wayfire-plugin meson libdir can be incorrect (Ubuntu 24.04)

[dkondor]

Wayfire version

0.12 (latest git)

GPU / Driver

Not relevant

Describe the bug

I'm trying out the new wayfire-plugin command with my plugins, but ran into some problems. Specifically, I'm trying to follow the instructions here to adjust the build of a plugin.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Write a simple plugin that uses meson
2. Use the recommended command to install, e.g.

scale_ipc_filter_lib = shared_module('scale_ipc_filter', sources,
    dependencies: [wayfire],
    install: true,
    install_dir: get_option('prefix') / get_option('libdir') / 'wayfire',
    cpp_args: ['-Wno-unused-parameter', '-Wno-format-security','-DWAYFIRE_PLUGIN'],
    link_args: '-rdynamic')

3. Plugin gets installed under: ~/.local/share/wayfire/plugin-manager/install/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wayfire/
4. Wayfire cannot load it as it is looking for plugins under ~/.local/share/wayfire/plugin-manager/install/lib/wayfire -- see here

Note: the plugin shows up as correctly installed with wayfire-plugin:

wayfire-plugin list
wayfire-scale-ipc: 0.12.0 ABI 20260801

Expected behavior

Wayfire can find and load the plugin.

Apparently, on Ubuntu (and I assume Debian as well), get_option('libdir') expands to lib/x86_64-linux-gnu by default. Everything works as expected if I change the meson install command to include:

install_dir: get_option('prefix') / 'lib' / 'wayfire',

I suggest to either:

• update the doc to suggest using 'lib' as that is where Wayfire will look for (and there does not seems to be a downside of a hardcoded path, since this is a directory only used by Wayfire)
• change the path discovery to use the "libdir" that meson does via config.h (that now only contains a full path to system plugins)

Let me know which solution is preferred, and I can create a PR.

[dkondor]

Oh, actually, just unconditionally using install_dir: get_option('prefix') / 'lib' / 'wayfire' will not work, as if the plugin is installed globally, it still needs to go under libdir (well, actually, the plugindir of Wayfire, but that implies it).

[soreau]

Hi @dkondor, thanks for the detailed report. Just an observation, but if we use 'lib' alone, wouldn't this break if installing a plugin to prefix /usr? Assuming wayfire is installed to /usr, wouldn't it look in /usr/$libdir/wayfire which as you said, yes, I see you just realized this as I am writing my comment here. :)

[soreau]

You might be able to append the libdir to LD_LIBRARY_PATH but you would have to set it before wayfire starts and I have not tested this, just an idea.

[dkondor]

Hi @dkondor, thanks for the detailed report. Just an observation, but if we use 'lib' alone, wouldn't this break if installing a plugin to prefix /usr? Assuming wayfire is installed to /usr, wouldn't it look in /usr/$libdir/wayfire which as you said, yes, I see you just realized this as I am writing my comment here. :)

Yes, it does break. What seems to work is having a separate build option that is used by wayfire-plugin. See here for a simple example:
https://github.com/dkondor/wayfire-scale-ipc/blob/main/meson.build
https://github.com/dkondor/wayfire-scale-ipc/blob/main/wayfire-plugin.json

Of course, it would be nice not to need such special casing, so maybe changing the path discovery in Wayfire is the better solution after all? Or wayfire-config providing a modified pkg-config file with plugindir adjusted to the full path to use?

[soreau]

I think ultimately, the problem stems from the fact that wayfire hardcodes the search path for the plugins installed to ~/.local/. What we could do, is have wayfire grab the libdir at build time and pepper it into the source. Then we can use libdir in the custom search path here.

TL;DR: Change the hardcoded 'lib' instance with libdir in the link above and libdir in wayfire-plugin should work.

[dkondor]

Thanks, sounds reasonable, I'll try to put together a PR in the coming days

[ammen99]

yes I agree, we can use the system default instead of hardcoding lib/