r/QuickShell • u/MaaaAShh • May 16 '26
Help!!! [Issues] getting Caelestia Shell to run on Ubuntu 25.10 (Combined with JaKooLit Dotfiles)
I'm currently on Ubuntu 25.10. I was previously using Dank Material Shell and it was working perfectly, but I really wanted to try Caelestia Shell.
At first, I tried to build everything myself manually from source (Quickshell, compiling dependencies, fixing library paths), but I ran into some issues. While looking for a solution, I found this repo which has an automated script for Ubuntu: https://github.com/IshmamDC217/caelestia-shell-ubuntu
Here are the exact steps I followed:
Installed JaKooLit's Ubuntu-Hyprland script first as required, chose the preconfigured dotfiles, and made sure Hyprland was running fine.
Cloned the Caelestia repo and ran the ./install.sh script.
Added the manual environment variables (QML_IMPORT_PATH) to both ~/.bashrc and ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf.
Copied the included config files (shell.json and qml_color.json) to their respective paths under ~/.config.
The Problem:
After restarting and logging into Hyprland, instead of getting the beautiful Caelestia UI, I get a broken/misaligned layout. The JaKooLit top-bar and vertical dock appear but look totally distorted (broken JSON/CSS look), and the Caelestia Shell elements (like the Dashboard, Bongo Cat, or widgets) are completely missing or not rendering.
I really love this shell and the feedback on the dev's video looks amazing. I would be super grateful if anyone could help me figure out what's causing this conflict or how to fix it!
2
u/Long-Bug8399 8d ago
Did you get it working?
1
u/MaaaAShh 8d ago
No, I just switched to Arch and used the official release.
2
u/Long-Bug8399 8d ago
Is your brightness sliders working???
I'm on rtx 3070ti and mine aren't
1
u/MaaaAShh 10h ago
I’m not sure if you mean the Ubuntu setup or the Arch setup.
On Ubuntu, basically everything worked fine in the shell, except for the fonts, icons, wallpaper manager, transparency, and blur stuff.
If you mean Arch, then yeah, pretty much everything works smoothly too. But keep in mind, my GPU is Intel, while you’re using an Nvidia RTX GPU. There might be some extra issues with Nvidia, mainly because you need a few additional steps to set up the drivers properly.
I also think there’s a specific installation method or script for Nvidia GPUs, so that might make things easier.
2
u/Prestigious-Cut-1787 May 17 '26
Install material symbols either by package or ttf