linux snap installation

[go8ose]

Hi,

I just watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wyIi_cpodE, the Getting started with opsdroid on ubuntu 16.04 video you did. I couldn't help but think that the installation instructions for ubuntu are not very straight forward. I recently heard about the new ubuntu snap thing, https://docs.snapcraft.io/snaps/intro. I wondered if it would be a better way of distributing opsdroid desktop.

I should qualify, I've only heard about this from a podcast, I don't know anything about how snaps work, or their limitation, or what's involved in making a snap.

Cheers,
Geoff

[jacobtomlinson]

Hey thanks for raising this!

I totally agree there must be a better way. In the first instance I would like .deb and .rpm installers but snap sounds interesting too.

I would be totally up for a PR to add snap installation.

[go8ose]

This document describes how to build a snap: https://docs.snapcraft.io/build-snaps/your-first-snap. It doesn't look difficult to get the initial snap built. I guess the next step on this issue is for someone to write the snapcraft.yaml file, and do a PR with that (and maybe a modification to docs/contributing.md a section on how to build the snap).

[roxyd]

If no one has volunteered to do this, I can see if I can find someone or work on it myself.

[jacobtomlinson]

Please go ahead!

…

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[go8ose]

I made a start on this. However I didn't get very far, I've never worked with node.js, or snapcraft before. What I did is on https://github.com/go8ose/opsdroid-desktop/tree/ubuntu-snap. If I was going to continue on this, I think the next step would be to find an existing snap for an application that is built on electron, and mimic what they do in their snap/snapcraft.yaml file. I know atom is in this category, but I couldn't find the relevant repository that included the snapcraft.yaml file.

[roxyd]

if you have already started, i suggest sharing at https://forum.snapcraft.io/ and you will be sure to get some feedback and assistance.

[go8ose]

Thanks for the suggestion @roxyd. I've posted https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/getting-started-with-electron-snap/2662. If you're interested in working on this, please feel free. My development will be slow, as it's hampered by lack of node experience, and doing development in an Ubuntu VirtualBox VM (as I don't have a linux desktop currently).

[roxyd]

just checking on you @go8ose, were you able to get the help you needed?

[go8ose]

There were some replies. saviq suggested using https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/. But I've not found the time to look into this.