[Feature] Enhance Debian 11 support especially with WebKit

Users often use the official Node.js or Python images as Docker base images which are based on Debian (latest - 10) or only officially available with Debian based builds. GitHub Codespaces with Python (since official Python docker image) uses Debian as well. Currently we neither provide an official Dockerfile which can be used for Debian 10 nor it does work fully there since users have to compile libjpeg themselves and libicu60 is not available in their apt repos either.

If they use e.g. the Ubuntu deb package of libicu60 or compile it themselves from source, the headful (xvfb-run) WebKit variant works but the headless variant crashes.

Related issues:

• #2758 - tried to add a Dockerfile for Debian 10
• https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/2437#issuecomment-642860416 - Hidden instructions that libjpeg needs to be compiled from source

Building WebKit on Debian 10:

apt update
apt install -y git zip
apt-get build-dep -y cockpit
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/playwright
git config --global user.email "[e-mail]"
git config --global user.name "Max Schmitt"

# Prepare Playwright and install build deps
cd playwright
./browser_patches/prepare_checkout.sh webkit
yes | ./browser_patches/webkit/checkout/Tools/gtk/install-dependencies
cd ..

# Build gpgme
wget https://www.gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/gpgme/gpgme-1.14.0.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf gpgme-1.14.0.tar.bz2 
cd gpgme-1.14.0/
apt install -y libassuan-dev
./configure
make
make install
cd ..

# Build flatpak
wget https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/releases/download/1.4.4/flatpak-1.4.4.tar.xz
tar -xvf flatpak-1.4.4.tar.xz
cd flatpak-1.4.4/
apt install -y libcap-dev libarchive-dev libfuse-dev libostree-dev libappstream-glib-dev
./configure
make
make install
cd ..

# Build WebKit
cd playwright
export JHBUILD_RUN_AS_ROOT=
./browser_patches/webkit/build.sh

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash -
apt-get install -y nodejs
./browser_patches/webkit/archive.sh $(pwd)/webkit.zip

When the built binaries will be used from the separate build, then it works fine. Used these requirements:

    libwoff1 \
    libopus0 \
    libwebp6 \
    libwebpdemux2 \
    libenchant1c2a \
    libgudev-1.0-0 \
    libsecret-1-0 \
    libhyphen0 \
    libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 \
    libegl1 \
    libxslt1.1 \
    libgles2 \
    libnotify4 \
    libharfbuzz-icu0 \
    libvpx5 \
    libevent-2.1-6 \
    # gstreamer and plugins to support video playback in WebKit
    libgstreamer-gl1.0-0 \
    libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 \
    gstreamer1.0-plugins-good \

Next steps

• Investigate why the page crashes in headless mode
• Setup azure bots for building it on Debian.
• Docs change that node:*-buster needs to be used because Node default images use Debian 9. Not sure how complicated it is to make them Debian 9 compatible too.

[aslushnikov]

Turns out this is not fixed yet!

[AlexDaniel]

OK. Reporting back. I pulled libjpeg-turbo8 and libicu66 deb files from ubuntu and installed them in debian without any issue. I then ran npx playwright test (headless) and it seems to work. --headed option is working too. So far, so good. Though keep in mind that I’m on debian sid (unstable), so maybe that’s why it was so easy. Your mileage may vary.