Introducing wpe-webkit-mir-kiosk snap

After quite some time and refactoring1, I just pushed a new build of wpe-webkit-mir-kiosk with WPE 2.30.2 + accompanying libraries + cog 0.8.0. It is now available on the edge channel, but currently only for amd64 (see further down).

  • Latest stable releases of libwpe, wpebackend-fdo, wpewebkit and cog
  • Now based on the gnome-3-34 extension:
    • vastly improved startup time (bye snapcraft-preload and desktop-helpers)
    • reduced size
    • … all the benefits I don’t realize yet
  • Already since rev47: watcher service to restart the browser if/when the mir kiosk Wayland socket goes away, e.g. during a mir-kiosk refresh.

All interested are cordially invited to test it out, and to scrutinize the snapcraft.yaml – special invitation to @kenvandine , @ogra, @alan_g and @cjp256 , whose input has been helpful at various stages of this snap. Yeah, I know there are still lots of commented lines :smile:

@kanishkasw I also added the audio-playback interface, didn’t test yet if it works or if additional things are required. (ping @sil who had this requirement as well)

Still on to-do is a completing ARM build: A native build on Raspi 4 with 4GB RAM aborted several times, will see if it works with 4GB of swap. Launchpad builders are no longer an option: I decided to drop the split between a content snap and the kiosk snap in favor of a consistent gnome sdk environment. This also means that snapcraft has to pull in additional sources after >> 2h of build time, which is where LP builders get their connection cut off.

I guess I’ll have to put in some more hours (days) for a dive into cross-compilation, any hints appreciated.

^1: and frustration paired with imposter syndrome

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