gtk4-layer-shell shared lib needs to be installed when not linking external library

[jcollie]

Discussed in #6631

^{Originally posted by vaskark March 8, 2025}
Hi. I build ghostty on Ubuntu 24.10 and usually delete .zig-cache (along with .cache/zig) after a successful build. Ghostty usually runs just fine. But the past few days I've been getting this error:

ghostty: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk4-layer-shell.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I suppose I just need to keep .zig-cache. But is there any reason why this has changed all the sudden?

Thanks.

[jcollie]

@pluiedev

[AnthonyZhOon]

Running zig build does not install libgtk4-layer-shell.so to the output directory, seems to be missing an install dependency in Ghostty's build. zig build in pkg/gtk4-layer-shell/ does correctly output a lib.

I think we should prefer the system library by default for gtk4-layer-shell, similar to other dynamic-link only dependencies.

[pluiedev]

D'oh! Makes sense, since this is the only dynamic library that we build. I'll draw up a fix some time today

[tl87]

I'm experiencing the same issue, so I just keep an eye on this issue.

[chrispaig3]

I'm experiencing the same issue, so I just keep an eye on this issue.

Same here.

[agriffis]

This also affects rpm builds in COPR, e.g. mine and pgdev (@ps-gill)

✸ sudo dnf install ghostty
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Problem: cannot install the best candidate for the job
  - nothing provides libgtk4-layer-shell.so()(64bit) needed by ghostty-1.1.2^96.95daca61-2.fc41.x86_64 from copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:agriffis:ghostty-nightly
Package                 Arch   Version                  Repository          Size
Installing:
 ghostty                x86_64 1.1.2^82.e07b6fdf-1.fc41 copr:copr.fedo  35.4 MiB
Skipping packages with broken dependencies:
 ghostty                x86_64 1.1.2^96.95daca61-2.fc41 copr:copr.fedo  35.4 MiB

Ideally, for adherence to Fedora's packaging guidelines, we'd link to the system-provided gtk4-layer-shell instead of the included one. I added the dep to mine in agriffis@31dd4b7 but it seems to need a change to the Zig build files, which is beyond my ken.

[pluiedev]

Yeah - the intention is that we only compile the dep for distros that truly don't have it (e.g. Debian 12, Ubuntu 24.04, openSUSE). For other distros you should absolutely enable system integration and use system libraries.

[roehnan]

That's all well and good but dnf complains about broken dependencies (gtk4-layer-shell) even though it is installed. I'm on Fedora 41 x86_64. I'll get the actual error message when I get back to my computer.

Update - @agriffis already captured the error above.

[AnthonyZhOon]

adding -fsys=gtk4-layer-shell as a zig build arg should use the system sharedlib without compiling another one, but it is understandable that it should work out of the box regardless of mode

[agriffis]

@AnthonyZhOon Thank you! That's what I needed. My COPR is installable again, now.

[pluiedev]

Packagers should use the --system flag anyway which enables all system integrations. Ideally only distros like Debian 12 should manually turn off system integration for gtk4-layer-shell via -fno-sys=gtk4-layer-shell.

[agriffis]

@pluiedev Thank you, I'll switch to that.