Flatpak and snap|| Deb and rpm packaging?

Features
#1

When will the program be packaged?

#2

Flatpak has been attempted but it’s very hard to get working because they isolate so much from applications that many watchers stop working. I assume the same thing goes for snap.

A .deb package is in progress here, not sure what the status of it is https://github.com/ActivityWatch/deb-activitywatch-bin. No one has attempted a rpm package yet as far as I know.

The only actually maintained package is for archlinux on the AUR https://github.com/ActivityWatch/aur-activitywatch-bin.

#3

It would be good to use snap package for distribution of aw.

Many linux distributives support snap packages.

Also, it will be easy to distribute alpha/beta/rc versions for early testers. As I think it will improve quality of product and decrease number of errors in product.

So after add snap support you can just say to user,
“Please install the latest version via command e.g:”
sudo snap install aw --edge --classic
for testing latest version built from master. And this is universal approach, you don’t need to care about distro version or how to install/uninstall distro specific packages.

Snap packages updating in automatic manner, so you do not need to watch what version you have on computer. It will be always on latest beta version and will be up-to-date.

(About alpha/beta versions in snap https://snapcraft.io/docs/channels)

Also, @johan-bjareholt, @ErikBjare, it would be good to add changelog file into every distribution for all version. Just e.g. I want to help to project as beta tester. But currently, when I download version e.g. from aws, I don’t know what was changed and what I should test. This is further complicated by the fact that the project is divided into subprojects and even knowing the issue number it is difficult to understand whether it was included in the last build / release or not.

PS: Thanks for great product! Love ‘aw’ with all my heart!
And thank you for all you work!

#4

To answer @giho’s question: It’ll get packaged for those distros when someone who uses them packages them :slight_smile:

Same applies for snap @mrkeuz, shipping often is a virtue, but we’re simply not there yet as every release currently needs testing (because builds often break in unexpected ways, mostly due to pyinstaller and the precise build environment).

The changelog is easy enough to find by referencing the Release page on GitHub (and the old/outdated one in the docs). You’re welcome to contribute PRs that attaches a CHANGELOG file to the distribution, possibly even make it so that it’s accessible from the web UI (would be really nice!).

#5

Deb packaging has been added, and along with AppImage support, will be tested and presumably distributed next release, whenever that is. It’s not in any of the repos though, but it’s a lot more convenient than manually installing the zip (in my biased opinion)

1 Like
#6

I’ve separated this very bloated FR into 3:

I hope that this is useful for those interested in certain aspects of this but not others.

Additionally, note that .deb is already available at https://github.com/ActivityWatch/activitywatch/releases/download/v0.12.3b10/activitywatch-v0.12.3b10-linux-x86_64.deb (new user)

Apologies, didn’t notice