Initial set of changes required for publishing to Flathub #293

barthalion · 2021-12-29T10:33:51Z

This change is marked as an internal change (Task), so will not be included in the changelog.

The `curl -L https://yarnpkg.com/latest.tar.gz` command fails on SSL validation.

barthalion · 2021-12-29T10:40:32Z

My current understanding of element-builder is that Linux builds are executed within the element-desktop-dockerbuild Docker image, so this PR adds dependencies required to run flatpak and flat-manager-client (with the latter being used to do the actual upload to Flathub). I'm still working through https://github.com/vector-im/element-builder/ to understand what needs changing there.

barthalion · 2021-12-29T10:44:17Z

Although I'm having some second thoughts, looking at https://github.com/vector-im/element-builder/blob/main/src/desktop_develop.ts#L289. I will continue with the assumption that publishing to Flathub part will happen from build environment to avoid polluting the host with "random" dependencies for now.

Ubuntu 16.04 doesn't ship Flatpak in default repositories, so we need to install it from the project's PPA. Additionally, it ships too old Python for a tool used to create and upload Flathub builds to work, so we need another PPA to install Python 3.6.

It is easier to create a flatpak package from "raw" files than having to additionally extract a deb file.

barthalion · 2021-12-29T14:57:33Z

I've also started looking into the backstory of using Ubuntu 16.04 in Dockerfile. #84 seems to imply there were some issues caused by discrepancy between glibc version inside the container and on Debian 9, but it doesn't seem to be the case? electron-builder doesn't build Electron from scratch and downloads a pre-built binary instead, and it seems to require glibc 2.17 to work (which is much older than what Xenial ships).

This is executed on my Fedora 33:

> nm -D element-desktop | grep @GLIBC | sed 's/.*@GLIBC_//' | sort -u -V | tail -n1
2.17

> nm -D chrome-sandbox | grep @GLIBC | sed 's/.*@GLIBC_//' | sort -u -V | tail -n1
2.14

Mentioning this as using so old container for effective glue operations seems to make things more difficult than it's worth it; also 16.04 is no longer supported since April 2021.

appstream-util shipped with Xenial is so old it doesn't support specific URL types and PNG icons, rendering it useless.

barthalion · 2021-12-30T10:38:27Z

I have ended up changing Dockerfile to use Ubuntu 18.04 as appstream-util from 16.04 was too old to be actually useful.

With the current state of PR, you should be able to run yarn run flatpak to build Flatpak within Docker environment, and output single-file bundle at dist/element.flatpak. It's not fully functional yet, as it's going to need a BaseApp similar to https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.firefox.BaseApp to bundle dependencies such as zypak-wrapper (allows Electon sandbox to work within Flatpak sandbox) and sqlcipher.

barthalion · 2022-01-11T22:06:21Z

Hey @dbkr, happy new year! When you've got a minute, can you say if these changes look good to you so far? I want to make sure you are not disagreeing with the general direction I'm taking before I start changing element-builder.

dbkr

Some feedback, but all relatively minor: I think this all looks like a sensible direction to be taking!

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:36:35Z

dockerbuild/Dockerfile

+  # used by flathub client \
+  apt-get -qq install -y --no-install-recommends flatpak ostree gettext appstream-util curl && \
+  apt-get -qq install -y python3 python3-dev python3-pip libgirepository1.0-dev gir1.2-ostree-1.0 libcairo2-dev && \
+  curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flatpak/flat-manager/master/flat-manager-client -o /usr/local/bin/flat-manager-client && \
+  chmod +x /usr/local/bin/flat-manager-client && \
+  pip3 install aiohttp tenacity PyGObject && \
+  apt-get purge -y --auto-remove && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/


Is there not a preexisting docker image for building flatpaks? Looks like the steps are separate, so it doesn't need to be the same docker image that runs electron build.

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:38:35Z

build/flatpak/element.desktop.in

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+[Desktop Entry]


The build directory is (confusingly) for electron-builder's config, so we should keep things unrelated to electron builder somewhere else. Probably just a top-level flatpak directory?

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:40:04Z

build/flatpak/element.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+env TMPDIR="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/app/${FLATPAK_ID}" /app/element/element-desktop --no-sandbox "$@"


I'm guessing the --no-sandbox is due to not being able to run as root? I'm afraid this isn't an option: electron needs this to isolate contexts so this is really important for security.

You might want to use zypak, which is designed for electron-on-flatpak to handle exactly this. It's what the community-maintaiend flatpak is using:

https://github.com/flathub/im.riot.Riot/blob/master/element.sh

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:42:26Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

+  <id>${FLATPAK_ID}</id>
+  <name>${FLATPAK_APPNAME}</name>
+  <project_license>Apache-2.0</project_license>
+  <developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>


This probably wants to be 'Element' (ie. the same as the author in package.json)

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:46:21Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

+  <name>${FLATPAK_APPNAME}</name>
+  <project_license>Apache-2.0</project_license>
+  <developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>
+  <summary>Create, share, communicate, chat and call securely, and bridge to other apps</summary>


We can probably find some copy for this: I would guess the "Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix" from the homepage.

dbkr · 2022-01-25T11:47:31Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

+    <content_attribute id="social-contacts">intense</content_attribute>
+  </content_rating>
+  <provides>
+    <id>im.riot.Riot</id>


Are we stuck with this from historical precedent?

Yes, kind of, keep in mind that this entry basically says "I provide the same capabilities as the app with the identifier im.riot.Riot" it's not the identifier of this app.

