fiji's blog

fxos on an intel nuc (the very first steps)

2016-02-08 23:24

My goal is to build a Firefox OS TV set-top box based on an Intel NUC or an Intel Compute Stick. As a first proof of concept I started to scramble something like a real boot to gecko together. I started to look how the connection between gecko and gonk looks like. Especially, the basic display/window code. But, I'm way to new in those areas of gecko and luckily I found a shortcut to start with.

KISS (keep it simple stupid), for now

So let's take a step back. I remembered that b2g is a normal application target when you build mozilla-central (--enable-application=b2g). So we can just build it based on GTK3 instead of gonk. Sure, a lot of functionality will be missing but let's see. And as mentioned in the title, this is only a first step.

NUC

Hardware: Intel NUC NUC5PPYH

Base specs:

The Plan

Super simple:

gaia

with (GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE=tv)

Let's do this

setting up an arch installation

Even after countless installations of arch I still prefer to use their beginner's guide. Don't get scared, this is totally doable. Just don't try to be a smart ass and start skipping steps :).

Some tips on this would be:

190 MB/s will change your life

Go ahead an do this, come back when you reach the Post-installation step.

finishing the base system

First get the network back up. In case you're on wifi:


wifi-menu -o

save it with a nice name like my-super-profile and make it connect automatically:


netctl enable my-super-profile`

Now set up an user:


useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash fxos



passwd fxos

set a nice password


visudo

uncomment


%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now you can ether change to the fxos user:


su fxos

cd ~/

or enable ssh and login remotely:


pacman -S ssh

systemctl enable sshd

systemctl start sshd

then you can ssh in your NUC by:


ssh fxos@<IP>

from your machine (checkout MobaXterm if you're on Windows)

prepare for gecko

Get the dependencies to get the dependencies:


sudo pacman -Syu

sudo pacman -S wget python2 git gconf

Get the dependencies (thanks for supporting arch here):


wget -O bootstrap.py
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/raw-file/default/python/mozboot/bin/bootstrap.py
&& python2 bootstrap.py

You may be prompted with some questions along the way. In general if it's just


:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

go ahead an say Yay \o/. For the more complex questions, this what I

recommend:


Please choose the version of Firefox you want to build:

1. Firefox for Desktop

2. Firefox for Android

Your choice:

1



:: There are 25 members in group base-devel:

:: Repository core
1) autoconf  2) automake  3) binutils  4) bison  5) fakeroot  6) file
7) findutils  8) flex  9) gawk  10) gcc  11) gettext  12) grep  13) groff
14) gzip  15) libtool  16) m4  17) make  18) pacman  19) patch
20) pkg-config  21) sed  22) sudo  23) texinfo  24) util-linux  25) which

Enter a selection (default=all): all



WARNING! This script requires to install packages from the AUR This is
potentially unsecure so I recommend that you carefully read each package
description and check the sources.These packages will be built in
/tmp/tmpEClkJO.

Do you want to continue? (yes/no) [no]yes



:: There are 4 providers available for libgl:

:: Repository extra
1) mesa-libgl  2) nvidia-304xx-libgl  3) nvidia-340xx-libgl  4) nvidia-libgl

Enter a number (default=1): 1



Enter a number (default=1): 1

:: There are 2 providers available for libx264.so=148-64:

:: Repository extra
1) libx264  2) libx264-10bit

Enter a number (default=1): 1

So much for preparation.

building gecko

First of all we clone the git repo (feel free to use mozilla-central or a source snapshot if you know what you're doing):


git clone https://git.mozilla.org/integration/gecko-dev.git

Step inside:


cd gecko-dev

Substitute editor with your favorite or least hated editor like vi or nano and create a config file named .mozconfig:


editor .mozconfig

Now paste the following configuration:


. "$topsrcdir/b2g/config/mozconfigs/common"


mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="-j4 -s"


ac_add_options --enable-application=b2g

ac_add_options --disable-libjpeg-turbo

We're all set here. Start the build with:


./mach build

and get a coffee or a beer, this may take a while.

building gaia

Let's get gaia:


cd ~/

git clone https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia

cd gaia

And again a config file:


editor build/config/custom-settings.json

fill with this content:


{
"lockscreen.enabled": false,
"lockscreen.locked": false,
"devtools.debugger.remote-enabled": true
}

Now build gaia:


make NOFTU=1 GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE=tv USE_LOCAL_XULRUNNER_SDK=1
XULRUNNER_DIRECTORY=/home/fxos/gecko-dev/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/dist
REMOTE_DEBUGGER=1

That's it with compiling stuff.

some runtime stuff

Let's install some things to prepare out final step. Some of them might not be needed anymore. I'll remove them, once I confirmed that. But for now do:


sudo pacman -S nodejs npm xorg-server xorg-utils xf86-video-intel xorg-xinit
ttf-dejavu pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa pavucontrol

You'll be prompted to choose an input driver:


:: There are 2 providers available for xf86-input-driver:

:: Repository extra
1) xf86-input-evdev  2) xf86-input-libinput

Enter a number (default=1): 2

Booting into Gecko!

In order to boot into gecko aka start b2g in full screen we need bring up an xserver on login. Therefore, edit the ~/bash_profile:


editor ~/.bash_profile

and paste the following to automatically invoke startx on login:

[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && exec startx

Also we want fxos to automatically login after boot. Use:


sudo systemctl edit getty@tty1

to modify the tty1 target and paste:


[Service]

ExecStart=

ExecStart=-/usr/bin/agetty --autologin fxos --noclear %I $TERM

The final step is to automatically start b2g in full screen. Edit the .xinit file:


editor ~/.xinitrc

and paste:


# set hdmi as sound output

pactl set-card-profile 0 output:hdmi-stereo+input:analog-stereo &

# start b2g and debug server

exec /home/fxos/gecko-dev/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/dist/bin/b2g
--profile /home/fxos/gaia/profile -screen 1919x1080 -start-debugger-server
6000

Sadly the 1919x1080 is not a typo. 1921x1080 works also if you want to see what happens if you use 1920x1080 go ahead and give it a shot :)

Reboot and it should look like this:

Where to go from here (remember, this was just a first step)

There are many problems with this quick and dirty boot to gecko hack. But this give us a lot to work on. Here are some nice next steps, some of them might be just a config change:

And the bigger things:

Known Issues

For some reason remote debugging with WebIDE does not work as I would expect. If I forward the port it works nicely:


ssh -L 6000:localhost:6000 fxos@<IP>

probably just some settings.

I'm still working through all settings in gaia and b2g. There's a log to learn.

*There is much more to write but it's getting late and I'm getting tired. I will keep updating this article and/or write more on this topic. If you have feedback please make a pull request for https://github.com/fiji-flo/mozilla-berlin/blob/master/fxos/nuc.md *