uStreamer Debian package: MEGA-TICKET

[jdeanwallace]

This ticket is the result of tiny-pilot/ustreamer-debian#1

Overview

We want to reimplement ansible-role-ustreamer functionality as a Debian package.

Background

We've found that running Ansible is generally a slow process that might not be well suited for installing TinyPilot and TinyPilot related software, like uStreamer. We've already partially migrated our TinyPilot installation away from Ansible to a Debian package and we'd like to do the same with our uStreamer installation. Using a Debian package speeds up the installation process by using simple bash scripts, as opposed to Python in Ansible, and skipping a package installation when the version requirement has already been met.

Milestones

Milestone 1: Install a pre-compiled uStreamer binary via a Debian package, while maintaining the ability to build uStreamer from source

Goal

Avoid building uStreamer on the device, reducing the TinyPilot installation time by about 20s.

This is the highest priority goal because it gives us the most value from migrating uStreamer to a Debian package.

Steps

• Drop support for Debian Buster and uStreamer < 5.0 ansible-role-ustreamer#99

• Create a Dockerfile that builds a uStreamer Debian package from source ustreamer-debian#3

• Create a uStreamer Debian release ustreamer-debian#4

• Install the uStreamer Debian package instead of building from source ansible-role-ustreamer#100

Milestone 2: Consolidate uStreamer's Ansible role and Debian package with TinyPilot repo

Goal

Avoid making parallel changes (i.e., bumping version numbers) in both ansible-role-ustreamer, and ustreamer-debian repos the ansible-role-ustreamer repo; when we later incrementally migrate uStreamer's Ansible role functionality to the Debian package.

Steps

• Archive the ansible-role-ustreamer repo ansible-role-ustreamer#113

• Consolidate the ansible-role-ustreamer repo into the TinyPilot repo #1426

• Bundle the local version of the Ansible uStreamer role #1427

• Archive ustreamer-debian repo

• Consolidate ustreamer-debian with TinyPilot repo

  • Note from @mtlynch (2023-05-25): We should revisit this, as we might need to keep the two repos separate for license tidiness. ustreamer-debian is GPLv3, whereas tinypilot is MIT, and I'd rather not mix the two licenses within a single repo.

• Bundle local version of uStreamer's Debian package file

Milestone 3: Partially migrate uStreamer Ansible role functionality to Debian package

Goal

Migrate highest-impact and/or lowest-effort Ansible tasks to Debian package.

Steps

• Drop support for building uStreamer from source #1428

• Migrate creation of uStreamer user and group to uStreamer Debian package ustreamer-debian#11

• Migrate Janus static config files to uStreamer Debian package ustreamer-debian#12

Milestone 4: Migrate remaining uStreamer Ansible role functionality to Debian package

Goal

Purge uStreamer's Ansible role.

Steps

• Install yq as part of the uStreamer Debian package

  • This is in preparation for migrating the uStreamer launcher script, which depends on yq
  • This will help us to parse the /home/ustreamer/config.yml file and determine the value of ustreamer_capture_device which is needed to provision the TC358743 chip and determine uStreamer launcher runtime config
  • To avoid conflicts with system software, we could install yq to /home/ustreamer/.local/bin
    • https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/264495

• Migrate default uStreamer config for TC358743 chips to uStreamer's Debian package postinstall script

  • This gives us enough info to create the /opt/ustreamer-launcher/configs.d/000-defaults.yml file on devices with TC358743 chips

• Migrate default uStreamer config for non-TC358743 chips to uStreamer's Debian package postinstall script

  • This gives us enough info to create the /opt/ustreamer-launcher/configs.d/000-defaults.yml file on devices with non-TC358743 chips
  • This isn't strictly required, but it would be nice to consolidate all the default uStreamer launcher config in one place

• Migrate uStreamer launcher script to uStreamer Debian package

  • This requires all dynamically determined uStreamer config (i.e., default config for TC358743 chips) to live within the uStreamer Debian package
  • After this task, all uStreamer's command-line arguments will be consolidated within uStreamer's Debian package

• Migrate the provisioning of the TC358743 chip, which consists of the following sub-tasks:

  • Migrate /boot/config.txt to uStreamer Debian package

  • Migrate /boot/cmdline.txt to uStreamer Debian package

  • Migrate TC358743 EDID file to uStreamer Debian package

  • Migrate TC358743 EDID loader systemd service to uStreamer Debian package

• Migrate uStreamer Janus plugin config to uStreamer Debian package

  • This depends on the value of ustreamer_capture_device

• Migrate uStreamer systemd service to uStreamer Debian package

• Install uStreamer Debian package from TinyPilot's Ansible role

• Purge uStreamer's Ansible role from TinyPilot repo

[mtlynch]

@jdeanwallace - When you get a chance, can you create issues for the elements in Milestones 2 and 3 and add them to the 2.6.1 project? Except assume for now that ustreamer-debian will live in a separate repo.

[mtlynch]

@jdeanwallace - Is anything left of this or should we close as complete?

[jdeanwallace]

This issue is complete.