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fxos on an intel nuc (the very first steps)

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:

  • Intel Pentium processor N3700
  • 4GB DDR3L RAM
  • Intel HD Graphics
  • Intel SSD 320 Series 40GB

The Plan

Super simple:

  • install a minimal Linux (Arch is my weapon of choice)
  • build b2g (build mozilla-central with --enable-application=b2g)
  • build gaia with (GAIA_DEVICE_TYPE=tv)
  • boot directly in to b2g running gaia in full screen
  • see what it looks like

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:

  • use GPT as partitioning scheme (it's 2016)
  • from some reason I needed to boot the installation usb drive in legacy (BIOS) mode (you can still use the UEFI boot loader)
  • a usb stick with >190 MB/s will change your life
  • I did a simply partition layout: 512MB EFI, 4GB swap, 30GB / some swap comes in handy, since we're gonna build mozilla-central on this thing!

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="-j$((`nproc`)) -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:

  • figure out why the performance is so bad in this setup
  • enable access to wifi, bluetooth, volume, ...
  • fill the settings menu with life
  • enable the real market place
  • make it work with an xbox/steam controller

And the bigger things:

  • remove the need for X => make it work with wayland
  • even remove the need for GTK3
  • get feature parity with gonk based build without depending on Android
  • cross compile it the raspberry pi 2

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 *