[winswitch] First time install of xpra: black screen in all windows.

[G.W. Haywood]

Hi there,

Following up to the list to close the thread.

In #3288 on Fri, 1 Oct 2021, Antoine Martin via shifter-users wrote:

> ... apt-get install lots of packages ...

When I originally installed xpra I lost count after about 250. :/

> ... For good measure, I then dusted off an older rpi ...
> ...
> With this one, I do get the black window bug. There is one obvious
> warning sticking out every time there's a missing screen update:
> `Couldn't find foreign struct converter for 'cairo.Context'`.
> Easily fixed by installing the cairo bindings:
> `sudo apt-get install python3-gi-cairo`.
> 
> This dependency is usually installed automatically ...

Apparently it wasn't amongst the three hundred or so modules which
were installed when I originally did all this. :(

> I'll update the build instructions to include this package ...

That would be good. :)

A simple

client:~# apt-get install python3-gi-cairo

was all that was needed, although I have to say I have no idea how I
would ever have known that this was the magic incantation.  The names
of modules seem to be conjured from some mystical hat.  Anyway I typed

server:~$ xpra start --start=xterm :221

client:~$ xpra attach ssh://server/221

(221 is the number of attempts that I'd made to get a working xterm:)

and the xterm came up fine.  The response to 'ls' to list a directory
was *fast*, so I ran mplayer to watch a video clip of Bosco (one of my
dogs, now long dead) eating treats on the sofa at 640x480.  No need to
mess about with XAUTHORITY, nor anything like that. :)

25 frames/sec seemed a bit of a, er, stretch for the Pi, but if I tell
you that after the upgrade to Debian Buster with VNC I was struggling
to get *one* *frame* *per* *five* *seconds* you'll understand what an
improvement this is.  Obviously I'll need to check out quite a lot of
things while I set up my remote desktop but this looks very promising.

Thanks very much once again Antoine.

-- 

73,
Ged.