Week 2 Lab: Reading the stack

Week 2 lab, name every layer of your desktop, and choose the stack you will build on

1 March 2027

The lab where the desktop stops being one thing and becomes the several programs it actually is.

Before the lab#

Bring the stack inventory from last week’s lecture: every layer named, and the one program you expect to fight most.

In the lab#

We install a bare compositor together and reach a session with nothing riced yet, so you can see the plain material before you decorate it. You commit to X11 or Wayland here, out loud, because almost everything after this depends on it.

Afterwards#

You leave on a chosen stack, with an empty desktop and no more mystery about what sits under the skin.