Files
punktfunk/clients/session/README.md
T
enricobuehler 5c05246098 feat: M10 — FFmpeg is gone from the client
cargo tree -p punktfunk-client-session finds no ffmpeg. The host still does,
which is the whole point: pf-encode keeps libavcodec unconditionally and no
host workflow, packaging script or licence file was touched.

Deleted: crates/pf-ffvk, video_vulkan.rs, video_vaapi.rs, video_libav.rs, the
libavcodec half of video_d3d11.rs, the av_log machinery, ffmpeg::codec::Id as
the decoder's vocabulary (the quic CODEC_* wire constants now serve, which is
why the evidence table was keyed on them), DecodedImage::VkFrame and ::Dmabuf,
the presenter's AVVkFrame lane, and the ffmpeg-fallback feature with
everything behind it. DrmFrameGuard collapses from an enum to a newtype, which
removes an unsafe impl Send. Roughly 25,000 lines.

Then the CI, packaging, licensing and docs work the plan's §6 lists: the
Windows workflows lose FFMPEG_DIR, PF_FFVK_VULKAN_INCLUDE and their PATH
prepend; the MSIX loses its DLL wildcard; the client .deb stops emitting libav
sonames on its own because depends come from dpkg-shlibdeps; arch, flatpak and
nix drop the dependency; and the README's "FFmpeg 7 or 8" contract narrows to
the host.

Three defects reached users' machines in the first cut, and none was in the
deletion itself.

All three desktop Settings UIs offer vulkan, vaapi and d3d11va as stored
decoder values, so those strings sit in shipped settings files today. Refusing
them by name — which is the correct rule for a stale pin — would have bricked
every upgraded client whose owner ever touched that dropdown. They now migrate
onto the native rung for the same hardware family, at decoder construction AND
at each dialog's lookup, because a legacy value that matches no preset
displays as "Automatic" and silently rewrites the user's preference on the
next save.

M9's evidence filter was deleted on the argument that with no libavcodec twin
below, barring an unproven rung removes hardware decode rather than moving
down one rung. That is true on Windows and false on Linux for Intel and every
unknown vendor id, where prefer_vulkan_first is false and the order is
native-vaapi → native-vk: a rung that has decoded nothing anywhere sitting
above one that is 250/250 on three drivers. Every Intel Linux desktop would
have moved from libavcodec VAAPI, shipping for years, onto pf-vaadec by
default — and a rung that constructs and then produces wrong pixels leaves
only by the error-streak demotion, which this codebase already documents as
not tripping on the B580's strobing. The filter is restored as a narrow, pure,
testable rule: an unproven rung yields to a proven one, and to nothing else.
Windows deliberately passes no rung below, because that vendor family is the
one with a measured wrong-pixel report against Vulkan decode, and trading no
evidence for evidence of corruption is the wrong direction.

And the notices still said FFmpeg was bundled. The root file is what both
desktop clients include_str! and what the MSIX ships, three lines under the
new card saying no FFmpeg is bundled; Apple's Acknowledgements said it too, on
iOS, tvOS and macOS. The generator now emits four per-client files scoped by
transitive closure — 0 FFmpeg mentions in each, verified — while the root file
keeps it for the host. That also ends the standing false attribution of
ffmpeg-next, GTK4, windows-rs and the NVENC SDK to an iPhone.

Windows has no reachable box, so it was compiled instead: a cross clippy at
-D warnings on x86_64 and aarch64-pc-windows-msvc with the C toolchain stubbed
so build scripts run without linking. That gate immediately caught an
include_str! path one directory too deep, which nothing else could have.

Gates: container clippy -D warnings, 160 tests, workspace check, both Windows
targets clean, client ffmpeg count 0 and host 2. The four decode crates are
untouched, so the hardware rungs' 250/250 stands.

⚠ Owed and unrun: no GPU has executed any of this milestone. M8's on-glass
software check, M7's D3D11 and VAAPI AV1 hardware legs, and M9's field bake
all still want hardware, and the bake window and criteria remain the user's.
2026-08-07 08:58:47 +02:00

7.5 KiB

punktfunk-session

The Vulkan session binary: one stream per invocation in an SDL3 window — no UI toolkit, no widgets, terminal stats. The power-user / gamescope stream client, and the stage-2 presenter of the Linux client re-architecture (punktfunk-planning: linux-client-rearchitecture.md).

This binary is deliberately dumb: a renderer the front-ends call INTO — the GTK shell (punktfunk-client), the WinUI shell, and the punktfunk CLI all spawn it through the same brain (pf_client_core::orchestrate), which resolves policy (profiles, settings, wake) and hands the result down, normally as a --resolved-spec file. It reads the shared stores only as the compat fallback for a bare hand-launched invocation.

punktfunk-session --connect host[:port] [--fp HEX] [--launch id] [--fullscreen] [--stats]
punktfunk-session --browse host[:port] [--mgmt PORT] [--fullscreen]

--browse opens the console game library (the Skia coverflow over the animated aurora) instead of connecting: A launches the focused title as a stream in the same window, session end returns to the library, B quits (Gaming Mode returns). Paired hosts only — pairing is the desktop client / Decky plugin's job. PUNKTFUNK_FAKE_LIBRARY=<file.json> feeds canned entries with no host (portrait paths starting with / load from disk).

Reads the same identity / known-hosts / settings stores as the desktop client (punktfunk-client), so enrolling on either side makes the other work; this binary never connects to a host it has no pinned fingerprint for (--fp HEX overrides the store).

