[wpe-webkit] AArch64 builds in AUR

Mon Feb 25 00:09:07 PST 2019

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019, at 11:32 PM, Andrea Giammarchi wrote:
> > While I am quite confident that things *should* work on AArch64
> 
> libwpe-git builds out of the box but wpewebkit is, indeed non-compilable from the Pi3+

Hi,

do you mean here that you have already tried cross-compiling wpewebkit, and are seeing compilation errors in doing that?

If so, can you provide more details about these errors?

Regards,
Zan

> > Having packages readily available for Raspbian ...
> 
> That's the thing, ArchLinux has already everything updated compared to Raspbian, and AUR has, AFAIK, no Raspbian equivalent.
> 
> We could have stable on AUR, and dev/test builds still on AUR, as it's been the case for most platform that needs actual real tests, not just final stable user-land ready releases (i.e. proton, wine, and friends).
> 
> > The main issue I see here is that in particular the “wpewebkit” package would take ages to build on the Raspberry Pi
> 
> My idea is that it doesn't need to be built on a Pi, and I'm sure there is a way to cross-build anything on ArchLinux, 'cause Cairo, GTK and others, are surely not built on a Pi.
> 
> Maybe we can start a thread in the ArchLinuxARM forum about this, and see what's the outcome?
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 6:44 PM Adrian Perez de Castro <aperez at igalia.com> wrote:
>> Hello Andrea!
>> 
>>  On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 14:29:59 +0100, Andrea Giammarchi <andrea.giammarchi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  > Dear WPE WebKit team,
>>  >
>>  > I've just recently discovered your project and I'm the author of the
>>  > defunct project Benja [1] and also the post about having a minimalistic
>>  > WebKitGTK+ kiosk mode on the Raspberry Pi 3.
>>  > 
>>  > I've always preferred WebKit on ARM for the simple reason that Chromium
>>  > never cared much to be there or, in general, to support Wayland where
>>  > possible.
>>  > 
>>  > The reason I am here is Sam Decrock and his recent post on how to build WPE
>>  > for the RPi3 via Buildroot.
>>  > 
>>  > You probably know already that AUR contains already libwpe +
>>  > libwpe-git, wpewebkit, and wpebackend-fdo, which I believe is the whole
>>  > stack needed to start WPE.
>> 
>>  As a matter of fact, I am pretty much aware of the AUR packages, because
>>  I am the one maintaining them :-)
>> 
>>  On top of those three packages (libwpe, wpebackend-fdo, and wpewebkit) you
>>  will need an actual “web browser” or, as we prefer to call something that
>>  is not a full-fledged browser, a WPE “launcher”. Given that your goal is to
>>  have a kiosk mode browser, I would recommend Cog [1] — for which there is
>>  a package in the AUR as well [2].
>> 
>>  > However, none of those packages target also aarch64, and on top of that,
>>  > none of them is already built for the RPi3.
>> 
>>  The reason why none of the packages are marked as available for AArch64 is
>>  simple: lack of testing. Personally I am not particularly comfortable to add
>>  the platform as supported if I have not built and tried the packages for a
>>  new architecture. Which is also the reason why there is no “wpebackend-rdk”
>>  package yet (my main focus is the “-fdo” backend).
>> 
>>  While I am quite confident that things *should* work on AArch64 because now
>>  and then I do builds for the Raspberry Pi 3 myself using Buildroot, I do not
>>  have spare time right now to do the same for the AUR packages. If anyone would
>>  be willing to help out building and testing them for AArch64 (or other
>>  architectures), then I would be super happy give some guidance and to add
>>  AArch64 as supported.
>> 
>>  > Having a pre built, up-to-date version, of your stack, would make
>>  > prototyping in the most used embedded device a no brainer, and it will also
>>  > help projects being updates, without the need to create yet another
>>  > distribution platform to update non official stable releases.
>>  >
>>  > Accordingly, for the sake of providing the best browser out there for IoT &
>>  > DYI related projects, and for an officially declared LTS platform as the
>>  > RPi3 is, I wonder if there is any interest in publishing these "bricks" as
>>  > AUR aarch64 packages that will make the creation of anything Web based via
>>  > ArchLinux finally a reality.
>> 
>>  I completely agree with you: having prebuilt packages (or images) for popular
>>  platforms like the Raspberry Pi would definitely help people who want to try
>>  out things quickly and tinker with WPE WebKit. Having packages readily
>>  available for Raspbian (which is a very popular option) would be great as
>>  well.
>> 
>>  One of my long term plans has been having ready-to-use images built using
>>  Buildroot for the Raspberry Pi 3 built automatically for official releases,
>>  and maybe even some kind of “tech preview” monthly builds. Just last week
>>  we got the base packages and Cog into the “next” branch [3], so prebuilt
>>  images are getting closer to being a reality.
>> 
>>  > I'm here to help as I can or, if you can tell me how to build from a PC all
>>  > the needed parts using system libraries so that I can produce such
>>  > packages, I'd love to create rpi3-libwpe, rpi3-wpewebkit, and
>>  > rpi3-wpebackend-fdo for the already awesome ArchLinuxARM community.
>> 
>>  The main issue I see here is that in particular the “wpewebkit” package
>>  would take ages to build on the Raspberry Pi, and it could even be that the
>>  linker would fail due to running out of memory. Ideally one would cross
>>  compile from a powerful machine, which apparently is possible using distcc,
>>  according to the Arch Linux ARM wiki [4]. That would still need a “master”
>>  ARM device to distribute compilation to other machine(s), and the linker
>>  would run on the master ARM device and running out of memory is still a
>>  possibility :-\
>> 
>>  Do you have any idea if cross compiling an Arch Linux package is possible
>>  without needing a “master” ARM device? That would be helpful.
>> 
>>  > Thank you in advance for any sort of outcome.
>>  > 
>>  > [1] http://benja.io
>>  > [2] https://medium.com/@WebReflection/a-minimalistic-64-bit-web-kiosk-for-rpi-3-98e460419b47
>>  > [3] https://medium.com/@decrocksam/building-web-applications-for-wpe-webkit-using-node-js-3347146013f3
>> 
>>  I hope the above helps out a bit, at least to understand the situation.
>> 
>> 
>>  -Adrián
>> 
>>  ---
>>  [1] https://github.com/Igalia/cog
>>  [2] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cog/
>>  [3] e.g. https://git.busybox.net/buildroot/tree/package/wpewebkit?h=next
>>  [4] https://archlinuxarm.org/wiki/Distcc_Cross-Compiling
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