Linux packaging for OpenCloud Desktop-App

We are currently working on having the client adopted by the major Linux distributions so that it can be maintained and delivered via their main package repositories. This is already happening with openSUSE, for example, which we are very pleased about.

However, we don't want to make our app available exclusively via distro packaging, but would also like to be able to provide our customers with the software packages directly and flexibly. In order to minimise the effort for the many volunteer distro package maintainers and us, we have found the following solution.

In future, we will offer an AppImage with the latest version of the OpenCloud Desktop-App - free for all users - that runs on all Linux distributions and desktop environments.

It should be noted that the desktop app has dependencies on the installed Linux system, in particular on the file manager extensions that display the synchronisation status in file managers such as KDE Dolphin, Nautilus and others. These extensions are usually packaged separately by each distribution.

The good news is that the OpenCloud Desktop-App is designed in such a way that these extensions are almost completely independent of the actual code. This means that the file manager extensions can be packaged and maintained by the distributions themselves - and remain compatible with clients that are delivered as distro packages or as AppImages. The code of the extensions is small and stable, so that the packaging effort remains low.

Call to package maintainers

We ask the maintainers of Linux distributions to support us and our users by including the following packages in their standard repositories. 
 

1. desktop shell integration resources

This is a static package that contains commonly used icons for all file manager extensions.

• Source: → GitHub repository
• Dependencies: None
• Example openSUSE: → opencloud-extensions-resources
   

2. Desktop integration package

This package creates extensions for Nautilus, Caja and Nemo. All extensions are similar and depend on some Python packages, CMake and the resource package mentioned above.

• Source: → GitHub repository
• Example openSUSE: → opencloud-desktop-integration 
   

3. OpenCloud Dolphin

The integration for Dolphin is compiled and depends on specific KDE Frameworks versions (currently at least version 6.1.0).

• Source: → GitHub repository
• Example openSUSE: → opencloud-dolphin

Deploying these packages will ensure good OpenCloud integration into users' desktop environments, whether they install the client from their repositories or via our AppImage. We will keep changes to the integration to a minimum in order to minimise the packaging effort.

Questions or comments can be submitted via the → OpenCloud Community Matrix Channel.