Mir
Using Mir on a PC

Before you begin

Make sure your hardware is supported. That means you're using a Mesa driver, of which intel, radeon, and nouveau families are supported. If you're logged in to X then run this command to verify an appropriate DRI driver is active:

sudo pmap `pidof X` | grep dri.so

or

lsmod | grep drm

Before you can use Mir you need to ensure you have the proper custom Mesa build installed. If you are running Ubuntu 13.10 or later (see Installing pre-built packages on a PC), you should be good to go.

If you built Mir from source code (see Building the source for a PC), you need to ensure you are using the proper Mesa at runtime. You can do that by installing the Mesa packages from Ubuntu 13.10 (or later) or by building the custom Mesa yourself and ensuring it can be found by Mir, e.g., by using LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Getting some example client applications

You can get some example programs by installing the mir-demos package:

$ sudo apt-get install mir-demos

If you are building from source you can find client applications in the bin/ subdirectory of the build directory.

Running Mir

Mir can run run either natively on mesa-kms or as an X application.

Running Mir on X

To run Mir as an X client start it from an X terminal:

$ mir_demo_server --launch-client mir_demo_client_multiwin

You can start additional Mir clients, for example (in a new terminal):

$ mir_demo_egltriangle

To exit from Mir:

<Ctrl+Alt+BkSp>

Note: up to Mir 0.18 it is also necessary to specify --platform-input-lib when starting the server:

Running Mir natively

To run Mir natively on a PC/desktop/laptop:

$ sudo DISPLAY= mir_demo_server --vt 1 --arw-file

This will switch you to a Mir session on VT1. Switch back to your X-based desktop:

<Ctrl+Alt+F7>

In a new terminal:

$ mir_demo_client_multiwin -m /tmp/mir_socket

Switch back to Mir.

<Ctrl+Alt+F1>

Watch your friends be amazed!

To exit from Mir:

<Ctrl+Alt+BkSp>

In case you accidentally killed your X login and ended up with a failsafe screen, you might find on subsequent reboots you can't log in to X at all any more (it instantly and silently takes you back to the login screen). The fix for this is to log in to a VT and:

$ rm .Xauthority
$ sudo restart lightdm

Copyright © 2012-2016 Canonical Ltd.
Generated on Mon Jun 5 11:05:03 UTC 2017