Unmet dependencies continue to prevent available Espanso packages from installing on my machine running Debian 12. Given that I depend on Espanso to expand all kinds of text and wanted to upgrade to the latest version for Wayland, I updated the following instructions and installed from source.
Following these instructions, Espanso 2.2.1 for Wayland will be installed on your system and enabled for the current user.
Compiling Espanso from source code
Side-step any dependency problems by compliling Espanso from source and moving the binary into place.
Step 1
Install the required C/C++ compiler and some additional tools.
$ sudo apt-get install --yes build-essential curl git wl-clipboard libxkbcommon-dev libdbus-1-dev libwxgtk3.*-dev libssl-dev
Step 2
Install the required Rust compiler, which is managed by the rustup tool.
$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh&&source ~/.bashrc
Press [Enter] to proceed with the installation.
Current installation options: 1) Proceed with instalation (default) 2) Customize installation 3) Cancel installation >
Install cargo-make, which is required during the build process.
$ cargo install --force cargo-make --version 0.34.0
Step 3
Get the source code by cloning the Espanso repository to the local directory ~/.local/src/espanso.
$ git clone --progress https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso ~/.local/src/espanso
Step 4
Compile the Espanso binary as a Wayland-only build in release mode.
$ cargo make --cwd ~/.local/src/espanso --profile release --env NO_X11=true build-binary
Move the resulting binary to the /usr/local/bin directory.
$ sudo mv ~/.local/src/espanso/target/release/espanso /usr/local/bin/
Step 5
Give Espanso the permissions required for operation.
$ sudo setcap "cap_dac_override+p" $(which espanso)
Check to see if the Espanso binary was installed successfuly.
$ espanso --version
Step 6
Register Espanso as a systemd service.
$ espanso service register
Launch Espanso.
$ espanso start && espanso status
Step 7
GNOME desktop only: remove the conflicting default shortcut for activating the window menu.
Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > View and Customize Shortcuts > Windows > Activate the window menu > [Backspace]
Use [Alt + Space] to open Espanso’s Search bar.
All Done!
Experimental support for Wayland
Espanso has some known limitations under Wayland. Most notably, “there is currently no support for App-specific configurations”.
Big ‘Thank you’ to Federico Terzi for creating Espanso!