Bug#977857: libreoffice-common: On Wayland, it doesn't work without the xwayland pkg but installation does not pull xwayland as a dependency

[jman]

Package: libreoffice-common
Version: 1:7.0.4~rc2-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

I have installed Libreoffice on a Wayland+Sway system without any X11 package (included xwayland).

Upon starting libreoffice I get an error because the display :0 is tried:

```
$ soffice --version
LibreOffice 7.0.4.2 00(Build:2)

$ soffice
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin X11 error: Can't open display:
Set DISPLAY environment variable, use -display option
or check permissions of your X-Server
(See "man X" resp. "man xhost" for details)
```

I tried setting these env vars but it didn't work:

```
export _JAVA_AWT_WM_NONREPARENTING=1
export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland-egl
export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct
export QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI=96
export QT_WAYLAND_DISABLE_WINDOWDECORATION=1
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk3
```

In order to make Libreoffice work, the package `xwayland` should be installed as a dependency.

Unless I'm wrong, I believe the real issue is that Libreoffice does not work on a pure Wayland
installation, but this fact is not very clear to the user. I've tried searching for related issue on
the Libreoffice buttracker but found none.

Suggestion: make `xwayland` a required dependency of Libreoffice until the day that Libreoffice does
not need Xorg anymore.

Thanks,

-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.9.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages libreoffice-common depends on:
ii libnumbertext-data 1.0.6-1
ii libreoffice-style-colibre 1:7.0.4~rc2-1
ii ucf 3.0043
ii ure 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1

Versions of packages libreoffice-common recommends:
ii apparmor 2.13.5-1+b2
ii fonts-liberation2 2.1.1-1
ii libexttextcat-data 3.4.5-1
ii python3-uno 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii xdg-utils 1.1.3-2

Versions of packages libreoffice-common suggests:
ii libreoffice-style-colibre [libreoffice-style] 1:7.0.4~rc2-1

Versions of packages python3-uno depends on:
ii libc6 2.31-5
ii libgcc-s1 10.2.1-1
ii libpython3.9 3.9.1-1
ii libreoffice-core 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii libstdc++6 10.2.1-1
ii libuno-cppu3 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii libuno-cppuhelpergcc3-3 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii libuno-sal3 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii libuno-salhelpergcc3-3 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1
ii python3 3.9.0-4
ii python3.9 3.9.1-1
ii ucf 3.0043
ii uno-libs-private 1:7.0.4~rc2-1+b1

-- no debconf information

[jman]

As an additional informaton, I've tried installing the vanilla
LibreOffice 7.0.4.2 distribution from www.libreoffice.org, installed
these three packages:

libobasis7.0-images_7.0.4.2-2_amd64.deb
libreoffice7.0_7.0.4.2-2_amd64.deb
libreoffice7.0-calc_7.0.4.2-2_amd64.deb
libreoffice7.0-writer_7.0.4.2-2_amd64.deb

and LibreOffice seems to work just fine 9even without xwayland installed)

[Rene Engelhard]

Hi,

Am 22.12.20 um 01:07 schrieb jman:

> In order to make Libreoffice work, the package `xwayland` should be installed as a dependency.

It doesn't scale to add a xwayland dependency on every package doing X
operations.

> Unless I'm wrong, I believe the real issue is that Libreoffice does not work on a pure Wayland
> installation, but this fact is not very clear to the user.

Is this common? I mean this would haven been reported far earlier/in
many more cases? Isn't the "GNOME" Session defaulting to wayland nowadays?

rene@frodo:~$ grep-dctrl -FRecommends xwayland
/var/lib/apt/lists/deb.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages
-sPackage
Package: mir-demos
Package: mir-test-tools
rene@frodo:~$ grep-dctrl -FDepends xwayland
/var/lib/apt/lists/deb.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages
-sPackage
Package: gnome-session-bin
Package: kwin-wayland
rene@frodo:~$

Ah, both GNOME and KDE depend on xwayland. Which DE/WM do you use?

> I've tried searching for related issue on
> the Libreoffice buttracker but found none.

There is https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121275 but
that one's closed and didn't (apparently) even get a console output.

And the fix was using gtk3, which you did...


(Wrt your other mail, that package list is so obviously incomplete - and
we TTBOMK don't patch any place which should affect this. What we do
differ in is using system-libraries where possible - so one of these
might affect this?=

Regards,


Rene

[jman]

Rene Engelhard writes:

> Is this common? I mean this would haven been reported far earlier/in
> many more cases? Isn't the "GNOME" Session defaulting to wayland
> nowadays?

> Ah, both GNOME and KDE depend on xwayland. Which DE/WM do you use?

I use Sway on Wayland and during the installation of bullseye I didn't
install neither Gnome/KDE, therefore xwayland was not pulled as a
dependency by any package.

I'm experimenting how far can I go with a pure Wayland without the
"translation" layer provided by xwayland, so I guess I've stomped on a
corner-case nobody has tested yet.

I understand this might be a niche use-case for now (Gnome/KDE rely on
xwayland) so I guess it's fine if you WONTFIX this issue. But I also
think that Wayland-with-no-xwayland might be the way to the future
(with a bumpy road to get there ...) and at some point Xorg and its
dependencies will be dropped.

> (Wrt your other mail, that package list is so obviously incomplete -
> and
> we TTBOMK don't patch any place which should affect this. What we do
> differ in is using system-libraries where possible - so one of these
> might affect this?

You're right and that's puzzling. I've installed on purpose only the
vanilla Libreoffice packages I needed and it works without xwayland. I
have no idea why, I don't have enough context to go deeper on this.

Anyway, thank you for clarifying a few points and for maintaining the
Debian package!

regards,

[Arnoud Dekker]

Thanks to https://wiki.duckcorp.org/index.php/Using_Wayland :

Installing libreoffice-gtk3 made libreoffice work for me on a bullseye
install running sway and not having xwayland installed.

[jman]

Thank you for the heads-up, I will check that.