[Packaging] Make your wallet available as flatpak package on FlatHub

[Nokia808]

Hi. I would like to suggest on you make your wallet available as flatpak package on FlatHub. This way, you will make your wallet available for almost all Linux distros & users. Flatpak is a universal generic Linux package which is more secure, more convenient, & easier to package than AppImage.

[EricStanek]

Hello @Nokia808 .

I am not a PIVX Core Developer, but I am part of the Team. I am adding the comment below expecting they will just accept it and close this issue. If I am wrong and they have more to say - that's cool too. Just trying to save them some time.

All of the PIVX binaries are deterministically built and signed. Safest thing for users to do, is to download from the official PIVX GitHub and also check the signatures. Any other location would be fine, because users can still check the signatures - but if they are going to do that, they still need to go to GitHub anyway for those signatures. So, it makes things moot. More importantly, most people do NOT check against signatures. So, it we start promoting that binaries be obtained from 3rd party locations, people are gonna get scammed. We can't support that.

Note that contact with the FlatHub team via a distribution email is not exactly a robust method in case of an emergency, and the link to their forum is returning a 502 error.

Cheers.

[Nokia808]

@EricStanek Hi. Thank you for your replay.

1) home page of FlatHub is: https://www.flathub.org/home 2) FlatHub repositories are at: https://github.com/flathub 3) when some one like to add package to FlatHub, she/he need to open PR at: https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pulls 4) all above links working to me without any error! 5) FlatHub differ from snap by being allow any one to package not only developers of packages. So packages on FlatHub are of 2 kinds regarding this point: some are packaged by their developers like shotcut video editor, while other are packaged by person other than their developers. So, 6) developers of PIVX themselves can package their wallets by themselves. This will be ideal. 7) all packages on FlatHub are signed ..... 8) even if person other than the original developer(s) maintain the package on FlatHub, FlatHub team try as much as possible to make developer(s) authorized to repositories at least to monitor & follow up the packaging ...... 9) FlatHub allow both open & closed source packages. But regarding open source packages, the FlatHub team insisting on packager to make them deterministic (reproducible).

[EricStanek]

@Nokia808 This morning, the link to their forum was working. I created an account and posted this:

https://discourse.flathub.org/t/security-for-crypto-currency-apps-pivx/298

Hoping for positive feedback.

[EricStanek]

@Nokia808 There is an update on the FlatHub forum that seems to address my concerns. I think the next step is to determine if there is enough demand for this. Perhaps you could find out somehow? After that, it becomes a matter of finding resources to get it going. I presume that once it has been done the first time, it is easy to update on each new release. Maybe the devs can automate the steps in their release process. But, let's check out the demand first. Thanks!

[Nokia808]

@EricStanek Hi.

1) regarding replay on the forum that you received: before about 20 hrs from now, when I saw delay in their response on you, I sent a private email for the person who replayed you on the forum. He made what I call him to do: replay on your concern. I selected it because he is one of heads of FlatHub repository ...... Fortunately, he replayed you positively as I was expected.

2) unfortunately, I'm not programmer & have no experience in packaging. I learned Linux by myself from Internet before about 5 years ago without any help except Fedora community forum. I live in bad place where no one can assist me to learn who to become a packager ... I live inside Iraq where no institutions available to learn Linux & programming ...... I'm just a simple Linux desktop users, who assist by bug reporting & love computer science & field of cryptocurrencies. I 1st know about Bitcoin, then I recognized that other cryptocurrencies are more like real paper money than Bitcoin like:

• Monero
• PIVX
• Verge
• Beam
• Zcoin
• Zcash
• DASH

I asked all of above for join FlatHub, as I asked you, & some of them respond positively - see:

https://github.com/vergecurrency/verge/issues/1028 https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1420

https://github.com/BeamMW/beam/issues/854

Both Verge & Beam responding. Beam close their PR on FlatHub temporarily till they fix it ..... Verge seem to be will complete it soon .....

I asked all of them, because I saw that most of their wallet not available on official repositories by most distros. So, providing them as flatpak will help Linux users to use them more familiarly .....

[Nokia808]

@EricStanek By the way, I forget to ask you: is there a lightweight wallet for PIVX like Electrum Bitcoin ? Verge already has one .....

It will be very useful to package lightweight wallet - if existing - in addition to full node wallet.

[EricStanek]

@Nokia808 There is a light weight 3rd party wallet called Zephyr. I believe it is waiting to be upgraded. This is not the place for an ongoing convo. Please join us on Discord to discuss. Get your invite at Discord.PIVX.org. Thanks!