Pairing is punktfunk pair <host> — the CLI, which ships alongside this binary in every package and needs no window and no toolkit either. punktfunk-session --pair still works for one release (someone's provisioning script calls it today) but prints a deprecation notice: pairing is a trust ceremony and belongs to the brain, not a renderer.

Stdout is the machine interface: {"ready":true} after the first presented frame, stats: … once per second while the overlay tier isn't Off (always the full detailed text, whatever the OSD shows; --stats forces the overlay on), one {"error"|"ended": …} JSON line on the way out. Logs go to stderr. Exit codes: 0 clean end, 2 connect failed, 3 trust rejected / pairing required, 4 presenter init failed.

In-stream keys match the desktop client: click captures input (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Q releases), Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D disconnects, F11 toggles fullscreen; the controller escape chord (L1+R1+Start+Select, hold to disconnect) works the same.

The default build carries the Skia console UI (ui feature): the stats OSD and capture hint render in-window. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S cycles the OSD tier live — Off → Compact (one line: fps · latency · Mb/s) → Normal (mode + end-to-end percentiles) → Detailed (decoder path + per-stage latency equation); any tier but Off also emits the stdout mirror. --no-default-features is the ~5 MB power-user build — same streaming, stats on stdout only, no Skia anywhere in the dependency tree.

Decode follows the Settings preference (auto is vendor-ordered: Vulkan Video → VAAPI → software on Linux, Vulkan Video → D3D11VA → software on Windows, with VAAPI/D3D11VA first on Intel — every rung native since M10; see "Decode rungs" below): the Vulkan decoder runs on the presenter's own device where the stack supports it (every vendor, zero copy); VAAPI dmabufs import per-plane elsewhere (D3D11VA textures on Windows); software is the universal fallback. 10-bit Main10 and HDR10 are advertised (VIDEO_CAP_10BIT|HDR): P010 decodes through the Vulkan and VAAPI/D3D11VA paths (the CPU rung is 8-bit by contract and refuses 10-bit rather than mis-scaling it), and PQ streams present on an HDR10/ST.2084 swapchain when the desktop offers one (KDE HDR, gamescope) or tone-map in-shader to SDR when it doesn't (PUNKTFUNK_TONEMAP_PEAK tunes the rolloff, default ≈1000 nits). The host still gates the upgrade behind its PUNKTFUNK_10BIT policy.

Decode rungs (M10: native only)

This binary contains no FFmpeg. auto walks native rungs — pf-vkdecode over Vulkan Video, then the platform's own (pf-dxvadec on Windows, pf-vaadec on Linux), then the CPU rung (openh264/rav1d). The libavcodec rungs that used to sit under each of them are deleted, along with pf-ffvk and the ffmpeg-next dependency.

Two of the native rungs have never decoded a frame on real hardware (native VAAPI at all; native D3D11VA's AV1 leg). They run anyway — with the libavcodec twins gone, the only thing below them is the CPU, so barring them would cost the session hardware decode outright rather than move it one rung down. What replaces the safety net is the log: every session names the rung it landed on with its evidence state,

decode rung active  rung=native-vulkan codec=HEVC hardware_verified=true evidence=...

…and that line is a WARNING when nothing has ever decoded a frame through the rung/codec pair the session chose. pf-client-core's video.rs module docs carry the full table; read any field report about M10 against it.

Debug/bisect knobs: PUNKTFUNK_DECODER=native-vulkan|native-vaapi|native-d3d11va|software (a pin skips the vendor order, which is how a lab run reaches a rung auto will not pick on this device; a pinned rung that cannot open still falls through to the standard ladder, loudly; native-vaapi also takes PUNKTFUNK_VAAPI_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderDNNN to choose the GPU). The pre-M10 spellings vulkan/vaapi/d3d11va named the libavcodec rungs specifically; they are MIGRATED onto the native rung for the same hardware family, with a warn line saying so — every desktop Settings UI offered those values, so refusing them would end a session over a dropdown someone picked long ago. PUNKTFUNK_PRESENT_MODE= mailbox|fifo|immediate|fifo_relaxed (default MAILBOX, FIFO where the surface offers no MAILBOX — AMD on Windows), PUNKTFUNK_VK_DEVICE=<index> (multi-GPU), and PUNKTFUNK_HW_FAULT=import (fault every VAAPI dmabuf import — proves the three-strike demotion to software on healthy hardware).

PUNKTFUNK_AU_FAULT=drop|truncate|flip[:period] deliberately corrupts decoder input on the native Vulkan lane (default period 60 — one AU a second at 60 fps; inert everywhere else, and inert entirely if the value doesn't parse). drop swallows the AU, so the next one references a picture that was never decoded — the bitstream planner catches it immediately. truncate delivers a picture whose slice data stops mid-frame and flip alters one byte deep in the payload: both parse perfectly, so only the driver's per-frame decode-status query can see them, and neither is visible at all on a driver without queryResultStatusSupport. Watch the result on the Detailed stats line's integrity: term (damaged = concealment the planner caught, refused = AUs the decoder rejected outright, driver-failed = the hardware's own verdict, run = consecutive frames with no picture, worst run = the longest such stretch of the session — the once-a-second run sample misses the bad moment almost every time — and no driver status = this device cannot answer the driver question at all). A session that lands on any other lane says so in the log rather than faulting silently.

Note that PUNKTFUNK_AU_DUMP records the AU as it arrived from the HOST, while the fault injector runs later, at the native decoder's own entry. On a faulted run the dump is therefore the clean bitstream — reconstruct the damaged bytes from the spec if you need them (the injector is pure and deterministic).