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pacwall changes your wallpaper to the dependency graph of installed by pacman packages. Each node is a package and each edge represents a dependency between two packages. pacwall highlights outdated packages and orphans. The highlighting is meaningful by default still 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.

Install the pacwall-git AUR package.

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 Xorg sans GNOME, 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

Run pacwall.

The blue dots are manually (explicitly) installed packages, the red ones are automatically (implicitly) installed packages. The outlined teal dots are orphans, the outlined yellow dots are outdated packages. The dashed edges represent optional dependencies, the normal edges represent strict (hard, direct) dependencies. If you don't like the default appearance, goto 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

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

  This flag considerably 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

  See List of settings for details about what the hook is.

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

# comment
// comment

setting: "value"
# or
setting = "value"; # semicolon is optional

group: {
    setting: "value"
    another-group: {
        setting: "value"
        ...
    }
    ...
}

setting: "too-long" # consequtive strings are
         "-value"   # glued together, like in C

Note that you should use ' in value strings wherever you would normally use " and vice versa. It has been done because " is needed far more often and value strings would be littered with ugly escaped \" otherwise.

• 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.

  /usr/share/pacwall/examples/hook contains some example hooks for different setups, one of which you have copied to pacwall.conf in the Installation section.

• 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 orphan packages (separated by commas).

    • outdated (default: color='#b58900aa', fontcolor='#b58900', peripheries=3, xlabel='\\N')

      The attributes that are applied to outdated packages (separated by commas).

  • dependency (group)

    • common (default: color='#fdf6e311)

      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).

You can make use of Pywal User Template Files to integrate pacwall with pywal. Here's an example of such a template:

hook: "hsetroot -solid '{background}' -center '$W' > /dev/null"

attributes: {{
    package: {{
        implicit: "color='{color1}aa'"
        explicit: "color='{color4}aa'"
        orphan:   "color='{color6}aa', fontcolor='{color6}',"
                  "peripheries=2, xlabel='\\N'"
        outdated: "color='{color3}aa', fontcolor='{color3}',"
                  "peripheries=3, xlabel='\\N'"
    }}
    dependency: {{
        common: "color='{foreground}11'"
    }}
}}

You should use the dpi graph attribute to change the size of the graph. Alternatively, you can change node size, font size and graph size separately via their respective attributes. For graph size, it is recommended to use the ranksep attribute instead of size.

You can use entries of form 'package-name' [comma-separated-list-of-package-specific-attributes]; in the attributes.graph setting to specify attributes that should be applied to a specific package.

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.

• pacgraph
• pacvis