Feature Request: Easier installation with yad bundled

[o-bri]

Is it possible for you, to make the installation on Ubuntu and derivates easier?

My son was interested in stl but he was driven away by the uneasy yad installation. Shouldn't it be possible, to just have a binary version of yad that comes with steamtinkerlaunch?
So that one can just do "sudo make install" on Ubuntu and derivates too? All the other dependencies are easy to install and mostly installed anyways.

Steamtinkerlaunch seems to be really a great tool and thanks for sharing your work with others for free. I think it could be more widely used, if it was easier to install (I know, it is easy when the aur is available).

[frostworx]

short answer:

Sorry, no. Not my job.

long answer:
Sorry, no.

It is generally not the job of development upstream to provide packages for any distribution.
In some cases, they provide packages for the distribution they use themselves, but that is usually basically everything.
In this case, it would not even be my own package to provide packages for, but yad.
You could try to as yad upstream, if they want to provide ubuntu (or whatever other distro) packages, but likely you will get more or less the same answer.

Users who use one specific distro which is lacking any package they are interested in should either provide a package themselves or try to encourage a package maintainer to do so.
I already did much more than most devs would do to make life easier for people using "yad free" distributions.
You might want to read my yad wiki entry for details, which basically answers the question as well.

Of course anybody who is willing to contribute to the project by providing packages for their distribution is still welcome.

I'll leave this open for a while for general discussion, hoping it attracts someone willing to help.

[frostworx]

someone pointed out on discord that the 3rd part appimage has undefined symbols, which I could reproduce.
Initially I disabled the functions using the appimage,
but I just played some minutes with building a new yad appimage and it was pretty easy with the tools kadogo provided (after some minor modifications) (see this issue)
I might host a new appimage binary here https://github.com/frostworx/steamtinkerlaunch-tweaks/releases
but it will be unsupported (and likely unmaintained as well) from my end.

reopening, as I'm curious if people are actually willing to help keeping this updated

[frostworx]

fyi: kadogo/easy-builder#12

[frostworx]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamTinkerLaunch/comments/rfnqrn/added_support_for_new_yad_appimage_using_yad_1090/

[TassieDevyl]

I would be interested in attempting it.
Though I haven't done anything quite like this before.
If I can get one successful build, then sure I will keep on with it.
It's likely I would need to ask questions from time to time if thats ok?

[frostworx]

Thanks for the kind offer, @TaliesinEmrys.
I haven't rolled any AppImages before as well, but it was pretty straightforward using the scripts.
Sure feel free to ask anytime, can't promise that I can of any help regarding AppImages though ;)

[frostworx]

Indeed it is not complicated.
I don't know that error, but did you actually try what yad upstream suggested in the url you posted?
what were your configure parameters?
depending on what you used as PREFIX=, make install should have installed
share/glib-2.0/schemas/yad.gschema.xml into that PREFIX.
Sp I guess a valid command for PREFIX="/usr" would be
lib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/

you know that appimage above is a working workaround already for using yad on your yad-free distribution, right?

[TassieDevyl]

Hallo frostworx.
I'll attempt my first yad appimage build using kadogo's easy-builder later on today or tomorrow time permitting.
Once question for the yad build if I may.
Do I use the yad-10.1.tar.xz or one of the source options.
Newbie question, sorry.

[frostworx]

Hallo @TaliesinEmrys :)
You might want to try with my fork of kadogos easy-builder, as it has some minor fixes.
Creating an AppImage is pretty much straightforward:

• checkout the repo (or my fork)
• cd easy-builder/yad/
• (check dependencies.sh or execute it if using a debian/ubuntu derivate for installing yad dependencies)
• ./build.sh (this pulls yad from git and compiles it, which probably answers your question)
• ./download-linuxdeploy.sh downloads a binary from this repo, required for the AppImage
• ./create-appimage.sh (this creates the AppImage within the ./git/ directory)

Good luck so far! :)

[kadogo]

I'm a bit late to the issue, but I have merged the changes of frostworx

[frostworx]

Thanks, @kadogo! 👍

[kadogo]

Welcome @frostworx ^^

I also updated the AppImage, but I still build it against Debian stretch, so let me know if I need to build it against buster or to have multiple releases. If there is maybe a "command" for testing the AppImage I can test it too

[frostworx]

Good to see you're still here, @kadogo :)
I could add another option for steamtinkerlaunch yad ai where you could either provide a yad AppImage

• download url or
• absolute local path

What do you think?

[kadogo]

I think it's a good idea, it will let people only change the "path" for yad or instead download the binary that you provide or from another source.

It's best to wait, the thought of other peoples, but I only see benefit for these features ^^

[frostworx]

Snippet from the upcoming yad wiki:

AppImage

The ai or appimage command line option accepts multiple options:

steamtinkerlaunch yad ai → current default AppImage is downloaded/used from here
steamtinkerlaunch yad ai /path/to/a/local/yad-appimage → sets the absolute path as yad command
steamtinkerlaunch yad ai http/s/url → multiple options:

• valid URL
  • the URL ends with AppImage → the filename will be used from the URL
  • the URL does not end with AppImage → the filename will be created from Yad-$(date +%Y%m%d)-x86_64.AppImage
• invalid URL → the failed download won't be accepted, leaving currently set yad command untouched

steamtinkerlaunch yad ai /path/to/an/unusable/file → ignored, leaving currently set yad command untouched
steamtinkerlaunch yad ai /invalid/absolute/path → skipped and current default AppImage is downloaded/used

• the default destination directory for downloads is ~/config/steamtinkerlaunch/downloads/yadappimage/
• the default AppImage download is sha512sum checked

[frostworx]

I just pushed the new options with this commit
and updated the wiki accordingly. have fun!

[frostworx]

hey @TaliesinEmrys, did you have success?

[TassieDevyl]

Yes I did thankyou it worked successfully.
Followed your above instructions to the letter.
Sorry for the late reply.

[frostworx]

Great to hear!

[frostworx]

Seems like this can be closed...