Bisq: Bisq works fine on Raspberry Pi, though there are issues and some patches are required

[leshik]

Hi,

I was able to run Bisq on Raspberry Pi (3B+ in my case) successfully, but I had to patch some libs:

1. netlayer and tor-binary (most important.) There is no official port of TOR for armhf, but there is an ongoing effort and unofficial builds are published on sourceforge. My patches (not perfect, I know) are here and here.
2. scrypt transient dependency – while it falls back to native Java implementation, it is slow as hell, thus native support is needed (it's 7 times faster), the patch is here.
3. the Bisq itself gradle build scripts to use these patched versions – here.

There is no jpackager for ARM thus Bisq should be launched from command line using several options. I tried Bellsoft JDK build 10.0.2 and Zulu JDK 11.0.3, both with Gluon JFX 11.0.2. It works with Monocle embedded platform as well as with GTK frontend.

There are some issues with popup windows (which show notices and help messages), sometimes they are just black rectangles, but minimizing then maximizing helps, it's unclear why. The Monocle platform draws windows directly on Pi hardware on top of X, thus no window manager support (but should be faster as it uses the prism es2 pipeline).

The speed is, well, not fast, but I can't say that it's unusable – after the initial sync it can be used fine. In my opinion on Zulu JDK 11 it's faster, though I didn't conduct any benchmarking.

Is anybody interested or willing to try Bisq on RPi? Not sure if it's worth the effort...

[huey735]

Hi, @leshik I'd like to try it but I think I have knowledge enough to install it. Would it be more difficult than a Raspiblitz?

[leshik]

@huey735 well it's not user-friendly nor production ready at all for now. You can either checkout and build v1.1.1-arm branch from my repo, either try to apply gradle patch to the current. You can build on any platform, building on RPi itself is not required. Then you run jar file manually as described here, either with Monocle or GTK frontend (both work on RPi, but only GTK integrates nicely into Raspbian desktop).

[freimair]

@leshik well thanks for your contribution! I only got aware of your work now.

Being responsible for the netlayer-part of Bisq (and having an always-up RPi3 at home) I have been thinking about getting tor for arm as well. For Bisq we need to discuss and decide on whether unofficial builds are ok (or if we can build for arm ourselves). Would you, in the meantime, file a pull-request for netlayer (external-tor branch)/tor-binary?

ad if it is worth the effort: well, as Bisq has an API coming up, I can see a real use case in having a "headless" Bisq running on a low-power, always-on device and using the API to control Bisq from a mobile device for example.

[leshik]

@freimair yeah, looks like for now, the only way to get tor working on arm is to use these unofficial binaries. Starting from v8.5, they added arm64, I have to redo my patches then.

Another thing is scrypt, and while it falls back to Java implementation when no C library is found, it's 7 times slower. I have to adapt it to both armhf and arm64 too.

[leshik]

@freimair I've created pull-requests for netlayer and tor-binary. My fork of scrypt with support of armhf and arm64 is here.

[wiz]

@leshik Thanks for your notes and patches in this issue, they were very helpful. I'm currently writing a guide to setting up Bitcoin, Lightning, etc. on a RPI4 and I hope to include Bisq in the guide as well, so I'd like to work with you on merging any necessary ARM related patches if I can help in any way. I actually hacked together a virtual frame buffer to run Bisq in, with a mobile VNC app to remote into the RPI and control Bisq, we should compare notes ;)

[OrfanMiner]

Hi @leshik I have spent a few days tearing my hair out trying to get bisq working on a rpi4. I compiled from your source code on my mac (had to skip the testing because it would make it fail). Transferred over the RPI4, followed the java guide, but still no cigar. I probably shouldn't be posting this here so apologies if it's the wrong place.

[leshik]

@OrfanMiner I only have RPi 3+ but it works ok for me. How do you launch it? Bisq has quite detailed logs, it should print to stdout/stderr what's happening. Would you mind to share logs?

[leshik]

@jmaurice

I actually hacked together a virtual frame buffer to run Bisq in, with a mobile VNC app to remote into the RPI and control Bisq, we should compare notes ;)

You mean, Xvfb with traditional VNC to make it headless? I thought about it but didn't experiment yet as I think it should work the same way as with the HDMI screen. What might be interesting is to make JavaFX render directly to RPi hardware with Monocle in conjunction with VNC. I tried dispmanx_vnc but there are issues with the mouse (cursor is hidden), also there are black rectangles instead of notifications. I'm pretty sure it's the OpenJFX issue and not Bisq though.

