Setting up a Linux userspace graphics dev environment

Published 2023-04-26

This is a simple guide for how to build and run Wayland & Weston.

Set up alternative install location

These build instructions are based on the Wayland instructions from freedesktop.org.

You probably don't want to install experimental builds of software among the usual software of your operating system, so let's define a prefix for where to install our builds.

# Change ALT_LOCAL to any location you like
export WORK_DIR="/opt"
export PROJECT_NAME="feature_x"
export PROJECT_PATH="$WORK_DIR/$PROJECT_NAME"
export ALT_LOCAL="$PROJECT_PATH/local"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$ALT_LOCAL/lib"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$ALT_LOCAL/lib/pkgconfig/:$ALT_LOCAL/share/pkgconfig/"
export PATH="$ALT_LOCAL/bin:$PATH"
export ACLOCAL_PATH="$ALT_LOCAL/share/aclocal"
export ACLOCAL="aclocal -I $ACLOCAL_PATH"

# Needed by autotools
mkdir -p "$ALT_LOCAL/share/aclocal"

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="$ALT_LOCAL/xdg"
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$ALT_LOCAL/home"
export MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink

Installing dependencies

Start by installing the build dependencies of mesa, weston and wayland.

# Enable source packages
sudo sed -e "s/#\sdeb-src/deb-src/g" -i /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update

The above step can alternatively be completed using the GUI of your package manager, by enabling source packages.

# Install build dependencies of mesa
sudo apt build-dep gtk3 gtk4 libinp/opt/zink/local/home/weston.iniut mesa wayland weston xserver

sudo apt install xcb-util-cursor-dev

# Install a recent version of meson
pip3 install --user meson

Building Wayland

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland.git \
cd wayland \
meson build/ --prefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

Building Wayland Protocols

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols.git \
cd wayland-protocols \
meson build/ --prefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

libglvnd OpenGL Vendor-Neutral Dispatch library

git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA/libglvnd.git \
cd libglvnd \
meson setup build/ --prefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

libinput

libinput is a dependency of Weston, handles input devices like keyboards, touchpads and mice.

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput \
cd libinput \
meson setup build/ --prefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

Building Mesa

This build is targeting using swrast for Vulkan and Zink for OpenGL support.

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa.git \
cd mesa
meson setup build/ -Dprefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
  -Degl=x11,wayland,drm \
  -Degl=enabled \
  -Dgallium-drivers=swrast,zink,r600 \
ninja -C build/ install

# On some systems the lib paths need to be symlinked
ln -s "$ALT_LOCAL/lib64" "$ALT_LOCAL/lib"

Weston

Finally we've built all of the dependencies of Weston and can now build it.

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston \
cd weston \
meson setup build/ --prefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

x server

git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/xserver \
cd xserver \
meson setup build/ -Dprefix="$ALT_LOCAL" \
  -Dxkb_bin_dir=/usr/bin \
ninja -C build/ install \
cd ..

Running Weston

That wasn't so bad, it took a little while, but now we're ready to start Weston. Now, let's fire up a (virtual) terminal. Make sure that you're not running an X terminal, ssh terminal or serial terminal.

mkdir -p $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
mkdir -p $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config
cp $PROJECT_PATH/weston/build/compositor/weston.ini $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/
export WESTON_CONFIG_FILE="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/weston.ini"
chmod -R 0700 $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
chmod -R 0700 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME



# Make sure that $DISPLAY is unset.
unset DISPLAY

# And that $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR has been set and created.
if test -z "${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"; then
  export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp/${UID}-runtime-dir
  if ! test -d "${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"; then
    mkdir "${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"
    chmod 0700 "${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}"
  fi
fi

# Run weston:
weston

Try weston applications

Now that we're running weston, let's try some applications. They're located in the top level directory of weston.

weston-terminal
weston-flower
weston-gears
weston-smoke
weston-image
weston-view
weston-resizor
weston-eventdemo

When you've started all of your favorite applications you can grab a screenshot by pressing Super + s, which will save wayland-screenshot.png in your home directory.