Dank Linux

A comprehensive installer and management tool for DankMaterialShell, a modern desktop environment built on Quickshell for Wayland compositors.

• dankinstall Installs the Dank Linux suite for niri and/or Hyprland
  • Features the DankMaterialShell
    • Which features a complete desktop experience with wallpapers, auto theming, notifications, lock screen, etc.
  • Offers up solid out of the box configurations as usable, featured starting points.
  • Can be installed if you already have niri/Hyprland configured
    • Will allow you to keep your existing config, or replace with Dank ones (existing configs always backed up though)
• dms Management wrapper for the Dank Linux Suite
  • Handle updates
  • Process ipc commands
  • Run dank shell

Quickstart

curl -fsSL https://install.danklinux.com | sh

Alternatively, download the latest release

Supported Distributions

Note on Greeter: dankinstall does not install a greeter.

• Start niri with niri-session, or Hyprland with Hyprland
• If you want a greeter such as gdm, sddm, tuigreet - follow your distribution's guide.

Arch Linux & Derivatives

Supported: Arch, CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Manjaro

Special Notes:

• Uses native pacman for system packages
• AUR packages are built manually using makepkg (no AUR helper dependency)
• Recommendations
  • Use NetworkManager to manage networking
  • If using archinstall, you can choose minimal for profile, and NetworkManager under networking.

Package Sources:

Package	Source	Notes
System packages (git, jq, etc.)	Official repos	Via pacman
quickshell	AUR	Built from source
matugen	AUR (matugen-bin)	Pre-compiled binary
dgop	AUR	Built from source
niri	Official repos (niri)	Latest niri
hyprland	Official repos	Available in Extra repository
DankMaterialShell	Manual	Git clone to ~/.config/quickshell/dms

Fedora & Derivatives

Supported: Fedora, Nobara, Asahi

Special Notes:

• Requires dnf-plugins-core for COPR repository support
• Automatically enables required COPR repositories
• All COPR repos are enabled with automatic acceptance
• Editions dankinstall is tested on "Workstation Edition", but probably works fine on any fedora flavor. Report issues if anything doesn't work.
• Fedora Asahi Remix hasn't been tested, but presumably it should work fine as all of the dependencies should provide arm64 variants.

Package Sources:

Package	Source	Notes
System packages	Official repos	Via dnf
quickshell	COPR	errornointernet/quickshell
matugen	COPR	solopasha/hyprland
dgop	Manual	Built from source with Go
cliphist	COPR	alternateved/cliphist
ghostty	COPR	alternateved/ghostty
hyprland	COPR	solopasha/hyprland
niri	COPR	yalter/niri
DankMaterialShell	Manual	Git clone to ~/.config/quickshell/dms

Ubuntu

Supported: Ubuntu 25.04+

Special Notes:

• Requires PPA support via software-properties-common
• Go installed from PPA for building manual packages
• Most packages require manual building due to limited repository availability
  • This means the install can be quite slow, as many need to be compiled from source.
  • niri is packages as a .deb so it can be managed via apt
• Automatic PPA repository addition and package list updates

Package Sources:

Package	Source	Notes
System packages	Official repos	Via apt
quickshell	Manual	Built from source with cmake
matugen	Manual	Built from source with Go
dgop	Manual	Built from source with Go
hyprland	PPA	ppa:cppiber/hyprland
hyprpicker	PPA	ppa:cppiber/hyprland
niri	Manual	Built from source with Rust
Go compiler	PPA	ppa:longsleep/golang-backports
DankMaterialShell	Manual	Git clone to ~/.config/quickshell/dms

NixOS (Not Currently Support)

NixOS is not supported atm due to the flake needing some adjustments for defaults/Hyprland, it will be re-enabled in the future. You can install the dms flake manually still and get most of what you need for this setup

Supported: NixOS

Special Notes:

• Window managers (hyprland/niri) should be managed through configuration.nix, not the installer
  • This means we require hyprland or niri to be installed first.
• Uses nix profile for user-level package installation
• All packages sourced from nixpkgs or flakes
• DMS installed as a flake package (not git clone like other distributions)

Requires the following in configuration.nix

{
  nix.settings.experimental-features = ["nix-command flakes"];
}

Package Sources:

Package	Source	Notes
All system packages	nixpkgs	Via nix profile install nixpkgs#package
quickshell	Flake	Built from source
matugen	Flake	Built from source
dgop	Flake	Built from source
DankMaterialShell	Flake	Installed via nix profile
hyprland	System config	programs.hyprland.enable = true in configuration.nix
niri	System config	Add to environment.systemPackages in configuration.nix

Manual Package Building

The installer handles manual package building for packages not available in repositories:

quickshell (Ubuntu, NixOS)

• Built from source using cmake
• Requires Qt6 development libraries
• Automatically handles build dependencies

matugen (Ubuntu, NixOS, Fedora)

• Built from Go source
• Requires Go 1.19+
• Installed to /usr/local/bin

dgop (All distros)

• Built from Go source
• Simple dependency-free build
• Installed to /usr/local/bin

niri (Ubuntu)

• Built from Rust source
• Requires cargo and rust toolchain
• Complex build with multiple dependencies

Commands

dankinstall

Main installer with interactive TUI for initial setup

dms

Management interface for DankMaterialShell:

• dms - Interactive management TUI
• dms run - Start interactive shell
• dms run -d - Start shell as daemon
• dms restart - Restart running DMS shell
• dms kill - Kill running DMS shell processes
• dms ipc <command> - Send IPC commands to running shell