Dux brings a free, open-source desktop shell to Wayland with built-in file manager and automatic app theming
Dux: Free, open-source Wayland desktop shell with file manager and theming
Dux is a free, open-source desktop suite for Wayland compositors like niri, Hyprland, Sway, and labwc. It includes a modular shell with dynamic theming, a keyboard-first file manager, system monitoring, a greeter, search, and calendar. The dank16 algorithm generates matching 16-color palettes for GTK and Qt apps, terminals, and editors. Built by 602 contributors and 63 translators, it's installable via a single curl command.
One theme. Across your apps. Dux Modular Shell automatically generates matching colors for supported GTK and Qt apps, terminals, editors, and more.
- shortformblog
Been using this for close to a year (wrote about it here when it was still called Dank Material Shell: https://tedium.co/2026/01/29/niri-danklinux-scrolling-window...); it is endlessly slick, and I think good enough to help mainstream Niri.
It also just added official support for atomic distros like Bazzite; it was previously kind of an annoying gap given the popularity of those distros.
- jeffnash
I was confused for a second, but turns out DMS rebranded the 'Dank' to 'Dux' a few weeks ago [1]. I've been running DMS + Niri for nearly a year now with no intentions of switching anytime soon. Given how often I've historically changed shells/DEs, this is the ricing equivalent to settling down, getting married, and having kids.
- drnick1
This looks at lot like Android.
I am not sure how I feel about the curl | sh installation. This seems lile the kind of project which should become part of a Linux distro and thoroughly reviewed before it can be trusted unconditionally.
- darkwi11ow
https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap
My most anticipated development roadmap these days.
- mariocesar
I use it daily. There was a learning curve since I was used to GNOME Shell, but Niri and the ability to build my own widgets with QML ended up being the killer features for me. I've built several custom widgets and small apps, and I'm happy with my workflow
- whatever1
LLLms brought the ui renaissance! Every forgotten by the god use case now has a pretty ui/tui! Heck even simple scripts now have well documented APIs. I love this.
The downside is that we are likely too late. I don’t see desktop/ apps / window metaphors etc surviving the AI apocalypse.
- nylonstrung
DMS is extremely solid but at this point is becoming more all-encompassing than I honestly want
I've been wanting to try Noctalia with this River-based multi-paradigm compositor (which supports DMS) https://github.com/greenm01/triad
- cadamsdotcom
Great rename, Dux/Tux, keeping the "d" at the start..
Plus, in school the dux is the person who came top of the class.
It's been turning into a very complete desktop env for a while now, surprising it doesn't get talked about more. Glad to see it get exposure on HN.