pacwall changes your wallpaper to the dependency graph of installed with pacman packages. Each node is a package and each edge represents a dependency between two packages. pacwall highlights outdated packages, orphans, and packages with .pacnew files. The highlighting is customizable.

pacwall is bundled with systemd units that provide functionality such as triggering wallpaper regeneration on package upgrade/removal/installation, as well as periodical regeneration, which ensures that the displayed set of available updates is up-to-date.

Installation

Install the pacwall-git AUR package.

pacwall doesn't know how to set a wallpaper by itself. Therefore, pacwall requires help in the form of shell commands. Such commands are called hook. There are some example hooks for different setups, one of which you should copy to your local config.

If you use GNOME, run:

sudo pacman -S --needed imagemagick xorg-xdpyinfo
mkdir -p ~/.config/pacwall
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/gsettings ~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf

If you use KDE Plasma, run:

mkdir -p ~/.config/pacwall
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/plasmash ~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/oneblackpixel.png ~/.config/pacwall/

If you use Xorg sans GNOME/KDE, run:

sudo pacman -S --needed hsetroot
mkdir -p ~/.config/pacwall
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/hsetroot ~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf

If you use Sway, run:

mkdir -p ~/.config/pacwall
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/swaymsg ~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf

If you use Hyprland, run:

sudo pacman -S --needed swaybg
mkdir -p ~/.config/pacwall
cp /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/swaybg ~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf

For some setups, e.g. XFCE, there are no example hooks. Furthermore, the example hooks can have bugs. You can verify that pacwall itself works fine by examining the image that it has generated at ~/.cache/pacwall/pacwall.png.

If you use the standard hsetroot hook along with a systemd unit listed below, you may notice that the package graph disappears if the unit triggers while your screen is turned off (typically due to DPMS timeout). This can be fixed by using the /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook/hsetroot-dpms hook instead of the plain hsetroot one. However, on multi-display systems, this may cause undesired stretching of the graph over multiple screens.

Usage

Run pacwall.

The circles represent packages, where the area of a circle is proportional to the size of the package. The blue circles are manually (explicitly) installed packages, the red ones are automatically (implicitly) installed packages. The green circles are packages not found in the official non-testing repositories (e.g. from the AUR). The outlined teal circles are orphans, the outlined yellow circles are outdated packages. The outlined magenta circles are packages with unresolved .pacnew files (it's time to run pacdiff). The dashed edges represent optional dependencies, the normal edges represent strict (hard, direct) dependencies. The appearance is customizable, see Customization.

If you want the wallpaper to be persistent, run pacwall -ug in the init file of DE or WM you use. pacwall -ug doesn't regenerate the wallpaper, it just sets the most recent one.

If you want the wallpaper to be automatically updated when a package is upgraded/removed/installed, run:

systemctl --user enable pacwall-watch-packages.path

Note that this one runs pacwall -u i.e. the displayed set of available updates can only shrink.

If you want the wallpaper to be refreshed each hour with the up-to-date set of available updates displayed, run:

systemctl --user enable pacwall-watch-updates.timer

If you use Sway, you must run systemctl --user import-environment SWAYLOCK by the time the systemd units are triggered. They will fail otherwise.

CLI

• -u: do not attempt to add entries to the set of available updates

  This flag speed-ups pacwall. It also puts off some load from the Arch mirrors, though the load is arguably minor.

• -g: do not regenerate the graph

  This flag doesn't prevent from adding entries to the set of available updates, but the entries will not be visible until the graph is regenerated.

• -k: do not run the hook

Customization

~/.config/pacwall/pacwall.conf is used to configure pacwall. The file is in the libconfig format. TL;DR:

# comment
setting: "foo"
group: {
    nestedSetting: "bar"
    nestedGroup: {
        nestedNestedSetting: "baz"
    }
}
longSetting: "A sequence of strings "
             "is concatenated into "
             "one, like in C."

Note that you must use ' in value strings wherever you would normally use " and vice versa. This avoids tons of ugly escaped \".

List of settings

• hook (no default value)

  The shell commands that are executed after the graph has been generated. The hook is expected to set the wallpaper. The path to the graph image is exported in the $W environmental variable.

• shell (default: bash)

  The shell in which the commands specified in hook ought to be executed.

• db (default: /var/lib/pacman)

  The path to the pacman packages database.

• attributes (group)

  The group that contains graphviz attributes, which modify the appearance of the graph, nodes, and edges in various ways. See the GRAPH, NODE AND EDGE ATTRIBUTES section in man twopi. Beware that attributes specific to layouts other than twopi won't work.

