Can't start dev instance on WSL

[RickSeiden]

What doesn't work?
I'm getting errors when I run npm start and the dev instance crashes. The error messages look like this:

'/home/rick/OctoDash/node_modules/electron/dist/electron: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory'

I say look like this because I an error on one library, install that library, then run it again and get a different one. I got to libasound.so.2 and couldn't install it.

What did you already try?
Updating NodeJS, and installing the libraries that are missing, among a few other things.

General Information:

WSL under Ubuntu. Latest OctoDash as of an hour or so ago.

Additional context
I don't really want to run a dev instance of OctoDash. I want to make a small change to the screen that is attached to this post (I want to widen it so it takes up more of the screen). I'm looking for the CSS associated with it so I can put that into my custom-styles.css. If someone can tell me what that CSS is, I'd be happy with that solution. I wish there was a way to figure out the CSS for a given screen without setting up a dev instance.

(One picture shows the screen I'm talking about and the other with a red rectangle shows how much I want to widen it.)

[Hillshum]

If you're running on a Pi, you can enable VNC using raspi-config and access the devtools with that.

I'm not sure if Electron under WSL is doable because there's no GUI.

[RickSeiden]

Running VNC doesn't give me access to the devtools. It just displays what's on the Raspberry Pi's screen, which is the printer interface. I can't inspect anything to find the CSS behind a screen.

I've used WSL to run the devtools years ago in the past, but now I can't get NodeJS to install completely no matter what I do. I've tried new installations of Linux, I've tried WSL. It just keeps throwing errors about depreciated packages and then dies. (The message is actually, "KILLED".

[Hillshum]

You should be able to use F12 to open the devtools once you've connected with VNC (or connect a keyboard).

[RickSeiden]

Pressing F12 in VNC doesn't appear to do anything.

…

On Sun, Nov 16, 2025 at 4:15 PM Hilton Shumway ***@***.***> wrote: *Hillshum* left a comment (UnchartedBull/OctoDash#5453) <#5453 (comment)> You should be able to use F12 to open the devtools once you've connected with VNC (or connect a keyboard). — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5453 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAU2UV3KFD24XFLWJW2OIV335DSONAVCNFSM6AAAAACMG6LSJ2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTKMZZGM3DINBRGM> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Hillshum]

Looks like the selector you want is probably .file__wrapper. It's within the files-component if you want to inspect the structure further. Also, I'll make sure we've got a listed issue to better handle long filenames.

[Hillshum]

Looks like #627 already exists for addressing long filenames.