Skip to content

ciscoPacketTracer{7,8}: force xorg display mode#452755

Merged
vcunat merged 1 commit intoNixOS:masterfrom
buckley310:packet-tracer-wayland
Nov 14, 2025
Merged

ciscoPacketTracer{7,8}: force xorg display mode#452755
vcunat merged 1 commit intoNixOS:masterfrom
buckley310:packet-tracer-wayland

Conversation

@buckley310
Copy link
Contributor

Resolve: #190314

Force Packet Tracer to output in x11 mode. This helps some people using wayland desktops.

If a user on wayland has globally set QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland, packet tracer will crash, because it does not support wayland. This patch will allow Packet Tracer to still work for such users.

I have tested running Packet Tracer 7 and 8 on hyprland with QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland set.
Without this patch, it crashes. With this patch, it works.

Things done

  • Built on platform:
    • x86_64-linux
    • aarch64-linux
    • x86_64-darwin
    • aarch64-darwin
  • Tested, as applicable:
  • Ran nixpkgs-review on this PR. See nixpkgs-review usage.
  • Tested basic functionality of all binary files, usually in ./result/bin/.
  • Nixpkgs Release Notes
    • Package update: when the change is major or breaking.
  • NixOS Release Notes
    • Module addition: when adding a new NixOS module.
    • Module update: when the change is significant.
  • Fits CONTRIBUTING.md, pkgs/README.md, maintainers/README.md and other READMEs.

Add a 👍 reaction to pull requests you find important.

Packet Tracer does not natively support wayland.
This patch will allow Packet Tracer to keep working,
even if a user has set `QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland`.
@nixpkgs-ci nixpkgs-ci bot added 10.rebuild-linux: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Linux. 10.rebuild-darwin: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Darwin. 10.rebuild-darwin: 1 This PR causes 1 package to rebuild on Darwin. labels Oct 16, 2025
@nix-owners nix-owners bot requested a review from gepbird October 16, 2025 22:54
Copy link
Contributor

@gepbird gepbird left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Thanks for the fix, I made a VM with sway, reproduced the issue and confirmed this PR fixed it.

ciscoPacketTracer8 requires wayland as a build input, do you think it could work on Wayland natively? I'm still mainly on X11 and don't know much about Wayland, but I imagine it needs to be passed somewhere else too.

Copy link
Contributor

@gepbird gepbird left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

After reading a little on the Arch wiki about this issue, I'm pretty sure we'd need to use nixpkgs built Qt libraries instead of the ones shipped with Packet Tracer if we want to run this natively on Wayland. I've tried it and I don't think it's worth it, because Qt 5 is no longer supported and packages like libsForQt5.qtwebengine is already marked as vulnerable with many CVEs.

Let's stick to your solution.

@nixpkgs-ci nixpkgs-ci bot added 12.approvals: 1 This PR was reviewed and approved by one person. 12.approved-by: package-maintainer This PR was reviewed and approved by a maintainer listed in any of the changed packages. labels Oct 17, 2025
@gepbird gepbird requested a review from jopejoe1 October 17, 2025 10:05
@buckley310
Copy link
Contributor Author

Interesting. I wonder if packet tracer should be tagged with knownVulnerabilities

@gepbird
Copy link
Contributor

gepbird commented Oct 18, 2025

Interesting. I wonder if packet tracer should be tagged with knownVulnerabilities

Yeah, that sounds the correct way of handling this inside nixpkgs. I don't think there are actual risk associated with those CVEs, because Packet Tracer is a simulation program, the virtual PCs with web browsers access content on the simulated network, etc.

@buckley310
Copy link
Contributor Author

The only risky thing that comes to mind is the Cisco login stuff. That does at least some amount of network interaction.

Copy link
Contributor

@gepbird gepbird left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Sorry for going off-topic, I've opened a PR for that discussion.

There are no blockers for this PR.

@gepbird gepbird requested a review from khaneliman October 29, 2025 00:37
@gepbird gepbird reopened this Nov 14, 2025
@gepbird gepbird requested a review from vcunat November 14, 2025 09:11
@nixpkgs-ci nixpkgs-ci bot added 10.rebuild-darwin: 0 This PR does not cause any packages to rebuild on Darwin. and removed 10.rebuild-darwin: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Darwin. 10.rebuild-darwin: 1 This PR causes 1 package to rebuild on Darwin. labels Nov 14, 2025
@vcunat vcunat added this pull request to the merge queue Nov 14, 2025
@vcunat
Copy link
Member

vcunat commented Nov 14, 2025

Why not, I guess.

Merged via the queue into NixOS:master with commit 2854bef Nov 14, 2025
55 of 59 checks passed
@gepbird gepbird mentioned this pull request Jan 18, 2026
13 tasks
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

10.rebuild-darwin: 0 This PR does not cause any packages to rebuild on Darwin. 10.rebuild-linux: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Linux. 12.approvals: 1 This PR was reviewed and approved by one person. 12.approved-by: package-maintainer This PR was reviewed and approved by a maintainer listed in any of the changed packages.

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

Packet Tracer 8 does not launch on sway (nixos-22.05)

3 participants