Support files for Flatpak builds #3723

aperezdc · 2017-04-24T19:52:51Z

⚠️ ~~This is a working proof of concept, but I want to share it to request feedback~~ ⚠️

In particular, I would like to iron out at least the following:

Application ID. For now it's im.riot.Riot, but maybe something else is more appropriate (comments welcome).
- Changed to im.vector.Riot as per Matthew's comment.
Cleaning up files used for build which are unneeded at runtime. There are options which can be added to the JSON manifest for this, I just didn't have time to add them and test.
AppStream metadata is missing. This would be needed for the application to appear e.g. in GNOME Software.
- It would be nice to have a screenshot of Riot available at some public URL to link it in the AppStream metadata.
Adding Flatpak builds to CI.
Figuring out with the Matrix developers in which way a Flatpak repository could be made available online for people to use. Probably needs some discussion first.

Install the dependency base Electron bundle with:

flatpak --user remote-add endless-electron-apps --from \
    https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/electron-flatpak.endlessm.com/endless-electron-apps.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user install endless-electron-apps io.atom.electron.BaseApp

then Riot can be built and saved to a Flatpak repository with (it takes a bit, it will build NodeJS inside the Flatpak sandbox):

flatpak-builder --repo=flatpak-repo flaptak-build \
    electron/build/im.riot.Riot.json

and installed locally for testing with:

flatpak --user remote-add --no-gpg-verify \
    riot-local file://`pwd`/flatpak-repo
flatpak --user install riot-local im.riot.Riot
flatpak run im.riot.Riot

aperezdc · 2017-04-25T05:56:46Z

One thought about the application identifier: probably it should be org.matrix.Riot, or even maybe better im.vector.Riot given that the GitHub organization is vector-im. I guess we want @ara4n or someone else from the core team to vet one of those.

aperezdc · 2017-04-25T19:25:38Z

I have added AppStream metadata:

The <description> is filled with a couple of paragraphs taken from riot.im — let me know if some other text is preferred.
Screenshots are missing. For adding this we would be nice to host the image somewhere, to be able to write the URL in the XML file. This should be in 16:9 ratio, with a minimum width of 620px (more info in the spec).

ara4n · 2017-04-29T01:23:07Z

the application ID should definitely be im.vector.Riot - Riot's not made by Matrix.org but Vector. (Matrix.org is the non-profit; Vector is a separate startup building apps & services on top of Matrix).

This is looking really good. We can provide some 'official' screenshots and check the description field once you're ready for the PR to be reviewed and landed :)

aperezdc · 2017-04-29T21:53:27Z

I have just added a few changes:

The application ID is not im.vector.Riot (thanks @ara4n for the clarification).
Allow using /tmp from the Flatpak sandbox, which is needed for Electron's unique instance checks.
Allow sending D-Bus messages to the notification daemon from gthe sandbox, which makes desktop notifications work.

ara4n · 2017-05-15T00:15:01Z

@aperezdc is there anything to be done on this other than screenshots from us?

aperezdc · 2017-05-15T13:24:24Z

@ara4n From my hitlist above, there are only two things missing: Making CI do Flatpak builds, and making a Flatpak repository available. Probably we can just merge this PR, and skip these two for now.

I think that figuring out how to provide a Flatpak repository for people to use can be done separately and shouldn't keep this from being merged. Probably it needs some discussion before and it may take a while to set up something.

As for the CI, would it make sense to make Travis-CI do also Flatpak builds? I suppose it's fine to skip this, but it would be nice to have. So far I haven't had some free time to sit down to figure out how to get flatpak-builder to work inside Travis (it could be as well that it doesn't work because of the union mounts and the setuid sandbox helper). I think it's fine to merge this PR and I can make a separate follow-up PR which modifies .travis.yml later on (if I ever get it to work).

Croydon · 2017-05-15T23:08:54Z

You might want to have a look at Flathub. However I'm not sure if this is already ready for real usage.

https://github.com/flathub/flathub/wiki
https://flathub.org/builds/

TingPing · 2017-05-15T23:33:48Z

You might want to have a look at Flathub. However I'm not sure if this is already ready for real usage.

Packager for Flathub here. So the main blocker at a glance is you currently pass --share=network as a build option and this is not acceptable on the Flathub build servers. I'm not super familiar with npm but I did find a project called npm-bundle that might be useful, if releases are made using this it might work without network access.

TingPing · 2017-05-15T23:39:26Z

As for Travis CI, that won't be easy because Travis is too old for Flatpak and running flatpak-builder inside a docker container or such is PITA.

t3chguy

electron has been moved to electron_app
so these new files will need moving accordingly

t3chguy · 2017-05-25T12:20:16Z

electron/build/im.vector.Riot.desktop

+Type=Application
+Icon=im.vector.Riot
+StartupWMClass="Riot"
+Categories=Network;InstantMessaging;Chat;IRCClient


This doesn't match the cats being used in the Linux app, (though Chat should be in them and I missed it)
i.e remove IRCClient

aperezdc · 2017-06-07T19:10:35Z

I have added a couple of commits to move the files under electron_app/, fix the categories in the .desktop file, and update the used sources to Riot version 0.10.2

Could we merge this as it is now for a first pass, and then improve things in follow-up PRs if needed?

