The better way of running Minecraft Without XWayland

Because I REALLY had nothing better to do with my life.

Requirements

• A version of Minecraft >= 1.13

  • Older versions use a version of LWJGL that doesn't work with this patch

• MultiMC (or derivatives) (optional)

  • Other launchers (not the official one) might or might not have similar settings
  • If they don't, you can throw this into your Java arguments, changing the file path as needed depending on your distro: -Dorg.lwjgl.glfw.libname=/usr/lib/libglfw.so

• A distro with a patched GLFW package

  • This guide has steps for Arch, Fedora, Gentoo, and Guix
  • Or the knowledge on how to patch packages in your distribution.
    • In which case you can skip step 2 of this guide, as it will not apply to you and you should know what to do with the .patch files in this repo already

Side effects

• Forge will not work without another workaround
• The controls page (and anywhere a keyboard key is shown) is a bit wonky
  • Keys you replace through your compositor (example: caps:swapescape) will require you to use the original key
• Originally made for Sway, other desktops (GNOME, for example) might need to manually makepkg the libdecoration branch for GNOME specific fixes or download an unofficial package listed below (until a new GLFW version releases)
  • KDE works on both branches, but with some minor issues

Step 1: Setting up MultiMC to use the system GLFW

Go to Settings > Minecraft, and enable Use system installation of GLFW.

If you have a Wayland-compatible version of GLFW installed (glfw-wayland on Arch) you can try launching the game. It will most likely error out with something about window focus not being supported. In that case, you are in the right direction.

Step 2: Installing the patched GLFW library

If you're not under a distro with a guide here, you're mostly on your own. You can try waiting for someone else to write a guide for your distro, I guess.

Option 1: Use the AUR

Install the glfw-wayland-minecraft package from the AUR.

If you're using a desktop that needs it, try using the unofficial glfw-wayland-minecraft-libdecoration package, which packages the libdecoration branch of this repository to the AUR.

Option 2: Build the PKGBUILD manually

git clone this repository to somewhere, and run makepkg -si inside. It will ask you to replace your existing GLFW package if already installed.

If you're using a desktop that needs it, consider running git checkout libdecoration before running makepkg -si. This is a (probably) slightly unstable version that works better on some desktops.

Option 3: Install the Fedora package

Install the Fedora package from https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lyessaadi/minecraft-wayland-glfw/. See #4 for more information.

You might need to change the Java arguments even if you are using a launcher that can replace GLFW. See this issue for more details.

Option 4: Patch the Gentoo package

Patch Gentoo's GLFW package by following the guide at #6

Option 5: Install the Guix package

Install the Guix package from #18

Step 3: There is no step 3

This should be it. Try launching Minecraft now and see if it works.

Bonus: XWayland per instance

If some version of Minecraft doesn't work with the patch enabled, you can disable it through MultiMC just for that version by

• Right clicking on your instance
• Clicking Edit instance
• Going to Settings > Workarounds
• Enabling Native Libraries override switch
• Disabling the GLFW option

You can also disable the global switch and enable the patch per instance if that's how you want to roll.

Bonus: Making Forge work

Due to "Forge being Forge", you will need to add -Dfml.earlyprogresswindow=false to your Java arguments to make Forge instances start up properly. See issue #1 for more information.

Thanks To

I really didn't do much on this other than "re-discovering" these things which aren't even that old. Here are the proper credits:

• ninja- on GitHub

  • For glfw/glfw#1725

• annacrombie on GitHub

  • For glfw/glfw#1711

• christianrauch on GitHub

  • For glfw/glfw#1693