[Libreoffice-qa] minutes of ESC call ...

[Jay Philips]

> Hi Jay, *,

Hi Cloph,

>> 1) not having to install it on your system to run it (aka portable)
> No need to install for TDF builds either.

You would have to extract, which isnt simple for a regular user.

>> 2) copying it on a usb and run it on any linux distro (atleast the minimum system that LO supports, something that snap and flatpak cant do)
> can do that with the TDF builds as well.

You would have to extract, which isnt simple for a regular user.

>> 3) easily running multiple versions (would improve linux QA, as it would also lower that barrier for users to test old versions)
> can do that with the TDF builds as well.

You would have to extract, which isnt simple for a regular user.

>> This is fine for advanced linux users but not for basic linux users, including those from windows or mac. The tar-ball doesnt even come with a simple extract or install bash script,
> Not true, there's and install script that could be used, but even that is not necessary since you can simply extract the packages themselves.

Is true as only the RPM version of the tar.gz file this install or extract script and still isnt geared towards basic linux users.

> with appimage you'd also have to use the console/terminal/whatever to make it executable for example, so whether you have instructions that
read "run chmod +x <file-you-donwloaded>" or tell them to run any other command/one-liner for that matter doesn't really make a difference im my book.

As mentioned before, users dont have to go to the console to make the appimage executable. See video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzZ6Ikc7juw

Open up the README_en-US file found in the .tar.gz file and there are no instructions on how to extract it and run it without effecting the version installed by the package manager. It does have install instructions which say to run 'sudo dpkg -i *.deb' inside the DEBS folder and how user friendly is this as an installation experience? We could simply provide bash files in the extracted root folder that users could run to simplify both these processes, but unfortunately we dont. If we do not provide an easy means for users to extract or install TDF built .tar.gz files, less knowledgeable users wont run the latest version.

>> The .tar.gz to .appimage bash conversion script can be run directly on the webserver, so that would eliminate any uploading time.
> But it seems that every language needs its own full installset, and that is a no-go for actual redistribution.

No we plan to distribute 2 versions. One with some UI languages or and one with all UI languages, just like the portable windows versions.

>> Quite sure more than 2 people will use it, as i would be one of them,
> Exaggeration to make a point.

No just keeping the discussion friendly. ;D

> And flatpak has a different approach/has repository style backing, but even that is not a general purpose distribution at the moment. And for TDF builds flatpak also has deminshing returns, since the main benefit of the dependencies are already taken care of..

Yes flatpak and snap are comparable as they both have similar goals of making it easy to install an application, while appimage is more focused on portability of the application.


>> No the appimage will only include the same files LO bundles in the released .deb and .rpm files found in the .tar.gz. It assumes the users system has the necessary other dependencies on their system.
> Then no added benefit.

Benefit is in easier user experience.

>> Appimage tries to solve a major problem on linux, easily running an app on any linux distro,
> Again: Already solved by TDF builds by using a baseline that doesn't introduce runtime issues. The major problem doesn't exist for LibreOffice. For other software that is a selling point, but LO already has solved this problem in a different way.

Unfortunately TDF builds dont make it easy for a user to run/install on their system, but yes the baseline does ensure that i could run on most linux distros.

> Just  answer: Why should I convert to an appimage, if I could also could just  create a tarball or iso-image or similar of the extracted rpm packages? Same effect for LO. Add a link to toplevel so people don't need to browse to opt/libreoffice/program to launch, but then it's the same thing, right?

I doubt that you would convert to appimage if you are running a rolling distro (e.g. arch) or a distro that make it easy to get the latest version even on a stable distro (e.g. PPAs for ubuntu), but if you wanted to easily run a new or old LO version, e.g. a user wanted to test how well 5.4 beta 2 works to send in bug reports, or take it around on a USB, downloading the appimage will be the simplest user experience that can be achieved for the average linux user, especially those who dont visit the console/terminal.

Yousuf