Endless loop when starting sway: Unable to add DRM framebuffer

[annacrombie]

Sway info: (no systemd / elogind)

$ sway -v
sway version 1.2-rc1-64-gf79f00db (Oct 11 2019, branch 'master')
$ stat /usr/local/bin/sway
[...]
Access: (6755/-rwsr-sr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
$ groups
wheel audio video kvm docker plugdev transmission lattis games

debug log

I compiled sway, disabling xwayland and x11-backend (the whole reason I want to switch to sway is to get rid of x11 cruft), ran chmod a+s /usr/local/bin/sway, and then ran sway from my tty. The result was that a cursor appeared on my screen which I could move around using my mouse. The screen was unchanged in any way otherwise. After a few seconds of unresponsiveness, I switched to another virtual tty (ctrl+alt+f2) and killed the process.

I'm guessing this is a permisison issue since that is one of the prominent errors in the log.

[ascent12]

A kernel DRM log would be useful for this.

echo 0xff | sudo tee /sys/module/drm/parameters/debug
sway # i.e. reproduce your issue
echo 0x00 | sudo tee /sys/module/drm/parameters/debug

Note that this is EXTREMELY spammy. Reproduce your issue and turn it off as fast as possible, otherwise there will be literally thousands of lines of log messages.
You can find the log with dmesg.

[emersion]

Note, 0xFE is less spammy and will probably contain what we need.

[ascent12]

Yeah, I should probably pay more attention to what each bit in that number actually does.

[annacrombie]

Okay, here is the relevant dmesg output after setting the debug to 0xfe:
dmesg

[ascent12]

Unfortunately that DRM log didn't really provide any new insight.

DMA-BUF import extension not present
GL renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM x86/MMX/SSE2
failed to bind wl_display to EGL

Hmm, I read your original config more closely, and didn't realize how old your hardware was. I'm not 100% sure that it has the features that a Wayland compositor (that uses hardware rendering) would need to work.
My cut off for "too old to support" is around 2010 or so, but if you can get older hardware to work, that would be cool.

Does weston work for you? (Make sure it's not using the pixman renderer or fbdev backend)

[annacrombie]

Hopefully that's not the case. I am running a Thinkpad x60, which is past your cutoff. The thing is, I was able to run sway several months ago (the beginning of July). I will try weston and get back to you.

[annacrombie]

So I was able to run weston 3.0.0 successfully (log). I installed weston without fbdev support, and I don't believe I was using pixman, but hopefully you can confirm from the log.

[FreeFull]

Just taking a quick look at that log, [10:11:05.571] warning: neither EGL_EXT_swap_buffers_with_damage or EGL_KHR_swap_buffers_with_damage is supported. Performance could be affected. makes me wonder if that's something that sway requires now.

[emersion]

No, this is optional.

[annacrombie]

I just noticed this was still open! I actually got a new computer in february this year (x220), and have been running sway on it with no problems since. I don't think there is any need to leave this open any longer.

[emersion]

OK. For those interested in support for older intel hardware, there's swaywm/wlroots#2506.