hyprland-wiki/pages/Getting Started/Master-Tutorial.md

---
weight: 1
title: Master tutorial
---

If you are coming to Hyprland for the first time, this is the main tutorial to
read.

This tutorial will cover literally
everything you need to just get things going. It does link to other pages where
necessary.

## Install Hyprland

See [Installation](../Installation) and come back here once you have
successfully installed Hyprland.

Install `kitty` (default terminal emulator) terminal. This is available in most
distros' repositories.

## NVIDIA?

_If not using an NVIDIA card, skip this step_

Please take a look at [The Nvidia page](../../Nvidia) before launching. It has a
lot of info regarding the needed environment and tweaks.

## VM?

_If not using a VM, skip this step_

In a VM, make sure you have 3D acceleration enabled in your virtio config (or
virt-manager) otherwise Hyprland _**will not work**_.

You can also passthru a GPU to make it work.

Please bear in mind 3D accel in VMs may be pretty slow.

## Launching Hyprland

Now, you can just execute `Hyprland` in your tty.

**!IMPORTANT**: Do **not** launch Hyprland with `root` permissions (don't
`sudo`)

You can see some launch flags by doing `Hyprland -h`, these include setting the
config path, ignoring a check for the above, etc.

Login managers are not officially supported, but here's a short compatibility
list:

- SDDM → Works flawlessly. Install sddm ⩾ 0.20.0 or the
  [latest git version](https://github.com/sddm/sddm) (or
  [sddm-git](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/sddm-git) from AUR) to prevent
  SDDM bug [1476](https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/1476) (90s shutdowns).
- GDM → Works with the caveat of crashing Hyprland on the first launch
- ly → Works poorly

## In Hyprland

You're good to go with your adventure, technically.

Use <key>SUPER</key> + <key>Q</key> to launch kitty. If you wish to choose the
default terminal before you proceed, you can do so in
`~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf`
([example config](https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/blob/main/example/hyprland.conf)).

If you want the best experience with less hassle googling, keep reading.

## Critical software

See the [Must-have Software page](../../Useful-Utilities/Must-have) for the
crucial things to make Wayland / Hyprland / other apps work correctly.

## Monitors config

See [Configuring Hyprland page](../../Configuring/Monitors) to learn all about
configuring your displays.

## Apps / X11 replacements

See the [Useful Utilities page](../../Useful-Utilities) and the
[Sway wiki page](https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway)
just about that. You can also visit the
[Awesome-Hyprland](https://github.com/hyprland-community/awesome-hyprland)
repository for a more comprehensive list.

## Fully configure

Head onto the
[Configuring Hyprland page](../../Configuring/Configuring-Hyprland) to learn all
about configuring Hyprland to your likings.

## Cursors

Cursors are a notorious pain to set up when you don't know how. See
[this FAQ entry](../../FAQ#how-do-i-change-me-mouse-cursor)

If your cursor does not appear, then see
[this FAQ entry](../../FAQ#me-cursor-no-render)

## Themes

Since this is not a fully-fledged Desktop Environment, you will need to use tools
such as `lxappearance` and `nwg-look` (recommended) for GTK, and `qt5ct` /
`qt6ct` for their respective Qt versions. Some older applications may also
require `qt4ct`.

## Force apps to use Wayland

A lot of apps will use Wayland by default. Chromium (and other browsers based on
it or electron) don't. You need to pass
`--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland` to them or use
`.conf` files where possible. Chromium-based browsers also should have a toggle
in `chrome://flags`. Search for _"ozone"_ and select Wayland. If you are on NixOS
you can also set the environment variable `NIXOS_OZONE_WL=1` in your configuration.

For most electron apps, you should put the above in
`~/.config/electron-flags.conf`. VSCode is known to not work with that though.

A few more environment variables for forcing Wayland mode are documented
[here](../../Configuring/Environment-variables).

You can check whether an app is running in xwayland or not with
`hyprctl clients`.