[OrfanMiner]

It's the last stage of the java guide you posted that fails: https://docs.gluonhq.com/embedded/

sudo /opt/jdk-11/bin/java --module-path=/opt/armv6hf-sdk/lib --add-modules=javafx.controls -cp classes/ -Dprism.verbose=true -Dembedded=monocle -Dglass.platform=Monocle sample.Main

i get the message:

GLFactory using com.sun.prism.es2.MonocleGLFactory

• failed to add service - already in use?

when trying to run the compiled binary on my rpi4 i get:

Graphics Device initialization failed for : es2, sw
Error initializing QuantumRenderer: no suitable pipeline foundjava.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error initializing QuantumRenderer: no suitable pipeline found
(there's more but doesn't seem useful to post)

[leshik]

@OrfanMiner try with Liberica 10.0.2 first and GTK backend to be sure it launches, then you may experiment with jdk11 and Monocle. Here is what works 100%:

/opt/jdk-10.0.2/bin/java --module-path=/opt/armv6hf-sdk/lib -Djavafx.platform=gtk -jar desktop-1.1.1-all.jar

[leshik]

I can't remember now what I did (and why) to make it launch on JDK11, but in my .bash_history I found this:

/opt/zulu11.31.16-ca-jdk11.0.3-linux_aarch32hf/bin/java --module-path /opt/armv6hf-sdk/lib --add-modules javafx.base --add-modules javafx.controls --add-modules javafx.fxml --add-modules javafx.graphics --add-opens javafx.base/com.sun.javafx.runtime=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.base/com.sun.javafx.binding=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.base/com.sun.javafx.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.controls/com.sun.javafx.scene.control.behavior=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.controls/com.sun.javafx.scene.control=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.graphics/com.sun.javafx.scene=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.graphics/com.sun.javafx.stage=ALL-UNNAMED -Djavafx.platform=gtk -jar desktop-1.1.1-all.jar

[OrfanMiner]

Thanks for the response!

I installed JDK10 using this guide:

https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9-102a-ac6d-e4aebca50425/9bb3ae09-c2f9-4e93-a579-575347a27446/File/43af450d88c87cfb08e197f50699b16a/openjdk_10_build_rpi3.txt

and end up with this error:

Error: Unable to access jarfile desktop-1.1.1-all.jar

[leshik]

desktop-1.1.1-all.jar is what you get in your desktop/build/libs/ folder after you build Bisq on your mac.
As for JDK10, no need to compile from sources, you can get prebuilt one from https://download.bell-sw.com/java/10.0.2/bellsoft-jdk10.0.2-linux-arm32-vfp-hflt.tar.gz

[OrfanMiner]

for some reason all i have in that folder is desktop-1.1.1-SNAPSHOT-all.jar and desktop-1.1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar. perhaps my build didn't go correctly on the mac?

[leshik]

Did you build from v1.1.1-arm tag?

[OrfanMiner]

yes, absolutely.

[leshik]

Idk then, try desktop-1.1.1-SNAPSHOT-all.jar maybe.

[OrfanMiner]

will do, thanks :)

[OrfanMiner]

I think my compile on my mac that is what's wrong. I'm a bit out of the loop with the scope of discussions on here, but feel it's probably inappropriate for me to be asking these types of questions here. Are you on the bisq slack?

[leshik]

yes, and also on Telegram

[wiz]

@leshik would it be possible for you to get Bisq working in Docker on Raspberry Pi ? If so, I can add the X11 virtual framebuffer VNC stuff and then we could merge the Dockerfile into BTCPay-Docker for easy setup by newbies. They could use the VNC interface to remotely access Bisq and we could get a lot more users quickly.

[leshik]

@jmaurice sure, I'll publish it maybe Monday or Tuesday, after the new release comes up. Just doing some testing now.

[leshik]

@jmaurice here is the Dockerfile, you can play meanwhile if you wish. BTW it also works on PC (x86_64.)

[leshik]

Tested 1.1.3 w/patches on ARM64 (Ubuntu 19.04 on Raspberry Pi 3 B+) and it works too. It has slightly greater memory consumption though. Had to add swap space, otherwise, Bisq is being killed by OOM. GUI is a true performance killer, we need to decouple API badly...

[leshik]

@jmaurice @OrfanMiner I've put Docker images for 1.1.4 with VNC to https://hub.docker.com/r/leshik/bisq
Supported architectures are x86_64, armhf (Raspberry Pi) and arm64. Anybody willing to test, please do and post feedback here.

[wiz]

@leshik Thanks, I am planning to add Bisq as an optional component to BTCPayServer-Docker so this is a huge help. I'll test it soon and report back

[wiz]

@leshik Actually, can you do a pull-request to Bisq to add the Dockerfile? I'd like to request that Bisq officially support the configuration of running in Docker using VNC

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