Wayland/XWayland?

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi All,

I recently updated the Raspberry Pi I use for development to the latest version of the Raspberry Pi OS.  It asked if I should switch to the latest (display/screen/terminal I forget which) so I did.  When I start vast in a terminal, it starts with the environments window normally.  But when I start one of the environments, a window seems to appear (blinks and closes).  The log shows nothing.

Is there anything I can set/tell VAST to fix this?  Or is there a way to get the Raspberry Pi OS to use the old version of whatever new version was installed?

Lou

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi,

In a terminal enter:

sudo raspi-config

select: 6 Advanced Options

then select: A6 Wayland

then select W2 Wayfire

then Ok, Finish, Yes to reboot.

The VAST environments should work again.

Lou

[Joachim Tuchel]

Hi Lou,

so you've tested what I was wondering about: will VAST still run on Wayland. I am not so much interested in the Pi, but "normal" Linux machines. I guess we won't have many years until X Server will be as complicated to install ion current Linux distros as 32Bits have been a few years ago.... I am glad you found a way, so I guess we'll also be able to run VAST on Wayland even with the ancient motif libraries linked in.

That's one of the reasons I am glad Instantiations is working on a GTK version of VAST platform. The others are Scintilla and the constant popping up of windows on the wrong screen on X ..

Joachim

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi Joachim,

I don't know about the rest of the Linux world but VAST works on the Raspberry Pi, sort of.  VAST works fine with the first two options in the raspi-config tool (see below).  As you can see the second option is Wayland or at least partly Wayland.  It is with the third option that problems arise.  When entering vast in a terminal, the environments window open normally.  But when I start one of the environments, a window seems to appear (blinks and closes).  I haven't bothered to find out why.

There are smaller problems with option 2 Wayfire with decorations being missing (no x in the upper right to close the window) in VAST windows.  Also, I think I have set one or both of my Raspberry Pi's the run the packaged programs to use the third option (I'm not sure how to tell as the raspi-config tool doesn't tell you the current setting) things seem to work but with the same decoration problems.

Lou

[mar...@feldtmann.online]

Well, I installed the 64bit version on a PI5 with the newest release and it seemed to work. I could start it, but some of the installation stuff did not work ... all stuff regarding starting from the user directory was not created ... 

[Adriaan van Os]

Can anyone share (recent) experiences? Should/can I try to use XWayland in a docker and run a VAST IDE?

Cheers,

Adriaan

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi Adriaan,

Sorry for the somewhat late response.  I'm currently using the second option displayed in my previous post "W2 Wayfire Wayfire window manager with Wayland backend".  I haven't tried the third option lately but when I did it didn't work well.  Things change fast and often in Linux, so maybe it is better now.  Recently I accidently selected the first option and that broke using VCN to connect with the GUI.  I saw nothing but a blank screen.  I was able to use PuTTy to get in an fix things.

I'm still having trouble with one of my programs not showing the "decorations", you know the minimize, maximize, X in the upper right corner to close the window, I can't drag to move the window.  My buttons on the window work.  I have to close it from the Linux task bar.  The odd thing is that the program with the "decorations" problem is a GUI program.  Other than starting with a regular window, it uses other graphics classes to cover that window and display what it wants.  The other program could run headless and use XD packaging if it weren't for having so much trouble packaging Seaside.  Adding the little window allows me to package both with the (somewhat elementary) "Make Executable" button on the "VisualAge Organizer" window.  This probably make the images a little larger but I can't remember when I last had a packaging problem.

Both programs do/and-access a lot of stuff that most VA Smalltalk programmers don't use.  Like getting weather info from the internet, getting weather info from a small AcuRite weather station, controlling a SPAN smart electrical panel, getting info from an Enphase Solar/Battery system.  I have VA Smalltalk interfaces for all of these.  They all work on the Raspberry Pi, where I use them everyday, and seem to work on Windows in the development environment, where I test things.  I'm willing to share with those who are interested.

Lou

[Marcus Wagner]

Associated to certain remarks in this conversation, I want to contribute my personal experiences. 

Experimentally I had to run several VAST versions, 64 and 32 under different Linux brands (Almalinux, Rocky Linux, Centos8), as standalone and as a client requiring an emsrv service process. 

First, I turned off the meanwhile widespread Selinux security, so not to become victim of missing or mismatched security role configurations.

Second, egainst 32 bit problems,  if 32 bit is supported by the OS: I ran under AlmaLinux 9.1

ldd es  

to detect missing runtime support libraries, like  libXdmcp.so.6, and installed it e.g. via

apt-get install libXdmcp6

yum install libXdmcp.i?86

yum install libgcc.i?86

Third, I changed the yum.conf from multilib_policy=best to multilib_policy=all.

So could run 32 bit VAST, where possible.

Fourth, to got rid off certain optical defects, like blinking, I changed in /etc/gdm/custom.conf

WaylandEnable=false

This might sound strange, but otherwise toolbars and window regions where flickering and turned black and became unreadable.

Fifth, I created a user named EMSRVUSR and defined the service in file /etc/systemd/system/emsrv.service

[Unit]
Description=EMSRV
[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/local/VASTPlatform/11.0.1-64bit/bin/emsrv -lf/home/emsrvusr/Desktop/service/logs/logfile -t -W /home/emsrvusr/Desktop/service/
ExecStop=/usr/local/VASTPlatform/11.0.1-64bit/bin/emadmin localhost stop <'*PASSWORD of EMSRV*'
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

to enable, start and stop the emsrv process. 

Finally, I had to adopt the firewall, e.g. define the port 4800 and to make it accessible (to be able to ex- and import from elsewhere).

I hope I did not forget s.th. important, as all these adoptions were mixed with other fixes to problems related to the VM (and not to VAST) to be able to run the Linux under Windows and to share folders between them.

Summary: usually running VAST under Windows for ages, I forgot all the necessary details to be able to run VAST over the time. 

Achieving the same comfort under Linux refreshed my memory about that.

Finally, VAST runs flawless. 

I did not tackle the Selinux related configuration yet.

Kind regards

M