cpba
commented
3 months ago Hello - I'm a developer from the Dolphin project.
For the past 8 years, the Dolphin project has chosen not to create any official builds for Linux, instead opting to relegate that task to the distributions. However, with the rise of the Steam Deck, we've observed significant user demand for an official Flatpak version of Dolphin. As this unofficial Flatpak is being used by many people already, we think that collaborating with you and making this Flatpak official would be the best way to approach this. Is this something that everyone is interested in doing?
Yes indeed, I would very much love this.
If so, then there are a few points we should probably discuss:
1. We will likely be hosting our own Flatpak repo in addition to using Flathub, so we'll likely need to upstream some of the data here so we can create our own builds. I assume this will include the `.yaml` file at the very least. Is there anything else (i.e. what other PRs need to be made to the upstream repository)?
We have two downstream patches but only one is important, it changes the priority that dolphin uses to select its configuration folder to prefer xdg when inside a flatpak environment. This is to prevent issues that happen when users have leftover configuration files in directories that aren't writable from within the sandbox.
I have an open pull request:
https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/10556
The second one is only a side-effect of the first, it clears the -dirty part of the version string so that users can still use netplay with each other (as the version string must match exactly) it won't be needed any longer if the first one is merged in upstream dolphin.
On the beta branch (the one that tracks your dev releases) there's another patch that forces the version string, this is needed because the builder does a shallow clone to improve build times (so the git tags are lost, and with them the version string). This can be prevented by doing a full clone, which I assume will be done when the builds are moved to the upstream pipeline.
Other than that, you will also want to merge the appdata/metainfo file. This is a metadata file that holds the information that users see when they install dolphin from app stores such as gnome-software, kde-discover (the default store on the steam deck) or the flathub website itself.
I keep meaning to update this file to get it into a more mergeable state but I haven't done so yet.
I'd like to help as much as possible, don't hesitate to ask.
2. The app ID utilizes a non-existent domain. Dolphin's official domain is `dolphin-emu.org`. We do not have any control over `dolphinemu.org`. This might pose a problem with verification on Flathub. Is it necessary to move to a new app ID?
I'm not completely sure about this yet but I hope it won't be necessary.
Other than the domain being wrong as you note, it has two uppercase letters, which flathub doesn't allow. Changing the appid is a hassle for users so an exception was created for this specific case, I believe another exception can be made for the missing hypen.
Changing the appid would involve creating a new app with the desired appid and closing this one by marking it as eol, from flatpak's point of view this is a completely separate application. There are ways to ease this for end users such as marking the old one as end-of-life-rebase which will prompt the user to uninstall the old one and install the new one but it's best to avoid this if not strictly necessary.
3. Control of the Flathub app should be transferred to an account owned by the Dolphin project. I believe there is [a process for this that we can follow](https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/submission#someone-else-has-put-my-app-on-flathubwhat-do-i-do), but we won't do anything without your explicit approval.
Yes, I know it sometimes doesn't look like it from the outside, but having the applications be directly in the hands of the upstream developers is the main goal of flathub.
Would that be just your account to start with? We could just open an issue asking for the accounts to be added.
Still, I'd like to be included in the process as I believe I can be of help.
4. Is it possible for us to build Flatpaks on our own infrastructure and upload the artifacts to Flathub? We prefer having as much control over the build and distribution pipeline as possible. It would be nice to create one build that we can upload to both our own repo and to Flathub. (I think this might be a question better suited for Flathub, but I'm asking here just in case.)
Yes.
Originally this wasn't allowed, but exceptions have been made for other projects, for instance, firefox is built by mozilla. I'm sure an exception can also be made for this particular case.
OatmealDome
barthalion
Hello - I'm a developer from the Dolphin project.
For the past 8 years, the Dolphin project has chosen not to create any official builds for Linux, instead opting to relegate that task to the distributions. However, with the rise of the Steam Deck, we've observed significant user demand for an official Flatpak version of Dolphin. As this unofficial Flatpak is being used by many people already, we think that collaborating with you and making this Flatpak official would be the best way to approach this. Is this something that everyone is interested in doing?
If so, then there are a few points we should probably discuss:
.yamlfile at the very least. Is there anything else (i.e. what other PRs need to be made to the upstream repository)?dolphin-emu.org. We do not have any control overdolphinemu.org. This might pose a problem with verification on Flathub. Is it necessary to move to a new app ID?Thanks for your time!