Manual installation instructions about scrcpy

[rom1v]

I'm currently using the distribution-packaged (Ubuntu) version of scrcpy

The packaged version is very very old. You should always run the latest version 😉

a way to pass an installation prefix directory to the build systems (ninja and meson).

During your meson setup:

meson setup builddir --prefix=/your/prefix/directory

./build-auto/app/scrcpy -s xxxxxxxxxxx

You can run without installing:

./run build-auto -s xxxxxxxxxxx

(check the content of the run script)

[jaybeers]

I actually worked this out while I was opening the issue, but it occurred to me that somebody else might benefit from the answer, and having the full question in there would make the whole thing more discoverable, so...

Turns out you can run the executable right out of the build directory; you just have to specify the path to the scrcpy-server file. This file is provided in the build directory, but the scrcpy invocation doesn't look for it there. If you just want a quick and dirty way to run, you can just run this in the build directory:

SCRCPY_SERVER_PATH="./scrcpy-server" ./build-auto/app/scrcpy

I wrote up this simple shell script which should make things a little friendlier; I put mine in ${HOME}/.local/bin/scrcpy-homedir, but it'll work from any directory.

#!/bin/sh

base_directory="${HOME}/build/scrcpy"

###############################################################################
###############################################################################

SCRCPY_SERVER_PATH="${base_directory}/scrcpy-server" ${base_directory}/build-auto/app/scrcpy ${*}

## EOF
########

[jaybeers]

You can run without installing:

./run build-auto -s xxxxxxxxxxx

Ah, OK. That seems to produce the same result, but less fiddly than my version. :) Thanks for the help! So, just to close the loop, this is what I'm updating the shell script to:

#!/bin/sh

base_directory="${HOME}/build/scrcpy"

###############################################################################
###############################################################################

${base_directory}/run build-auto ${*}

## EOF
########

[rom1v]

But it is still better to build and install.

If x is your builddir:

ninja -Cx
sudo ninja -Cx install

I don't want to run an arbitrary "make install"-type command that puts who knows what files in who knows which directories.

It installs the files documented here

Here are the relevant lines in meson:

scrcpy/app/meson.build

Lines 177 to 193 in 206809a

	executable('scrcpy', src,
	dependencies: dependencies,
	include_directories: src_dir,
	install: true,
	c_args: [])
	# <https://mesonbuild.com/Builtin-options.html#directories>
	datadir = get_option('datadir') # by default 'share'
	install_man('scrcpy.1')
	install_data('data/icon.png',
	rename: 'scrcpy.png',
	install_dir: join_paths(datadir, 'icons/hicolor/256x256/apps'))
	install_data('data/zsh-completion/_scrcpy',
	install_dir: join_paths(datadir, 'zsh/site-functions'))
	install_data('data/bash-completion/scrcpy',
	install_dir: join_paths(datadir, 'bash-completion/completions'))

scrcpy/server/meson.build

Lines 12 to 13 in 206809a

	install: true,
	install_dir: 'share/scrcpy')

[jaybeers]

Ah OK...yeah, that's the info I was looking for.

I made it as far as https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/linux.md; too bad I didn't go one more link 'cause "build.md" is linked on that page. 😄

Excellent; so, it looks like what I'm after is probably to add something to the meson command line so it installs into my ${HOME}/.local prefix.