WhyNotHugo · 2022-02-07T16:58:54Z

build/flatpak/element.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+env TMPDIR="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/app/${FLATPAK_ID}" /app/element/element-desktop --no-sandbox "$@"


You might want to use zypak, which is designed for electron-on-flatpak to handle exactly this. It's what the community-maintaiend flatpak is using:

https://github.com/flathub/im.riot.Riot/blob/master/element.sh

WhyNotHugo · 2022-02-07T17:00:44Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>


This file is not flatpak-specific. It's called AppStream and many distributions also use it to describe packages in their native repos.

See https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream

You might want to keep it out of the flatpak/ subdirectory and also ship it is source release tarballs.

LecrisUT · 2022-05-17T02:23:50Z

@barthalion When you have the time, can you give some update on what's the current status of this PR? What's left to get the flatpaks to be built?

thibaultamartin

Left suggestions for the vendor name and description

thibaultamartin · 2022-10-10T14:08:40Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

+  <id>${FLATPAK_ID}</id>
+  <name>${FLATPAK_APPNAME}</name>
+  <project_license>Apache-2.0</project_license>
+  <developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>


Suggested change

<developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>

<developer_name>Element</developer_name>

thibaultamartin · 2022-10-10T14:09:32Z

build/flatpak/metainfo.xml.in

+  <name>${FLATPAK_APPNAME}</name>
+  <project_license>Apache-2.0</project_license>
+  <developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>
+  <summary>Create, share, communicate, chat and call securely, and bridge to other apps</summary>


Suggested change

<summary>Create, share, communicate, chat and call securely, and bridge to other apps</summary>

<summary>Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix</summary>

julianfairfax · 2023-09-16T07:29:58Z

Is there any chance this work will be picked up again in the some way? It would be nice for Element to officially be available on Flathub.

ninchuka · 2024-01-29T09:32:56Z

maybe using https://openbuildservice.org/ would make it easier? and it'll enable building for a large distro's/package managers at once, which would be great for official packages for other distro's as well

Install yarn with npm

eb39349

The `curl -L https://yarnpkg.com/latest.tar.gz` command fails on SSL validation.

barthalion requested a review from a team as a code owner December 29, 2021 10:33

SimonBrandner added the T-Task Tasks for the team like planning label Dec 29, 2021

barthalion force-pushed the flatpak branch from ceed01a to f8dd16a Compare December 29, 2021 11:11

Add directory to electron-builder's Linux target types

183cae3

It is easier to create a flatpak package from "raw" files than having to additionally extract a deb file.

kittykat requested a review from dbkr December 29, 2021 12:51

barthalion added 2 commits December 29, 2021 15:39

Add template freedesktop metadata/launcher files

f0fddda

Add bare-bones script for Flatpak build

05e1dac

barthalion marked this pull request as draft December 29, 2021 14:42

barthalion added 8 commits December 30, 2021 09:24

Variables need to be exported for envsubst

0479d95

Remove dist/flatpak if it exists

6703f6b

Add launcher script to ensure only single instance is running

7885b86

Create app-info and mirror screenshots

b18fb71

Land actual permissions required by Element to work

149d470

Fix single-file bundle generation

702f8e7

Remove single quotes from the default FLATPAK_APPNAME value

6be315d

Upgrade to buildpack-deps:bionic-curl

2e76778

appstream-util shipped with Xenial is so old it doesn't support specific URL types and PNG icons, rendering it useless.

Fix path to element-desktop executable in the wrapper script

5c6e13d

turt2live removed the request for review from a team January 3, 2022 22:35

dbkr mentioned this pull request Jan 11, 2022

Support files for Flatpak builds element-hq/element-web#3723

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SISheogorath mentioned this pull request Jan 11, 2022

Add element-nightly flathub/im.riot.Riot#245

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dbkr reviewed Jan 25, 2022

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TheEvilSkeleton mentioned this pull request Jan 28, 2022

[Linux] Flatpak preparations Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher#515

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SISheogorath mentioned this pull request Feb 7, 2022

Rename package to io.element.Element flathub/im.riot.Riot#221

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WhyNotHugo reviewed Feb 7, 2022

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SISheogorath mentioned this pull request Apr 30, 2022

nightly additions flathub/im.riot.Riot#262

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thibaultamartin reviewed Oct 10, 2022

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jwillikers mentioned this pull request Feb 22, 2023

Build from source flathub/im.riot.Riot#200

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SISheogorath mentioned this pull request Sep 15, 2023

Official Flatpak flathub/im.riot.Riot#399

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Initial set of changes required for publishing to Flathub #293

Initial set of changes required for publishing to Flathub #293

barthalion commented Dec 29, 2021 •

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SISheogorath May 2, 2022

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LecrisUT commented May 17, 2022

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thibaultamartin Oct 10, 2022

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julianfairfax commented Sep 16, 2023

ninchuka commented Jan 29, 2024

		@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
		#!/bin/bash
		env TMPDIR="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/app/${FLATPAK_ID}" /app/element/element-desktop --no-sandbox "$@"

	<developer_name>New Vector Ltd</developer_name>
	<developer_name>Element</developer_name>

	<summary>Create, share, communicate, chat and call securely, and bridge to other apps</summary>
	<summary>Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix</summary>

Initial set of changes required for publishing to Flathub #293

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Initial set of changes required for publishing to Flathub #293

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barthalion commented Dec 29, 2021 • edited by github-actions bot

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julianfairfax commented Sep 16, 2023

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barthalion commented Dec 29, 2021 •

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