Compiling

You can compile Ironbar from source using cargo. Just clone the repo and build:

git clone https://github.com/jakestanger/ironbar.git
cd ironbar
cargo build --release
# change path to wherever you want to install
install target/release/ironbar ~/.local/bin/ironbar

It is also recommended to install a Nerd Font for displaying symbols.

Build requirements

To build from source, you must have GTK (>= 3.22) and GTK Layer Shell installed. You also need rust; only the latest stable version is supported.

Arch

pacman -S gtk3 gtk-layer-shell
# for http support
pacman -S openssl
# for volume support
pacman -S libpulse
# for lua/cairo support
pacman -S luajit lua51-lgi

Ubuntu/Debian

apt install build-essential libgtk-3-dev libgtk-layer-shell-dev
# for http support
apt install libssl-dev
# for volume support
apt install libpulse-dev
# for lua/cairo support
apt install luajit-dev lua-lgi

Fedora

dnf install gtk3-devel gtk-layer-shell-devel
# for http support
dnf install openssl-devel
# for volume support
dnf install pulseaudio-libs-devel
# for lua/cairo support
dnf install luajit-devel lua-lgi

Features

By default, all features are enabled for convenience. This can result in a significant compile time. If you know you are not going to need all the features, you can compile with only the features you need.

As of v0.15.0, compiling with no features is about 50% faster. On a 3800X, it takes about 45 seconds for no features and 90 seconds for all. This difference is expected to increase as the bar develops.

Features containing a + can be stacked, for example config+json and config+yaml could both be enabled.

To build using only specific features, disable default features and pass a comma separated list to cargo build:

cargo build --release --no-default-features \
  --features http,config+json,clock

⚠ Make sure you enable at least one config feature otherwise you will not be able to start the bar!

Feature	Description
Core
http	Enables HTTP features. Currently this includes the ability to load remote images.
ipc	Enables the IPC server.
cli	Enables the CLI. Will also enable ipc.
config+all	Enables support for all configuration languages.
config+json	Enables configuration support for JSON.
config+yaml	Enables configuration support for YAML.
config+toml	Enables configuration support for TOML.
config+corn	Enables configuration support for Corn.
config+ron	Enables configuration support for Ron.
Modules
cairo	Enables the cairo module
clipboard	Enables the clipboard module.
clock	Enables the clock module.
focused	Enables the focused module.
launcher	Enables the launcher module.
music+all	Enables the music module with support for all player types.
music+mpris	Enables the music module with MPRIS support.
music+mpd	Enables the music module with MPD support.
notifications	Enables the notiications module.
sys_info	Enables the sys_info module.
tray	Enables the tray module.
upower	Enables the upower module.
volume	Enables the volume module.
workspaces+all	Enables the workspaces module with support for all compositors.
workspaces+sway	Enables the workspaces module with support for Sway.
workspaces+hyprland	Enables the workspaces module with support for Hyprland.
Other
schema	Enables JSON schema support and the CLI --print-schema flag.

Speeding up compiling

With the full feature set, Ironbar can take a good while to compile. There are a couple of tricks which can be used to improve compile times.

Linker

The default GCC linker is slow - it takes nearly half of the compile time. As an alternative, you can use mold.

Install the package for your distro, create/modify the .cargo/config.toml file inside the project dir, then add the following:

[target.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu]
rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold"]

Caching

To speed up subsequent rebuilds, Mozilla's sccache tool can be used. This provides a cache of Rust modules which can be re-used when compiling any other crate.

Install the package for your distro, create/modify the .cargo/config.toml file inside the project dir, then add the following:

[build]
rustc-wrapper = "/usr/bin/sccache"

Tip

To get the most of out sccache, you can add this to $HOME/.cargo/config.toml to enable caching for all Cargo builds.

Codegen Backend

Warning

The Cranelift backend is experimental and requires the use of the nightly compiler. It is designed for development builds only.

If working on the Ironbar codebase, you may see some benefit from using the Cranelift compiler backend. This is known to shave a further few seconds off the compile time (bringing down from 10 to 7-8 on my own hardware).

Firstly install the component:

rustup component add rustc-codegen-cranelift-preview --toolchain nightly

Then create/modify the .cargo/config.toml file inside the project dir, and add the following:

[unstable]
codegen-backend = true

[profile.dev]
codegen-backend = "cranelift"