PureBasic Forum

It becomes more and more difficult to fulfill the dependencies of PureBasic on Linux. This is a real test of patience under Arch/Manjaro. It can take up to 8 hours for the required packages to be built from the AUR. Under Debian/Ubuntu and the various derivatives are the needed Packages are quickly installed, but it still annoys, especially in the future it will not be easier.

I think there is a simple solution to getting these problems final remove. Would it not be possible to offer PureBasic as an AppImage [1] or as a Flatpack [2]? This should fix all the compatibility problems with the different distributions finally.

Sorry, for the bumpy Google translation.

Regards, hadisch


[1] https://appimage.org/
[2] https://flatpak.org/

With Ubuntu derivatives including Mint, I can't say I've found it particularly difficult (the output from checkinstall.sh makes it pretty easy, really) but I have no particular experience of Arch, etc and you're right - it could always be made easier. Those options do look pretty attractive (could snap work here, too?).

I think so, but .snap packages can only be uploaded by developers who work for Canonical.
I think AppImages are the best solution because they run out of the box on all distributions.

What packages exactly? Did you perform export MAKEFLAGS=-j8 before building it? That often helps a lot. Also some packages are optional. I'm not a fan of system images for single applications. I mean you'd need to update the packages inside, too, since they would mean a security risk if they were not up to date.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/webkitgtk
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/webkitgtk2

These are required for the WebGadget() and DialogLib.

Do you heavily rely on WebGadget like things? I also have these packages, but setting MAKEFLAGS to -j8 parallelizes the build, so it will be finished much faster.

This is an issue that I'm also struggling with and posted about previously.

Yes - Arch/Manjaro is a problem and also Fedora I believe, though I haven't had time to test yet.

For myself the real issue is only with WebGadget. I use this just for my Help system which is important and quite large.

On Manjaro I have attempted many times to build the packages from AUR, but all have failed for various reasons - some simple and fixable, others very obscure! On my low powered machine the build takes very many hours before failing. I have followed all the tips and tricks from this and several other forums.

However, the main point regardless of my own result, is that I cannot expect my customers to go through this lengthy procedure. It's especially unfortunate as Manjaro appears to be getting very popular (currently ranked number 1 by DistroWatch, though doesn't reflect actual installations).

On Debian/Ubuntu type distros installing the binary dependences from the standard repositories is quick and no trouble. I have absolutely no problem with that, it's perfectly acceptable for anyone. Using something like AppImages my be worth considering but I tend to agree with DarkDragon that it could cause problems.

The PB team has already done a brilliant job with improvements for the Linux platform. I guess that the best solution would be for them to ensure that important dependencies were current and readily available from the repositories for all the most popular distributions. Then documenting examples for the main Package Management types, like the existing apt-get command line. However, I'm sure this is a lot easier said than done! It's further complicated by the need to support both gtk2 and gtk3 subsystems (I am still needing to use gtk2). Personally, I'm prepared to wait until Fred and Freak can find the time to look at this properly.

I rarely use the WebGadget, but the DialogLib and it needs packages which are also needed by WebGadget.

Thanks for the tip. I will try it out on the next package update.
I have uncommented and adjusted the variable "MAKEFLAGS" in "/etc/makepkg.conf":
Which value should be set can be determined in the terminal with the following command:
Do you still use a 32-bit manjaro? If yes, Manjaro now only offers 64-bit. Maybe that's the reason.

If your problem is that timeouts occur when downloading the packages, try updating the server list. You can do this in the settings of the package manager.

Switched to 64-bit last December - clean install on a different machine.

Yes, updated the server list a few times just in case. Downloads appear to be working fine. On last attempts the failures occur after about 8 hours with multiple errors of "out of disk space", even though there is plenty free - checked before run and at the fail time. Can't see any reason for this. Normal system updates and adding/removing packages all work perfectly.