Support ARM on Linux

[aquinoit]

Hello there! We are working on ARM support to continue PR.

Thanks, @nathan-muir, for the excellent contribution.

We decided to open a new PR from the latest devel branch, We've already made it work with Ubuntu and Amazon Linux, but we're doing more testing.

Soon we will release a beta version so we can test directly on a clean server.

I will post more details and the progress of the task soon.

Thanks.

[CLAassistant]

All committers have signed the CLA.

[JonathanLehner]

Could it be added soon? We need it for raspberry pi

[xet7]

Also needed for Asahi Linux on M1

[xet7]

And for Linux arm64 build server

[aquinoit]

Thanks for the suggestions @xet7 @JonathanLehner

We are still working on this task, this is a significant change that requires careful regression.

We are doing some tests and will soon update you here.

Best Regards,

[JonathanLehner]

Can we already deploy the branch? Do you need any assistance?

[xet7]

Currently I'm using OrangePi arm64 that has 16 GB RAM and 128 GB microSD card. To build Meteor, I need to remote desktop with virt-manager to other server that is amd64. I can not build Meteor locally, before this is merged. Same is also at Asahi Ubuntu on M1 and at build server that is arm64.

[xet7]

OrangePi is here:

• http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/Orange-Pi-5.html
• I'm using Armbian Jammy distro https://www.armbian.com/orangepi-5/

[xet7]

OrangePi is connected with HDMI to my 4K LED TV currently at resolution 3840x2160 at 60 Hz. Current uptime 4 days. Works very well for development.

[JonathanLehner]

Cool thanks! Have you tried building from the branch?

[xet7]

@JonathanLehner

Building from branch how? What commands?

[JonathanLehner]

Checkout the branch and build?

[xet7]

@JonathanLehner

It's the first time you've run Meteor from a git checkout.
I will download a kit containing all of Meteor's dependencies.
##O=#    #                                                                                                                

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
Failed to install dependency kit.
It's the first time you've run Meteor from a git checkout.
I will download a kit containing all of Meteor's dependencies.
##O=#    #                                                                                                                

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
Failed to install dependency kit.

[xet7]

Maybe Meteor has somewhere some script to build dependency kit ?

[JonathanLehner]

what do you mean dependency kit?

[xet7]

Ok I found the final step. Downloading mongodb tgz for arm64, version that is statically linked with OpenSSL, it works. Existing dynamically linked does not work.

cd ~/.meteor/dev_bundle/mongodb/bin

cp /home/user/Downloads/mongodb-linux-aarch64-ubuntu2204-6.0.5/bin/mongo* .

[xet7]

I added Meteor 2.11 for arm64 ~/.meteor directory in tar.gz to https://releases.wekan.team/raspi3/

Here I'm running WeKan Open Source kanban https://wekan.github.io on M1 Air Asahi Ubuntu:

[xet7]

Here running on OrangePi 5 arm64 that has 16 GB RAM and 128 GB microSD. Currently my 1 TB NVME disk is not connected to other side of OrangePi 5. Running Armbian that is based on Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS arm64.

[jacoatvatfree]

Voting for this to be merged please

[henriquealbert]

@aquinoit will be taking charge of this task on Friday. We hope to merge it as soon as possible.

[aquinoit]

From Friday, I will be working on this task again!

[xet7]

Update 2023-12-07

I did get newest Meteor 3.0 working at Linux arm64. Here are all the details.

Screenshot of Meteor 3.0 at Linux arm64

Installing Meteor 3.0 to Linux arm64

Using Debian 12 arm64 in this case. (Could also be newest Ubuntu).

ssh user@arm64linux

sudo apt -y install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev build-essential autoconf automake cmake curl wget zip unzip p7zip-full nano

Scripts use command /usr/bin/python , that does not exists,
so link it to /usr/bin/python3 .

sudo su

cd /usr/bin

ln -s python3 python

exit

And continue:

sudo apt -y install npm

sudo npm -g install n

sudo n 20.10.0

sudo npm -g install @mapbox/node-pre-gyp

sudo npm -g install node-gyp

git clone https://github.com/meteor/meteor .meteor

cd .meteor

git checkout remotes/origin/release-3.0

git merge remotes/origin/feature-linux-arm

There is this one merge conflict file. Edit it and remove everything between <<< and >>> lines, and those lines itself also:

nano -c packages/promise/.npm/package/npm-shrinkwrap.json

Save and exit with Ctrl-o Enter Ctrl-x Enter

Generate dev bundle, here also timing how long it takes:

time ./scripts/generate-dev-bundle.sh

cd ..

Optional is installing MongoDB 6. meteor command uses Meteor embedded MongoDB, but when not developing, and running bundle, installed version of Node and MongoDB is used at cd armtest/.build/bundle && node main.js.
I installed just in case, if it has some of the required dependencies.

• Debian: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/v6.0/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-debian/
• Ubuntu: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/v6.0/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-ubuntu/

Download missing MongoDB .so files, that I found from some MongoDB directories by trial and error. These are needed, because otherwise building with meteor command has MongoDB errors, MongoDB that is embedded to Meteor fails to start, causing meteor command fail to start. More info at wekan/wekan#5142 (comment)

wget https://wekan.github.io/LD_LIBRARY-linux-arm64.zip

unzip LD_LIBRARY-linux-arm64.zip

nano .bashrc

There add at bottom, and copy paste it to bash shell to use at current bash session:

export PATH=~/.meteor:$PATH

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:~/lib

Then save and exit with Ctrl-o Enter Ctrl-x

To use those paths at current bash shell (without exit and back with ssh user@arm64linux):

source .bashrc

Then create meteor project:

mkdir repos

cd repos

meteor create --blaze armtest

cd armtest

meteor

[xet7]

Currently to build for Linux arm64, this additional step is needed: #12359 (comment)