How to build Neva webruntime for webOS/OSE

Summary

meta-neva is wrapper layer for meta-webosose used to build webOS OSE (Open Source Edition) with NEVA specifics.

Preparation

System configuration

Build is tested and works on Ubuntu 22.04 only

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
Release:        22.04
Codename:       jammy

Build toolstack & sources

To get the build toolstack and Neva source code, you need to do the following:

• Clone https://github.com/webosose/build-webos for webOS/OSE build toolstack.
• Clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools for Google depot_tools.
• Clone and check out neva-main branch of https://github.com/nevaoss/chromium.git directory for Neva itself.

Note: We've currently pinned out our build-webos to builds/master/843, please check it out as follows:

WORKSPACE$ git clone https://github.com/webosose/build-webos -b builds/master/843

WORKSPACE$ git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools
WORKSPACE$ cd depot_tools
WORKSPACE/depot_tools$ ./gclient        # to avoid certificate error
WORKSPACE/depot_tools$ cd ..

WORKSPACE$ git clone -b neva-main https://github.com/nevaoss/chromium.git chromium/src

You need to install Chromium build dependencies with the help of .../build/install-build-deps.sh script held in build directory under Chromium sources:

WORKSPACE$ sudo ./chromium/src/build/install-build-deps.sh

You also need to install all webOS/OSE build toolstack prerequisites:

WORKSPACE$ sudo ./build-webos/scripts/prerequisites.sh

Bitbake metas and recipes via MCF

You need to change weboslayers.py file manually in this way:

WORKSPACE$ cd build-webos
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ git diff weboslayers.py
diff --git a/weboslayers.py b/weboslayers.py
index 3c4967d..a4a4938 100644
--- a/weboslayers.py
+++ b/weboslayers.py
@@ -83,4 +83,5 @@ webos_layers = [
 ('meta-webos-virtualization', 53, 'https://github.com/webosose/meta-webosose.git',          '', ''),
 
 ('meta-security',             76, 'https://git.yoctoproject.org/git/meta-security',         'branch=scarthgap,commit=bc865c5276c', ''),
+('meta-neva',                 99, 'https://github.com/nevaoss/meta-neva.git',               'branch=webosose/843,commit=webosose/843', ''),
 ]

Next, you need to check out all metalayers with the help of mcf tool:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ ./mcf -p 6 -b 6 raspberrypi4-64

Note: You highly likely want to decrease a number of parallel bitbake threads -b 6 and a number of parallel compiler processes -p 6 to be less than a number of your processor cores/hyperthreads:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ nproc
8
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ ./mcf -p 4 -b 4 raspberrypi4-64

Bitbake configuration

Bitbake can use local directories as sources for recipes through the externalsrc mechanism. This allows Neva Chromium to be built directly from your workspace without repackaging or fetching sources, which is especially useful during development and speeds up iterative builds.

To enable this behavior, the webos-local.conf file must include externalsrc and specify paths to your local Chromium tree and depot_tools. Optional build accelerators such as ccache or ccache+icecc can also be configured the same way if needed.

Instead of preparing the configuration manually, you can generate a complete and ready‑to‑use file with the provided helper script. It automatically substitutes @@WORKSPACE@@ and fills in all required variables:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ ./meta-neva/scripts/make-webos-local-conf

---

Actual building

Building Neva webruntime

To build Neva webruntime, you should build webruntime-clang recipe by make just-webruntime-clang instead of building a whole webOS image:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ make just-webruntime-clang

or you can alternatively build it manually by old plain bitbake call:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ . oe-init-build-env
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ bitbake webruntime-clang

Build artifacts

After build you will find some *.ipk under BUILD/deploy/ipk/raspberrypi4_64/ directory:

...
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ find BUILD/deploy/ipk/raspberrypi4_64/ | grep -E 'webruntime'
BUILD/deploy/ipk/raspberrypi4_64/webruntime-clang_143.0.7499.0-r5webosrpi5neva1_raspberrypi4_64.ipk
BUILD/deploy/ipk/raspberrypi4_64/webruntime-clang-dev_143.0.7499.0-r5webosrpi5neva1_raspberrypi4_64.ipk
BUILD/deploy/ipk/raspberrypi4_64/webruntime-clang-dbg_143.0.7499.0-r5webosrpi5neva1_raspberrypi4_64.ipk
...

Now you're ready to build a whole Neva-based webOS/OSE root image:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ ionice -c idle chrt -i 0 make just-webos-image

and then find it here:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ find BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/*webos-image-raspberrypi4-64*
...
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64.manifest
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64-master-20251111081814.manifest
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64-master-20251111081814.tar.bz2
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64-master-20251111081814.testdata.json
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64-master-20251111081814.wic.bmap
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64-master-20251111081814.wic.bz2
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64.tar.bz2
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64.testdata.json
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64.wic.bmap
BUILD/deploy/images/raspberrypi4-64/webos-image-raspberrypi4-64.wic.bz2
...

and now you're finally ready to boot it to your RPi4!

---

Re-building

Rebuilding webruntime after updating GN/gni files (including updating Chromium version)

If you are updating any GN/gni files (including updating Chromium version) it is recommended to re-build webruntime via bitbake, because Make might not see changes, since we are using externalsrc way.

After updating GN/gni files the webruntime should be re-built beginning from the step do_configure:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ . oe-init-build-env
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ bitbake -f -C configure webruntime-clang

After updating Chromium version the webruntime should be re-built beginning from the step do_gclient_sync:

WORKSPACE/build-webos$ . oe-init-build-env
WORKSPACE/build-webos$ bitbake -f -C gclient_sync webruntime-clang

After switching to new base webOS build

To save some space on the disk, after first build on new base webOS build, you might remove BUILD directory and build the webOS from the scratch.

In this case previously saved built states for recipes will be taken from local sstate-cache and the BUILD directory will be quite smaller.

---

Flashing webOS/OSE image

You can find out how to install the webOS/OSE build in the official documentation.

Happy testing!