  /usr/share/pacwall/examples/attributes/default contains the attributes that are identical to the hardcoded defaults. It may be easier for you to copy them to your pacwall.conf and then further modify instead of writing these settings from scratch. You can also try out the other examples in the directory.

  • graph (default: bgcolor='#00000000')

    The graph attributes (separated by semicolons).

  • package (group)

    • common (default: shape=point, height=0.1, fontname=monospace, fontsize=10)

      The attributes that are applied to all packages (separated by commas).

    • implicit (default: color='#dc322faa')

      The attributes that are applied to implicitly (i.e. to satisfy dependencies of some other packages) installed packages (separated by commas).

    • explicit (default: color='#268bd2aa')

      The attributes that are applied to explicitly installed packages (separated by commas).

    • orphan (default: color='#2aa198aa', fontcolor='#2aa198', peripheries=2, xlabel='\\N')

      The attributes that are applied to packages installed to satisfy some dependencies and not directly required anymore (separated by commas).

    • unneeded (no default value)

      The attributes that are applied to orphan packages that are not optionally required either (separated by commas).

    • outdated (default: color='#b58900aa', fontcolor='#b58900', peripheries=3, xlabel='\\N')

      The attributes that are applied to outdated packages (separated by commas).

    • unresolved (default: color='#d33682aa', fontcolor='#d33682', peripheries=4, xlabel='\\N')

      The attributes that are applied to packages with .pacnew files (separated by commas).

      These files are better to deal with immediately.

    • repository (group) (default:

      core: ""
      extra: ""
      community: ""
      multilib: ""
      *: "color='#859900aa'"
      

      )

      The group that maps attributes to packages based on the origin repositories. Settings in this group are in the form of repository: "comma-separated attributes"

      Only one set of attributes from this group is applied to a package; if a package is present in more than one repository, the first (from top to bottom) set takes precedence.

      A special entry in the form of *: "comma-separated attributes" is supported. The attributes will be applied to packages that are not present in any of the specified repositories. This entry should come last.

  • dependency (group)

    • common (default: color='#fdf6e30a')

      The attributes that are applied to all dependencies (separated by commas).

    • hard (no default value)

      The attributes that are applied to hard (as opposed to optional) dependencies (separated by commas).

    • optional (default: arrowhead=empty, style=dashed)

      The attributes that are applied to optional dependencies (separated by commas).

• features (group)

  The group that contains settings that control optional features.

  • installed-size (group) (default:

    enabled: true
    delta: 2e-5
    

    )

    The group that contains settings that control the installed size representation feature. If enabled is true, the height and width attributes of nodes are overwritten so that the area covered by a node is proportional to the size of the installed package. The formula is:

    width in inches = height in inches = (installed size in bytes)^(1/2) * delta
    

    Note that values of these settings are not strings and omit the quotes enclosing them.

Tips and tricks

Background image

Via hsetroot

If hsetroot is used as the wallpaper setter, use the built-in multilayer feature, e.g.:

hook: "hsetroot -fill '/path/to/background' -center '$W' > /dev/null"

Via imagemagick

Use the convert command, e.g.:

hook: "convert '/path/to/background.png' '$W' -gravity center -compose over -composite '$W';"
      "…"

The imagemagick package is required.

Pywal

Make use of Pywal User Template Files to integrate pacwall with pywal. See an example of such template here.

Graph size

Use the dpi graph attribute to scale the whole image.

Alternatively, change node size, font size, and graph size separately via their respective attributes. Use the ranksep graph attribute instead of size.

Highlighting specific packages

Entries of the form 'package-name' [comma-separated-list-of-attributes]; in the attributes.graph setting add attributes to a specific package.

Web-graph

If you want nice web-graph like on the following image:

Then create the following config:

attributes: {
    # Dark background for proper visibility. On bright background
    # edges of dependencies would be almost invisible. If you'll
    # increase their opacity they'll overlap with text and circles.
    graph: "bgcolor='#16161d' ratio=0.58 overlap=false",
    package: {
        common: "shape=point",
    },
    dependency: {
        # Notice opacity on colors of edges, it's very important.
        # Also, width of edges is reduced to make them less bold.
        common: "color='#fdf6e30a', arrowhead='dot', arrowsize=0.6, penwidth=0.6"
        optional: "color='#fdf6e0f', penwidth=0.4"
    }
}

Here the most important property is overlap=false which renders web graph instead of defalut circled. Also important is ratio=0.58 which you should calculate by dividing screen height per screen width.

Migrating from v1.*

pacwall v2.* is written in C and is very different from the v1.* one, which is a Bash script. Migrating should be straightforward, though, unless you don't run an Arch-based distro. v2.* is pacman-only and will likely remain such.

Similar software

• pacgraph
• pacvis