Packaging Tessa

Tessa requires Zig 0.17 and links the wlroots 0.20 ABI. The default build also uses scenefx 0.5. Distribution packages must pin these; the source build refers to wlroots-0.20 explicitly in build.zig.

Arch Linux

Arch’s official repositories provide Zig 0.17 as zig, wlroots 0.20 as wlroots0.20, and scenefx 0.5 as scenefx, which match this tree. Install the build dependencies:

sudo pacman -Syu --needed base-devel git zig wlroots0.20 scenefx \
  wayland wayland-protocols libxkbcommon libinput pixman libdrm \
  libseat libudev libegl libgles2 mesa cairo pango glib2

Then build the tessa-git package:

git clone https://github.com/Keychrom/Tessa.git
cd Tessa/packaging/arch
makepkg -si

The PKGBUILD declares depends=('wlroots0.20' ...) and makedepends=('git' 'zig'); its build step calls scripts/build.sh, which requires Zig 0.17.x.

It installs:

/usr/bin/tessa, /usr/bin/tessa-panel, /usr/bin/tessa-ctl
/usr/bin/tessa-session
/usr/share/wayland-sessions/tessa.desktop
/usr/share/tessa/config.example
/usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/portals/tessa.portal
man pages and documentation under /usr/share

The PKGBUILD depends on scenefx and enables rounded corners and backdrop blur by default. For the plain wlroots scene, build a source checkout with -Dscenefx=false. xwayland-satellite is optional and is available in the AUR as xwayland-satellite-git; without it, X11 applications do not start. kitty/foot are user choices. Screen sharing additionally needs xdg-desktop-portal, xdg-desktop-portal-wlr, and PipeWire. The installed tessa.portal routes the Screenshot and ScreenCast portals to the wlr backend when XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Tessa. With a single monitor, set up ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/config:

[screencast]
chooser_type=none
output_name=HDMI-A-1

Debian / Ubuntu

The debian/ directory at the repository root uses debhelper and Zig. Build on a machine with the development packages in debian/control:

sudo apt install debhelper dpkg-dev fakeroot
ZIG="$HOME/.local/zig-0.17.0/zig" ./scripts/build-deb.sh
sudo apt install ./dist/tessa_<version>_<arch>.deb

0.2.4 may be the final .deb release. It is the last package planned against Zig 0.16 and wlroots 0.19. The current source tree (0.2.5) targets Zig 0.17, wlroots 0.20, and scenefx 0.5; the Debian definitions are kept for downstream packaging but no new binary release is planned.

The Debian build passes -Dscenefx=false because Ubuntu 26.04 has no scenefx 0.5 development package. The .deb therefore uses the plain wlroots scene without rounded corners or backdrop blur.

The script runs dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc -d, collects the .deb, .buildinfo, and .changes under dist/, and prints the package metadata. -d skips the declared build-dependency check because Ubuntu 26.04 packages an older Zig; the script verifies the supplied Zig is 0.17.x instead.

The package installs the same binaries, session entry, example config, and portal selector. The libwlroots-0.20-dev build dependency and the linked wlroots-0.20 pkg-config name pin the compositor ABI.

Zig 0.17 is required. If the distribution packages an older Zig, install the upstream 0.17 toolchain and pass it with ZIG=... before building. Run lintian dist/*.deb for a first packaging audit.

Do not install the .deb on a machine that already has a manual /usr/local install unless you intend to replace it; both copy the same binaries and session entry to different prefixes.

Manual install

For development or a user-local install, use:

./scripts/install-session.sh

This installs under ~/.local by default. PREFIX=/usr/local and sudo may be used for a system-wide install.