Zayin/Classroom_Desktop

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ekklesiaandClaude Opus 5 a3dba6e8fb feat: provision Chrome and DVD codecs without a manual step

A fresh classroom needed two things installed by hand on every box:
Google Chrome, which is not in Debian, and the DVD codecs, which Debian
cannot ship. Both now happen on their own.

ekklesia-classroom-provision.service runs after every boot and does the
work that needs the network and the apt lock, neither of which a package
postinst can have. Each step returns immediately if it is already done,
so a provisioned machine costs nothing and a machine that was offline
the first time gets another go at the next boot. Nothing there is
allowed to fail the boot: a classroom with no DVD codecs is still a
working classroom, and it says so in the log rather than silently.

The postinst enables the service but deliberately does not start it.
Every OTA update reboots the moment the install finishes, and an apt run
killed by that reboot would leave dpkg half-configured.

Chrome comes from Google's own repository rather than a one-off .deb, so
it keeps getting security updates. Google's package migrates whatever we
write into a deb822 file of its own, so the repository is looked for
across every source file instead of only the one we would write;
otherwise a machine that had Chrome removed would end up with two copies
of the same repository.

The DVD codec helper previously assumed deb822 sources and did nothing
on a machine using a classic /etc/apt/sources.list, which is what the
hardware actually runs. It now handles both formats, and only ever adds
a missing component to an existing Debian entry — so it cannot produce a
duplicate repository or a duplicate component however many times it
runs, and third-party repositories like Chrome's are never touched. It
also answers libdvd-pkg's debconf questions, so nothing blocks on a
prompt in a service with no terminal.

Tested against fixture APT trees for classic sources.list, deb822
.sources, contrib already enabled, repeated runs, third-party
repositories and the awkward real lines: bracketed options, indentation,
trailing comments and flat repositories.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>

2026-09-04 21:33:44 -05:00

5.4 KiB

Raw Blame History

Classroom test checklist

Run against the exact artifact published to canary, on the real endpoint, before promoting to stable with ./update_stable.sh.

Boot

Cold boot reaches the classroom shell with no terminal or window junk
Reboot does the same
Wallpaper appears
Dock appears, centred
Clock appears, bottom right

Provisioning

journalctl -u ekklesia-classroom-provision shows a clean run
Google Chrome is installed on a machine that never had it
A second boot does not reinstall anything
A machine with no network still boots to a working shell, and provisioning succeeds at a later boot once it is online

UI scale

UI_SCALE=1.0 looks exactly as it did before scaling existed
UI_SCALE=1.25, then sudo systemctl restart getty@tty1: dock, icons, clock and notifications all grow together
UI_SCALE=0.8 shrinks them together
The reserved bottom strip grows and shrinks with the dock, and a maximised Chrome window still stops above it
A nonsense value (UI_SCALE=banana) still gives a working shell
An extreme value (UI_SCALE=9) is clamped, not obeyed

Reserved bottom shell (regression)

The bottom strip is one full-width layer-shell surface with a 76px exclusive zone. Dock and clock live inside it. Do not split them back into separate layer-shell windows.

A maximised Chrome window stops above the bottom strip
The clock does not float over Chrome
Dock stays centred, clock stays bottom right
Wallpaper shows through the unused parts of the strip
Every dock button still responds to clicks
A fullscreen application covers the whole display, dock included

Browser

First Browser click launches Chrome
Chrome opens on Wonder Ink (https://app.wonderink.org/)
Clicking Browser while Chrome is focused minimises it
Clicking Browser again restores it maximised, not floating or draggable
Clicking Browser while Chrome is running but unfocused focuses it
Super+M minimises the focused window
Super+Shift+M restores the most recently minimised window
Normal navigation to any other site works
The Home button returns to Wonder Ink
Fullscreen YouTube video uses the whole display
Leaving fullscreen restores the correct geometry above the dock
No first-run, default-browser or sign-in nag appears
chrome://policy lists the Ekklesia policies as applied, with no "unknown policy" entries
Chrome does not start by itself at boot
After a reboot, cookies and site logins are still there
After an OTA update, cookies and site logins are still there

Known limitation: Chrome's own minimise button in its title bar does nothing. Sway ignores the Wayland minimise request and gives no event to hook. Minimising is the dock's Browser button or Super+M.

Notifications

classroom-notify-test renders with the classroom styling: dark translucent, rounded, white text, top right
classroom-notify-test --critical "Parent Call" "Room 3 needs a parent." renders in the critical style and does not time out
Notifications appear over a fullscreen video

Over SSH from an administrator account, run it with sudo:

sudo classroom-notify-test --dry-run   # show the session it resolved
sudo classroom-notify-test             # send into the classroom desktop

The classroom desktop belongs to the classroom user, and mako sits on that user's D-Bus session. A plain notify-send from an SSH session lands in the administrator's own session, where nothing owns org.freedesktop.Notifications, so D-Bus tries to start a second mako with no display and the call times out with NoReply. The script finds the running sway process for the classroom user and delivers into its session instead. It never starts mako.

sudo classroom-notify-test from an SSH session displays on the classroom screen
sudo classroom-notify-test --dry-run reports the resolved XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, bus address and Wayland display
Running it as an unprivileged admin account explains it needs sudo
tests/test-classroom-notify-test.sh passes (also run by the build)

DVD

With DVD_ENABLED=false:

No DVD button in the dock

With DVD_ENABLED=true:

Drive unplugged: button present, icon held back, friendly notification on click
Drive present, no disc: friendly notification on click, nothing crashes
Inserting a disc produces one DVD Ready notification
The DVD icon comes up to full strength while a disc is in
Nothing plays until the button is pressed
Clicking plays the disc
Menus work
Audio works
Chapter navigation works
Fullscreen works
Super+M minimises the player, the DVD button restores it
Closing the player works
Ejecting is detected, the icon goes back
Reinserting is detected again
VLC opens fullscreen, dark, with no menu bar, no orange cone and no sway title bar
The fullscreen controller still appears on mouse movement
Commercial CSS disc plays without anyone having run codec setup by hand

OTA

./update_canary.sh publishes package first, manifest last
The endpoint on the canary channel picks the update up
SHA-256 verification passes
Install succeeds and the endpoint reboots
Everything above still works after the update