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Getting and Using MirAL {#getting_and_using_miral}
=======================
Getting MirAL
-------------
Depending upon your needs you can:
1. Install and use the MirAL examples [Using MirAL examples];
2. Use MirAL to develop your own Mir server [Using MirAL for development]; or,
3. Build MirAL yourself [Building MirAL].
Using MirAL examples
--------------------
You can install the MirAL examples as follows:
$ sudo apt install libmiral-examples
$ sudo apt install mir-graphics-drivers-desktop qtubuntu-desktop
For convenient testing there's a "miral-app" script that wraps the commands used
in the last section to start the server and then launches the gnome-terminal (as
the current user):
$ miral-app
To run independently of X11 you need to grant access to the graphics hardware
(by running as root) and specify a VT to run in. There's a "miral-desktop"
script that wraps to start the server (as root) and then launch gnome-terminal
(as the current user):
$ miral-desktop
For more options see [Options when running the MirAL example shell] below.
### Running applications on MirAL
If you use the command-line launched by miral-app or miral-desktop native Mir
applications (which include native Mir clients and those that use SDL or the
GTK+, Qt toolkits) can be started as usual:
$ sudo apt install mir-demos kate neverball
$ mir_demo_client_egltriangle
$ gedit
$ kate
$ neverball
From outside the MirAL session GTK+, Qt and SDL applications can still be run
using the miral-run script:
$ miral-run gedit
$ miral-run 7kaa
### Running for X11 applications
If you want to run X11 applications that do not have native Mir support in the
toolkit they use then the answer is Xmir: an X11 server that runs on Mir. First
you need Xmir installed:
$ sudo apt install xmir
Then once you have started a miral shell (as above) you can use miral-xrun to
run applications under Xmir:
$ miral-xrun firefox
This automatically starts a Xmir X11 server on a new $DISPLAY for the
application to use. You can use miral-xrun both from a command-line outside the
miral-shell or, for example, from the terminal running in the shell.
### Options when running the MirAL example shell
#### Script Options
Both the "miral-app" and "miral-desktop" scripts provide options for using an
alternative example shell (miral-kiosk) and an alternative to gnome-terminal.
-kiosk use miral-kiosk instead of miral-shell
-launcher <launcher> use <launcher> instead of
'gnome-terminal --app-id com.canonical.miral.Terminal'
In addition miral-desktop has the option to set the VT that is used:
-vt <termid> set the virtual terminal [4]
There are some additional options (listed with "-h") but those are the important
ones.
#### MirAL Options
The scripts can also be used to pass options to MirAL: they pass everything on
the command-line following the first thing they don't understand. These can be
listed by `miral-shell --help`. Most of these options are inherited from Mir,
but the following MirAL specific are likely to be of interest:
--window-management-trace log trace message
Probably the main use for MirAL is to test window-management (either of a
toolkit or of a server) and this logs all calls to and from the window
management policy. This option is supported directly in the MirAL library and
works for any MirAL based shell - even one you write yourself.
--keymap arg (=us) keymap <layout>[+<variant>[+<options>]]
, e,g, "gb" or "cz+qwerty" or
"de++compose:caps"
For those of us not in the USA this is very useful. Both the -shell and -kiosk
examples support this option.
--window-manager arg (=titlebar) window management strategy
[{titlebar|tiling|system-compositor}]
Is only supported by miral-shell and its main use is to allow an alternative
"tiling" window manager to be selected.
Using MirAL for development
---------------------------
Install the headers and libraries for using libmiral in development:
$ sudo apt install libmiral-dev
A `miral.pc` file is provided for use with `pkg-config` or other tools. For
example: `pkg-config --cflags miral`
The MirAL documentation can be installed and read like this:
$ sudo apt install miral-doc
$ xdg-open /usr/share/doc/miral-doc/html/index.html
Building MirAL
--------------
These instructions assume that you’re using Ubuntu 16.04LTS or later, I’ve not
earlier Ubuntu versions or other distributions.
You’ll need a few development and utility packages installed, along with the
Mir graphics drivers:
$ sudo apt install devscripts equivs bzr
$ sudo apt install mir-graphics-drivers-desktop
(If you’re working on a phone or tablet use mir-graphics-drivers-android in
place of mir-graphics-drivers-desktop.)
With these installed you can checkout and build miral:
$ bzr branch lp:miral
$ sudo mk-build-deps -i
$ mkdir miral/build
$ cd miral/build
$ cmake ..
$ make
This creates libmiral.so in the lib directory and an example shell
(miral-shell) in the bin directory. This can be run directly:
$ bin/miral-shell
With the default options this runs in a window on X (which is convenient for
development).
The miral-shell example is simple, don’t expect to see a sophisticated launcher
by default. You can start mir apps from the command-line. For example:
$ bin/miral-run gnome-terminal
That’s right, a lot of standard GTK+ applications will “just work” (the GDK
toolkit has a Mir backend). Any that assume the existence of an X11 and bypass
the toolkit my making X11 protocol calls will have problems though.
To exit from miral-shell press Ctrl-Alt-BkSp.
You can install the MirAL examples, headers and libraries you've built with:
$ sudo make install
Otherwise, you just need to add "bin/" to the beginning of the commands shown
in the previous section.
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