Install the dependency base Electron bundle with: flatpak --user remote-add endless-electron-apps --from \ https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/electron-flatpak.endlessm.com/endless-electron-apps.flatpakrepo flatpak --user install endless-electron-apps io.atom.electron.BaseApp then Riot can be built and saved to a Flatpak repository with: flatpak-builder --repo=flatpak-repo flaptak-build electron/build/im.riot.Riot.json and installed locally for testing with: flatpak --user remote-add --no-gpg-verify riot-local file://`pwd`/flatpak-repo flatpak --user install riot-local im.riot.Riot flatpak run im.riot.Riot

NodeJS is built and installed only to be able to build Riot. The generated Electron application does not need it to be installed at runtime, therefore we can instruct flatpak-builder to zap all the files of the module.

This is needed for Flatpak packages to appear in software centers like GNOME Software.

This is needed for Electron's unique instance checks. Without this, re-launching the application brings up a new instance, instead of the already running one.

Allow talking over to the notification daemon over D-Bus from inside the sandbox makes desktop notifications work.

aperezdc · 2017-08-25T15:31:10Z

Updated to build v0.12.2, and also fixed the paths (s/electron/electron_app/) to make builds work again.

dbkr · 2018-01-05T17:18:54Z

This looks nice, although I'm struggling to find any kind of docs on what the various options in the manifest are and the --share options seems to make no appearance in the flatpak-builder man page (I'm assuming it allows network access for the build process so npm can download the rest of the deps?)

Main thing here is wondering if this would be better in its own repo? ie. the same layout as a build hosted on flathub (see https://github.com/flathub/org.blender.Blender or indeed https://github.com/flathub/im.riot.Riot)

If that sounds good, I can pull all this out into its own repo.

TingPing · 2018-01-05T17:44:01Z

electron_app/build/im.vector.Riot.json

+    "finish-args": [
+        "--device=dri",
+        "--filesystem=home",
+        "--filesystem=/tmp",


You should set $TMPDIR at runtime to $XDG_CACHE_HOME

TingPing · 2018-01-05T17:44:09Z

I'm struggling to find any kind of docs on what the various options in the manifest are and the --share options seems to make no appearance in the flatpak-builder man page

man flatpak-build-finish (or man flatpak-metadata for slightly more depth)

TingPing · 2018-01-05T17:45:42Z

electron_app/build/im.vector.Riot.json

+                {
+                    "type": "file",
+                    "path": "flatpak-Makefile",
+                    "dest-filename": "Makefile"


In general these are avoided these days. You can do:

{ "name": "riot-web", "buildsystem": "simple", "build-commands": [ "install -Dm644 foo /app/share/foo", "etc" ] }

dbkr · 2018-01-08T14:27:27Z

@TingPing thanks! I had completely failed to realise flatpak-build-finish was separate from flatpak-builder.

TingPing · 2018-01-08T16:20:50Z

@dbkr flatpak-builder is a tool built on top of flatpak build* so there is some overlap in where docs discuss some things.

jonathancross · 2020-09-06T11:43:32Z

Is anyone still working on this PR?

dbkr · 2022-01-11T12:11:02Z

I think this is superseded by element-hq/element-desktop#293

uhoreg mentioned this pull request Jul 14, 2018

Flatpak Distribution element-hq/element-desktop#656

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t3chguy requested changes May 25, 2017

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aperezdc added 10 commits August 25, 2017 15:26

Remove all the NodeJS files from the final Flatpak

42b1eb0

NodeJS is built and installed only to be able to build Riot. The generated Electron application does not need it to be installed at runtime, therefore we can instruct flatpak-builder to zap all the files of the module.

Add AppData XML metadata

1615117

This is needed for Flatpak packages to appear in software centers like GNOME Software.

Flatpak: Change application ID to im.vector.Riot

ebd31d5

Flatpak: Allow using /tmp the sandbox

0579f14

This is needed for Electron's unique instance checks. Without this, re-launching the application brings up a new instance, instead of the already running one.

Flatpak: Allow sending desktop notifications

e724250

Allow talking over to the notification daemon over D-Bus from inside the sandbox makes desktop notifications work.

Flatpak: Move build files to their new location

4492be3

Flatpak: Remove "IRCClient" category from .desktop file

862d4b1

Flatpak: Bump Riot version to 0.10.2

5e42fa2

Flatpak: Bump to Riot 0.12.2, fix electron_app/ paths

c6e59d0

TingPing reviewed Jan 5, 2018

View reviewed changes

dbkr closed this Jan 11, 2022

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Support files for Flatpak builds #3723

Support files for Flatpak builds #3723

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Support files for Flatpak builds #3723

Support files for Flatpak builds #3723

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