/Svelte entry points in this repository. The active desktop app path is src-tauri with the frontend under src.

After installation

Continue with Quick start to configure the Steam Web API key and apply your first wallpaper.