Provide a .deb package

[sbstn87]

Hi,

Have you considered providing a .deb package? It would make installation on Debian based distros straightforward and easy.

Possibly it cold also make it viable to add novelibre to deb-get:

https://github.com/wimpysworld/deb-get

[peter88213]

That doesn't look bad; however, I don't know whether there are enough users to make this additional effort worthwhile. I haven't received any feedback yet that the installation didn't work under Linux. To be precise, I haven't received any feedback at all that indicates serious use of novelibre.

Once you have the launcher on your desktop under Linux, all you have to do is run a self-extracting Python archive for each update. Does this cause a problem?

In order to avoid using a multitude of different packagers (there are also rpm, appimage, windows-exe, etc.), I built novelibre so that it has no dependencies (other than Python and tkinter) that would need to be handled during package installation. I can even install novelibre on Windows 11 directly from my browser when I download it. I also provide an update checker plugin that makes downloading and installing new versions really easy, regardless of the operating system.

I want to keep the operating system-independent publication as long as there are no real problems with it. But if someone wants to create, publish, and maintain a distribution-specific installation package, go ahead!

[sbstn87]

Thanks for your response.

It does work, but the process is a bit cumbersome in my opinion. People are used to a simple double-click install process, if the app is not available in the repository or on Flathub.

Having it packaged as .deb would make the install process quick and simple. It would also make it much easier to popularize novelibre and cause much more people to use it. Especially if it was added at some point to deb-get.

I think that the .deb format is generally the best to use, because Debian based distros, among them *buntus and Mint, are the most popular so it would be targeting the largest demographic.

Of course it is an additional work to be done. I have never done this, so I cannot help, but it would be nice to have it at some point.

[peter88213]

Of course it is an additional work to be done. I have never done this, so I cannot help,

Have you never considered learning it? That would be much more in keeping with the spirit of the FOSS movement than simply making demands.

[sbstn87]

Have you never considered learning it? That would be much more in keeping with the spirit of the FOSS movement than simply making demands.

You are right, but I am not a programmer of any kind, so that's beyond my expertise.

I do not consider it a demand, but a suggestion in a good faith.

[peter88213]

I am happy to believe that it was well-intentioned. However, it addresses a well-known issue that is not a priority at the moment. Perhaps in the future I will feel like having such .deb and .rpm packages generated automatically, and I will modify the program accordingly. For now, I have noted down a few aspects in this thread so that this topic is not lost.

[peter88213]

I took a quick look at how such a deb package is built. Basically, it's no more complicated than the package I developed myself. The main difference is that my pyz format works the same on every operating system. Just as .deb needs dpkg to run, .pyz needs the Python interpreter.

I assume that dpkg respectively a package manager frontend set above it requires administrator rights. This allows setting up the program on the desktop right away and saves a step. That's what makes the actual difference for the user. It may also be possible to take the dependency on python3-tk into account with a .deb or .rpm package.

To be OS-independent, novelibre is not installed in the usr/bin directory, which is Linux standard, but in its own directory structure in the user profile/home dir, where no admin rights are required regardless of the operating system. This is particularly important for Windows if you don't want to have constant problems with security mechanisms, which can manifest themselves in regular false alarms from the virus scanner. Another advantage of this directory structure is the integration of the plugin system. To install the plugins in a different location than currently, a redesign of novelibre would be necessary, which would compromise backward compatibility.

[peter88213]

Recommendations for setting up a package repository

Anyone who wants to maintain packages in .deb format or other package formats should create a dedicated repository for this purpose. This single repository should then contain all packages for the application and its plugins.

The simplest solution would then be to have the package as a wrapper around the .pyz archive I'm providing. The package's installation script would then simply call the system's Python3 interpreter with the .pyz file as an argument. Before doing so, it could install the tk support package for the respective Linux distribution if necessary. If possible, it should also be ensured that the system's standard Python interpreter is at least version 3.7. Then, create an application launcher on the desktop as described in the manual. Additionally, the installation script could register the .novx file type as text/xml under the media types.

If the package is to contain an uninstall script, in the simplest case this would delete the installation directory ~/.novx. For plugins, of course, only the respective plugin module in ~/.novx/plugin, as well as any sample files and configuration files.

Maintaining the repository involves keeping all packages up to date and consistent. To do this, you could register the application and plugin repositories and access their version information. The best way to see how this works is to look at my nv_updater plugin as an example.
Here is an incomplete code snippet:

# Retrieve the download URL, major version number, minor version number,
# and patch level of novelibre or a plugin located at repoUrl.

import configparser
from urllib.request import urlopen

versionUrl = f'{repoUrl}/raw/main/VERSION'
data = urlopen(versionUrl)
versionInfo = data.read().decode('utf-8')
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read_string(versionInfo)
downloadUrl = config['LATEST']['download_link']
version = config['LATEST']['version']
majorVersion, minorVersion, patchlevel = version.split('.')