Desktop shell
Background daemons and overlays on your compositor:Status bar
Workspaces, clock, battery, volume, MPRIS, tray, and custom widgets.
Application launcher
Fuzzy app search with calculator, emoji, and clipboard modes.
Workspace overview
Workspace cards, window tiles, search, and an app grid.
Alt-Tab switcher
Window strip for the current workspace (
otter-switcher).Dock
Magnifying dock with pinned apps and window previews.
Taskbar
Windows-style taskbar with Start, tray, and calendar.
Plugins
Extra bar widgets and launcher providers as
.so plugins.Night light
Color-temperature daemon with schedule and bar widget.
Wallpaper
Per-display wallpapers with rotation and lockscreen support.
Theme generator
Wallpaper-reactive colors in
generated-colors.conf, plus optional app templates.Notifications
freedesktop.org notification daemon. Drop-in for mako or dunst.
On-screen display
Volume, brightness, and lock-key overlays.
Settings
Start here. Apps, themes, and bar layout in the GUI.
Display manager
Wayland login greeter with PAM and fingerprint support.
Session services
Lock, logout, idle, and polkit for session security.
Applications
Otter Terminal
Wayland terminal with tabs, splits, shell integration, and URL handling.
File manager
Local, SFTP, and SMB browsing with tabs, splits, and thumbnails.
Package manager
Native apt GUI with change previews and live progress.
System monitor
CPU, memory, GPU, disk, and network views with sortable process tables.
Screenshot & recording
Region capture, annotation, OCR, plus hardware-accelerated recording.
Clipboard manager
Persistent history with search, pinning, and Super+V popup.
Product shot composer
Frame screenshots with gradients, shadows, and custom chrome.
Sticky notes
Markdown notes on a persistent layer-shell surface.
Otter Assistant
Local AI chat on your machine (
otter-shell-extras).Speech tools
On-device transcription and local TTS (via
otter-shell-extras).Small tools
Calculator, emoji picker, color picker, auto-clicker, timer, calendar, and weather helpers.
Jade
Animated otter desktop pet with tamagotchi-style care mechanics.
Otter Bench & HUD
In-game overlay, telemetry, and benchmarks (
otter-gaming-utils).Get started
Installation
Run
pikman install otter-shell.Quick start
Launch apps and bind hotkeys in a few minutes.
Session setup
Autostart shell daemons in your compositor config.
Settings
Themes, bar layout, and app settings in otter-settings.
Developer guide
Build from source and write apps with Otter libraries.