Debian installation instructions are incomplete

[ITmaze]

Context: I'm attempting this on a minimal Debian Bookworm installation. To start with, this is a text-only install with only the basic system tools and ssh installed. There is no desktop, no X11, no Wayland, this is on purpose - to discover explicitly what is required to make this work as expected out of the box.

I'm opening this issue to attempt to document what's required to actually make waydroid launch under Debian and which dependencies are missing.

For example, it appears that waydroid is dependent on wayland, but that is not a dependency for the package. Similarly, there's a dependency for pyclip, which doesn't appear to exist as a Debian package and the only "working" solution is to break the system by using the --break-system-packages option for pip, which is also then a dependency, as-in python3-pip.

Note that I am completely unfamiliar with waydroid, but I've been using Debian for nearly 25 years.

I realise that one option is to make this a discussion rather than an issue, but at the end of all this I'm expecting to create (and hopefully close) a range of tickets and pull requests.

Progress to date:

• The standard Debian install does not come with curl, but wget is included in the standard utilities. I recommend that the installation script at https://repo.waydro.id is updated to use wget instead. I do not know where to lodge an issue for that, or where to submit a PR.
• While the installation of waydroid completes, the application does not launch, since it requires a display, but that's not a dependency.
• If I install lxde-core after installing waydroid, I can run waydroid show-full-ui once. It displays a download window and offers a selection of images. Once that's finished downloading, clicking "Done" does nothing.
• Starting it again, shows a missing pyclip as discussed here in an issue that in my opinion should be re-opened.
• Resolving that then reveals that wayland is missing. (I don't have the error handy, after a fresh install I'll see if I can reproduce this.)
• Installing weston (which Debian states is the Wayland reference compositor) offers a new window where you can attempt to launch waydroid show-full-ui.
• After setting $XDG_SESSION_TYPE to wayland, you get a message [gbinder] Service manager /dev/nbox-binder has appeared and nothing else.
• Installing cage depends on xwayland, after adding both, launching cage waydroid show-full-ui returns the same output as above.
• Changing to root and running waydroid container start returns: ERROR: WayDroid container service is already running
• Running waydroid container stop returns nothing and following that with waydroid container start returns the same error as above.
• Running waydroid container restart returns WayDroid container is STOPPED and following that with waydroid container start returns the same error as above.

[Runa-Chin]

Well, from your context I guess you to install any desktop for WM first before using Waydroid. Be advised, make sure you are in Wayland session to start it. And about Debian docs, I think that's enough.

[ITmaze]

I think that you missed my point. Installation of any software on Debian (and its offspring, like Ubuntu) is governed by dependencies that are explicitly enumerated. If you start with an absolutely minimum system, you should be able to use `apt-get install` for any application (like waydroid) and the required dependencies must be automatically pulled in. If you depend on a specific library, make it a dependency and it will be pulled in. As I mentioned, the current waydroid system doesn't work in that way. My use case is likely different from the next user, but we should have the same experience. Currently installing waydroid is not possible using standard Debian packages and one dependency is not available.

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-- finger painting on glass is an inexact art - apologies for any errors in this scra^Hibble ()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno..

On Tue, 30 July 2024, 16:46 Runa Inoue Anderson, ***@***.***> wrote: Well, from your context I guess you to install any desktop for WM first before using Waydroid. Be advised, make sure you are in Wayland session to start it. And about Debian docs, I think that's enough. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#70 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AF4P4JG7L7LXCLWKVOI3STTZO5HFZAVCNFSM6AAAAABHVMEXTOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDENJXHAYDSOJSG4> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>