tl;dr: There's nothing to worry about, this was expected and planned for.

The mirclient APIs used in Unity8 and 16.04 based applications is not dropped, and does not require a build-time option to enable it.

It simply needs switching on with a configuration option at runtime. (There are many ways that can be supplied, for example, adding code to QtMir and unity-system-compositor that fakes passing this as a "command-line option" to Mir.)

For a bit of perspective, these APIs have been deprecated for two years, and the UBports developers have been aware of that. Similarly, the Mir developers have been aware that they are used by UBports and have continued to build and test them.

Everyone working on this software stack has always known that UBports needs to move off these APIs at some point, but that cannot happen until there is a viable alternative. And that requires moving to a more recent version of Mir (at least Mir 1.3 for this Mir support for Wayland).

The change to "new Mir" is progressing, and is available on the "edge" channel. Delivering that will allow the migration to Wayland to start.

There have been discussions (here and here) about this migration and, when the time comes, the Mir team has the expertise, willingness and availability to help UBport move from mirclient APIs to Wayland protocols.

There may be a time during this transition where UBports cannot ship with the latest release of Mir, but the way forward is clear and the problems to be addressed are far smaller than ones that have already been overcome.

Is SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland? Or mir?

If you set WAYLAND_DEBUG=client when starting your app, the libwayland library will write what's happening (if anything) to the console log. There may be clues there.

@zubozrout said in Running Wayland apps on edge?:

$WAYLAND_DISPLAY - I don't thinks it is set at all but maybe I am looking wrong.

That's fine - it overrides the default of wayland-0.

If you've dropped any confinement then the next question is:

What are the permissions on $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/wayland-0?

@dobey said in Running Wayland apps on edge?:

Almost certainly, as apps can only access their package-specific path in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR I think. We might need to add something to the apparmor policy to allow apps to see this socket?

That sounds similar to the situation with snaps. As well as the AppAmour policy, client apps need to do a "little dance" to use the Wayland socket. For example: https://github.com/MirServer/mir-kiosk-kodi/blob/master/glue/bin/kodi-launch.sh

I don't know the details of how edge is set up, but I do have experience of running Wayland apps on Mir servers. So there are a few questions:

1. Is there a wayland-0 file in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and does your app have permissions to open it?
2. Is $WAYLAND_DISPLAY set in your app environment? To something other than wayland-0?
3. Does the click confinement prevent access to this file?
4. Does Unity8 allow the connection?

If you set WAYLAND_DEBUG=client before starting your app, the libwayland library will write what's happening (if anything) to the console log. There may be clues there.

@GizmoChicken said in Ubuntu Touch Q&A 55 Is Saturday 27th Of July At 19:00 UTC:

I'll just add that I'm eager to have Unity8 working on the desktop. My thinking is that many will want to try Unity8 on the desktop first, and if they like what they see on the desktop, they'll be more likely to install UT on a phone.

The reality is that the priority for the UBports developers is the phone, and there's more than enough work for them there.

I too would like to see some "dev love" for the desktop but, it needs new developers so it doesn't distract from the phone. While I am a developer by trade, I don't find time for it either, so I do understand why nothing much happens.

@alan_g said in What's the situation with blue light filtering on Ubuntu Touch?:

Propose (and get accepted) this addition to the Mir project.

I've added an issue to the Mir project. (But it won't be scheduled in the foreseeable future.)

@3arn0wl said in What's the situation with blue light filtering on Ubuntu Touch?:

@Opolork @alan_g

There was an email address at the bottom of the Redshift website, so I just pinged the developer and asked if he might consider contributing some expertise to Mir.

As dobey said above, there's very little overlap. About the only thing in common is the choice of values for the gamma curves.

@joe said in What's the situation with blue light filtering on Ubuntu Touch?:

@alan_g Are there some suggested links to the Mir code etc?

For starters, there's a handy guide to step 1 here: https://mir-server.io/doc/getting_involved_in_mir.html