WPE

WPE is a WebKit port intended to allow embedders to create simple and performant systems based on Web platform technologies. It is designed with hardware acceleration in mind, leveraging common 3D graphics APIs for best performance.

Building and testing

0. Get the code

git clone git://git.webkit.org/WebKit.git WebKit
# You can use also the mirror https://github.com/WebKit/webkit

1. Install dependencies

cd WebKit
Tools/wpe/install-dependencies

2. Build internal JHBuild

Tools/Scripts/update-webkitwpe-libs

3. Build the WPE port of WebKit

Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --release --wpe

4. Launch dyz (WPE basic webview)

Tools/Scripts/run-minibrowser --wpe https://www.igalia.com

• Note: This last step should work both under Weston under X11, as also under native Weston/Wayland (or even directly from a text console (framebuffer/KMS/DRM)). The requisite (when using the default wpebackend-mesa) is to have a GPU with MESA-based graphics (we test mostly with Intel graphics, but others well supported GPUs on MESA like the ones based on AMDGPU should work also). The device files /dev/dri/renderD128 and /dev/dri/card0 have to exist and your user need write access to them (On most distributions this means ensuring your user is member of a group named "video")

If you are targetting an embedded device, then instead of using the default ​wpebackend-mesa you may want to use ​wpebackend-rdk. In that case you likely also want to use Buildroot or Yocto.

Running from X11

Currently WPE doesn't support X11 natively, so if you can switch to a Wayland session for testing, then better. Otherwise, you can run it from a Weston window inside X11. You can automate the process of launching a Weston window and then dyz inside ​with this script. Save it on the directory above your WebKit dir, make it executable and run it from there like:

cd WebKit
../run-xpe-x11 https://www.igalia.com

But take into account this method of running it is not advised and some things like videos may not work properly.