Tracking: Lomiri Desktop Environment

[OPNA2608]

Project description

Lomiri is a continuation of Canonical's Unity8 desktop environment. It's based on:

• Qt5 (Qt6 support is being considered)
• Mir (currently Mir 1.x & Mir-protocol, Mir 2.x & Wayland is being worked on)
• Ayatana Indicators (continuation of Canonical's Application Indicators)

Corresponding RFP: #99090

---

I have a working version of Lomiri in a branch, with too many commits & inits to nicely upstream. I've started upstreaming individual packages, but progress has been slow and likely not very transparent. I would like to use this issue to track the progress of individually upstreaming all the components needed to make enabling Lomiri as easy as i.e. XFCE.

Overview of needed packages

• [x] accounts-qml-module: #260897
• [ ] address-book-app
• [ ] address-book-service
• [ ] ayatana-indicator-application
• [x] ayatana-indicator-bluetooth: #336982
• [x] ayatana-indicator-datetime: #277825
• [x] ayatana-indicator-display: #305516
• [ ] ayatana-indicator-keyboard: #304614
• [x] ayatana-indicator-messages: #243476
• [ ] ayatana-indicator-notifications
• [x] ayatana-indicator-power: #305092
• [ ] ayatana-indicator-printers
• [x] ayatana-indicator-session: #283543
• [x] ayatana-indicator-sound: #305127
• [x] biometryd: #261018
• [ ] buteo-syncfw
• [ ] buteo-syncfw-qml
• [x] cmake-extras: #236282
• [x] content-hub: #262406
• [x] dbus-cpp: #260941
• [x] dbus-test-runner: #236282
• [x] deviceinfo: #241265
• [ ] dialer-app
• [ ] dsme
• [x] geonames: #241259
• [x] gmenuharness: #236282
• [x] hfd-service: #261020
• [x] history-service: #261031
• [ ] indicator-location
• [x] libayatana-common:

  • 243307

  • 262118

• [ ] libcal
• [ ] libdsme
• [ ] libiphb
• [ ] libmce-qt
• [ ] libngf
• [x] libqtdbusmock: #236282
• [x] libqtdbustest: #236282
• [x] librda: #262174
• [x] libusermetrics: #241335
• [ ] location-service
• [x] lomiri: #292872
• [x] lomiri-action-api: #261014
• [x] lomiri-api: #236282
• [x] lomiri-app-launch: #245803
• [x] lomiri-calculator-app: #321046
• [ ] lomiri-calendar-app
• [x] lomiri-camera-app: #325639
• [x] lomiri-clock-app: #323469
• [x] lomiri-docviewer-app: #337094
• [x] lomiri-download-manager: #245900
• [x] lomiri-filemanager-app: #316240
• [x] lomiri-gallery-app: #334629
• [x] lomiri-indicator-network: #262895
• [ ] lomiri-keyboard
• [ ] lomiri-music-app
• [ ] lomiri-notes-app
• [x] lomiri-notifications: #261036
• [ ] lomiri-online-accounts: #340391
• [ ] lomiri-online-accounts-plugins: #340391
• [x] lomiri-polkit-agent: #325102
• [x] lomiri-push-qml: #285876
• [x] lomiri-schemas: #245904
• [x] lomiri-session: #292872
• [x] lomiri-settings-components: #259238
• [x] lomiri-sounds: #260947
• [x] lomiri-system-settings: #278374
• [ ] lomiri-system-settings-online-accounts: #340391
• [x] lomiri-system-settings-security-privacy: #278374
• [x] lomiri-terminal-app: #247112
• [x] lomiri-thumbnailer: #259740
• [x] lomiri-ui-extras: #247101
• [x] lomiri-ui-toolkit: #241717
• [x] lomiri-url-dispatcher: #259377
• [x] lomiri-wallpapers: #279454
• [ ] mce
• [ ] mce-dev
• [ ] media-hub
• [ ] mediaplayer-app
• [x] mediascanner2: #261933
• [ ] messaging-app
• [x] morph-browser: #262433
• [x] net-cpp: #260869
• [x] persistent-cache-cpp: #259393
• [x] qdjango: #237543
• [x] qmenumodel: #245911
• [x] qmltermwidget

