Gah, once again I have failed to send my response to everyone. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Aaron Rainbolt <arraybo...@gmail.com> Date: Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 1:07 PM Subject: Re: [sword-devel] Packaging Ezra Bible App for Snap and Flatpak users? To: Fr Cyrille <fr.cyri...@tiberiade.be>
On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 12:42 PM Fr Cyrille <fr.cyri...@tiberiade.be> wrote: > > > > Le 20/01/2024 à 19:18, Aaron Rainbolt a écrit : > > It appears that the Ezra Bible App can only be installed using > upstream packages for a select group of popular Linux distributions > currently. It would be handy for users to be able to install it by > using widely available repositories such as the Snap Store and > Flathub. I'm fairly skilled at software packaging for distros (though > I haven't done Snap or Flatpak before - I'm interested in learning how > though) and am thinking about trying to make Snap and Flatpak packages > for Ezra Bible App. > > Adding it to debian repo would be nice too. And easier for sharing modules > than snap. Getting it into Debian would be nice, and I actually thought about doing that initially, but it would be... difficult. Ezra Bible App is Electron-based. Due to the policies of Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and probably most other distros I would guess, all of a package's dependencies *have* to be in the distribution's repos in order for software that uses those dependencies to be accepted into the repos. Electron isn't packaged for Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora. That means in order to get an official Debian package for Ezra, I would have to package **all of Electron.** Electron is based on Chromium, which takes time and eternity to compile even on hardware much faster than anything I own, so actually doing that packaging would be hard, and then on top of it there are potential hurdles with versions and whatnot - for instance Electron upstream is at version 28.1.4, Ezra is still using 17.1.0. Ezra's developers can distribute packages with Ezra and Electron included because they're able to ignore policies like this - their builders can have Internet access at build time, can use software directly from upstream, can take advantage of package managers such as npm, etc. None of those are available in an official Debian package - the package has to be able to build without Internet access, use only distro-internal dependencies, etc. So... yeah, it would be a **lot** of work. And then I would be the maintainer of Electron in Debian, which is probably a monumental task, one I almost certainly don't have time for. On the other hand, I know there are Electron apps packaged as Flatpaks and Snaps (namely Element, but also others). If I understand correctly, Snap and Flatpak packages have significantly more lenient requirements, which makes packaging much easier for those platforms. Then there would be Ezra packages not only for Debian, Fedora, and derivatives, but also for Arch, Gentoo, RHEL, NixOS, etc., etc. That seems like it would take significantly less time to do and would potentially have a better impact. > Does this seem like a good idea? Are there hurdles I should be aware > of (other than having to work with Electron)? Would the developers > prefer that I not do this? > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org > http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel > Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page > > > -- > Vous aimez la Bible ? Vous êtes étudiant en théologie ? Utilisez > l'application libre Xiphos ou Andbible et accédez aux textes sources, à des > commentaires, des dictionnaires et beaucoup d'autres fonctionnalités... Me > contacter pour des traductions en français. _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
