A new version of miracle-wm, a Mir-based compositor/tiling window manager intended as ‘a flashy, cozy tiling window manager’, is out with various changes.

Miracle-wm 0.7 sees developer Matthew Kosarek, an engineer at Canonical, finish up adding the Sway/i3 Inter-Process Communication (IPC) features he wanted. The result is ‘a ton of new commands’ users can try in the new update, he adds.

With those basics plumbed in, Kosarek teases it’s ‘time to move onto cooler things’, and urges fans to ‘stay tuned’ — exciting stuff. Given the initial pitch for this effort was to create something slick to rival the likes of Hyprland, perhaps bling is on the way.

Other new features in miracle-wm 0.7:

  • Binding events 
  • ‘gaps’ ipc
  • ‘for_window’ command modifier
  • ‘move container to mark’
  • ‘move workspace to output …’
  • ‘nop’ command

Support for mouse configuration has been added, letting acceleration and acceleration profile for mice to be defined, similarly keyboard configuration lets users specify a keyboard language/layout, repeat rate and repeat delay.

Shutdown segfault and window closing animation bugs are fixed.

Plus, code refactoring, Mir version bump and related build adjustments, and other tweaks feature in this update. More information can be gleaned from the miracle-wm GitHub.

Install Miracle-WM on Ubuntu

You can install the miracle-wm snap on Ubuntu, but this should be installed from the command-line since it needs the --classic flag passed: 

sudo snap install miracle-wm --classic

Alternatively, there is an official miracle-wm PPA. This provides pre-packaged builds for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (only). The PPA is often slow to receive new versions, mind. 

Once installed, using it is… Well, you just select the “miracle-wm” session from cog menu on the GDM login screen, and log in with your regular user account password. You won’t see much of anything when you log in, mind.

Why not?

Because miracle-wm is a window manager/compositor, not a kitted-out desktop environment. You are expected to create a configuration file (using a text editor) to define the tools, apps and UI elements you want to use inside of it.

The docs on the project wiki offers pointers on how to get going, along with a list of suggested tools and utilities, like launchers and panels to use (waybar, swaybg and wofi are commonly used).

Since it may be helpful to know, press super + shift + e to log out of miracle-wm if you do login before creating a config file and don’t know how to get out.

You can also run miracle-wm in windowed mode (on Wayland) inside of a different desktop environment,. When editing or tweaking config files this can prove helpful, enabling you to check your changes and edits work without the whiplash of constantly logging in and out.

If all of that sounds too much effort: yup! Control over the entire experience is the main appeal in using something like this — and some would say, the fun of doing it too!