Replace deb package with source build

[dogabone]

There has been some discussion in different threads about this, so I'm raising this issue to gauge interest on such change.

Something like this may be necessary: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/packages/signal-desktop/trunk/TRADEMARK_CONSENT.txt

[muelli]

that'd be cool. Then we could skip the use of asar and have much more efficient updates.

[Be-ing]

The Arch PKGBUILD doesn't look too terrible. I think the node helper in flatpak-builder-tools would be required.

[vchernin]

For inspiration:
https://github.com/flathub/org.standardnotes.standardnotes
flathub/im.riot.Riot#200

Although maybe Signal will consider supporting the Flatpak officially at some point... signalapp/Signal-Desktop#1639

[bermeitinger-b]

I have tried using StandardNotes as a template.

The biggest problem is that some dependencies manually download their own dependencies which is not possible in the sandboxed building environment.

E.g. sharp wants to download sharp-libvips from Github. With a lot of manual work, this is solvable but it'll become a administrative hellhole to check for all the dependencies.

Then, it's not even guaranteed that the biggest benefit, different arches (#46) works because of some dependencies might not even be built for the given arch.

[muelli]

E.g. sharp wants to download sharp-libvips from Github.

I've just had the same with lossless-cut

With a lot of manual work, this is solvable but it'll become a administrative hellhole to check for all the dependencies.

yeah, it's work to maintain JavaScript apps...

[khimaros]

someone had mentioned https://gitlab.com/undef1/signal-desktop-builder in one of the other closed issues. i haven't investigated to see if it helps with the dependency fetch issue.

[hfiguiere]

It seem it is used for this https://elagost.com/flatpak/

[spazziale]

Building from source could also be useful for signalapp/Signal-Desktop#5350, as we can patch it

[julianfairfax]

Here is a working way to build a Signal Flatpak from source for amd64, and here is the repo I forked, which builds one for arm64.

Example releases:

• https://github.com/julianfairfax/signal-desktop-builder/releases/tag/7.6.0
• https://github.com/adamthiede/signal-desktop-builder/releases/tag/7.6.0