  • 245778

  • 275475

• [x] qqc2-suru-style: #260892
• [x] qtmir: #259804
• [x] qtpim: #214164
• [x] qtsystems: #214179
• [x] quickflux: #285553
• [x] qzxing: #260886
• [ ] repowerd
• [x] rlottie needs to expose its CMake module: #280135
• [x] rlottie-qml: #285781
• [ ] syncevolution
• [ ] sync-monitor
• [x] telephony-service: #264844
• [x] teleports: #324663
• [x] trust-store: #261919
• [x] u1db-qt: #260967
• [ ] usb_moded
• [x] xsct: #260873

Some of these may not be necessary and only fulfill optional functionalities (I doubt the parts of the SailfishOS stack - mce, buteo-syncfw etc - are really required), I'll have to review the affected reverse dependencies when I upstream them to Nixpkgs.

Follow-up issues/notes

• lomiri-ui-toolkit, and packages that depend on it via QML, look up locale files from a single, fixed path. Due to how its localisation framework works, QML modules at all levels of a QML dependency tree will use the same locale path. Currently this is patched to /run/current-system/sw/share/locale as a short-term solution. Long-term, it would be better to either
  • Patch lomiri-ui-toolkit's locale-finding logic to consider XDG_DATA_DIRS and make a setup hook for Lomiri applications that search for & add QML module's prefixes to this variable. This is exactly what KDE does, and the corresponding functionality can more or less be ported from ki18n
  • Manually check all QML modules that depend on this functionality and make sure to patch in an infrequently-used API call to bindtextdomain, explicitly passing the full prefix for the corresponding package, so none of this functionality relies on the hardcoded path in lomiri-ui-toolkiture non-Lomiri users.

  • 351228

• We should check in all packages if any scripts with a /bin/sh slipped through, and patch those. We do have /bin/sh, but we shouldn't rely on it.
• keyboard layout is normally queried & set via a Ubuntu-only interface to AccountsService AFAICT. We're patching around this by setting & checking a custom envvar, should look into a better & upstream-compatible way of handling this though.
  • Might be getting better, upstream is moving to Ubuntu-independent, bundled D-Bus/AccountsService properties. Might just need some initialisation

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/unity-desktop-environment/25312/6

[ilya-fedin]

I fail to install lomiri due to telephony-service which fails to build due to unit tests

[OPNA2608]

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/315117 or its 24.05 backport may not have propagated to whatever nixpkgs version you're using yet.

[ilya-fedin]

Finally landed to unstable... Am I the only one unable to resize windows and firefox crashing entire session?

[OPNA2608]

Resizing works for me, you need to hover barely outside of the window borders and drag (the cursor doesn't change for me, not sure what this is down to).

Firefox is at least known to not work correctly. I think the crashing might be an issue only we are having, but I believe on Debian it also doesn't work (it brings up an empty window on bookworm, not sure about trixie/sid). I think this is an issue in qtmir, I might need to re-sync our package and check if there's been any improvement on that front. The bundled Morph Browser should work, not sure about others. Suboptimal, I know…

[ilya-fedin]

Hm. Firefox works just fine in Ubuntu 24.04 Lomiri testing edition for me (googled some article on Ubuntu Unity website, it has the iso, can provide a link).

Regarding the cursor: last time I saw a similar issue (not on Lomiri though), it was the lack of $XDG_DATA_DIRS/icons/default symlink to a cursor theme.

[OPNA2608]

Can try switching to https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/qtmir/-/tree/personal/sunweaver/debian-upstream branch, which seems to be what ubuntu 24.04 is using.