Sailfish OS Community repositories: Documentation and issues

Sailfish OS Community repositories are providing collection of applications, tools, and libraries compiled for different combinations of architectures and Sailfish versions.

Ambition is to become the main repository for software distribution on Sailfish OS.

When compared to the software distribution via Jolla Store or OpenRepos, the software is compiled into RPMs in a reproducible way directly from the source. The source used for the compilation is available at OBS together with the compiled packages. This is in contrast with Jolla Store and OpenRepos where all packages are uploaded in binary form without any control over how the binary was compiled.

By collecting the software in a single automated build system, we can benefit from collaboration between developers through shared packaging of required libraries, reduce duplication of the work by keeping the packages up to date, and get a clear overview of missing software.

The repository is located at OBS:

• https://build.merproject.org/project/show/sailfishos:chum

This repository at GitHub is used for filing general issues and publishing documentation.

Origin of "chum": see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumming

How to use these repositories: users

At the moment of writing, there is no GUI for selecting packages for installation and it has to be done through command line tools (zypper or pkcon).

To use the repositories on your device, users would have to

• install package sailfishos-chum;
• refresh software cache on device (devel-su zypper ref),
• install the software (devel-su zypper in ...)

As all software is compiled with the vendor set to chum, it is easy to find out which packages are installed from this repository by running

rpm -qa --queryformat '%{vendor}:%{name}\n' | grep chum

How to use these repositories: developers

Overall submission model is as follows:

• get the package compiled at OBS.

• submit the package to sailfishos:chum:testing using "Submit package" action at OBS. Specific version has to be specified in submission.

• sailfishos:chum:testing maintainers will accept your request and check if it compiles in :testing repository. If all is fine, the package will get promoted to sailfishos:chum by maintainers. If something is wrong, maintainers will work with you to resolve the issues.

There are no major limitations imposed on the submitted software. Main limitation is that it should not interfere with any software distributed by Jolla as a part of Sailfish OS. This includes updating libraries distributed as a part of Sailfish OS.

All types of software is welcome as long as it can be used on Sailfish OS devices. This includes actively developed SFOS applications, discontinued SFOS applications, tools and libraries missing on SFOS as distributed by Jolla. Depending on the type of software, recommended ways of submission vary, as described below.

After the successful submission, updates are handled by changing version information at OBS service file in sailfishos:chum:testing, checking that it compiles, and promotion to sailfishos:chum.

Asking for help

If something is not clear or you get stuck in the process, feel free to ask for help via IRC (#sailfishos), Sailfish forum, or filing issues over here.

You can ask someone else to package the software as well. Just be aware that for this effort to work out, we need many to contribute.

Submitting actively developed applications

If you have the application compiled at OBS already, just use "Submit package" for the application and all the libraries it requires.

If you have not developed using OBS yet, then you could either ask maintainers to add your project to OBS directly into sailfishos:chum:testing or, a better long-term solution, make account at OBS through pinging lbt at IRC and configure the package at OBS.

For actively developed applications, it is expected that the software is compiled from the main application repository where it is developed. No forks at GitHub into https://github.com/sailfishos-chum are expected.

Submitting abandoned applications

Assuming that the application has not been picked up by some developer, it is suggested to open an issue in this repository with the request to add that application into the repository. Include original GitHub/GitLab repository link with the issue.

The plan is then to make a fork of the application into this GitHub organization (https://github.com/sailfishos-chum), if needed, update packaging scripts and then add it to sailfishos:chum:testing with the later promotion to sailfishos:chum.

Submitting Linux tools and libraries

If you want to submit tool or library which is mainly upstream version (for example Midnight Commander) then it is suggested to proceed by making repository in this organization and later adding it to OBS. For that, open an issue in this repository, maintainers will create repository for you and then you would be able to package the software as needed.

If you have packaging repository already, it is possible to either fork it or, if you wish, you could transfer the repository over to this organization.

As for the packaging approach, it is suggested to use the same approach as is used for the most of Sailfish OS core packages: adding upstream as submodule and packaging scripts/patches into the packaging repository.

Q&A

• My software requires specific SFOS versions, can I still use Chum repositories? Yes, you can. You would just have to disable the versions and architectures of SFOS that are not supported in OBS package Meta settings. Example: see Pure Maps.

• Can I build differently depending on the Sailfish version? Yes you can. You can use the RPM macro sailfishos_version to build differently depending on the release. This works the same as for other distributions so your .spec can be cross distro. See https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Build_Service_cross_distribution_howto for more information.

• Can I use the compiled RPMs of my software to upload it to Jolla Store? No, you cannot as compiled RPMs have a vendor set to chum, which is not allowed in the store. However, it is easy to setup your personal repository at OBS, set sailfishos:chum to provide the required libraries and recompile the packages in your own repository. As a result, you will get automated builds for all the needed architectures without the vendor flag set in RPM.

• Can I use the compiled RPMs of my software to upload it to OpenRepos? While you can do so, it is not recommended as it will prevent users from distinguishing whether the software was installed from chum repository or came from some other source. For a way to compile the packages using OBS, see the response above.