Building and running Signal Desktop on the Librem 5

Hardware Librem 5
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I confirm this issue, and I reported this issue here:

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Can you check if you can make a call from or receive a call to Signal Desktop on your Librem 5 now that itā€™s updated? I cannot (whereas before I could), but I donā€™t know if itā€™s because Iā€™ve messed with something else in my Librem 5 (I doubt this is the case, but I just want to make sure).

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Iā€™ve tested and I canā€™t do calling now either. My build system is pretty manual and messy right now, and Iā€™m working on getting versions and other things corrected. Iā€™ll try and rebuild the old version today and push that up. Sorry, I donā€™t heavily test it before building and publishing.

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Ok, Iā€™ve downgraded the Signal-Desktop flatpak to 5.30.0, which can make calls. Do a flatpak update and youā€™ll get it. I donā€™t really want to check forums super often, so please message me on matrix (@elagost:matrix.org) or file an issue here: https://gitlab.com/undef1/signal-desktop-builder
I check both of those more frequently than I log into the half dozen discourse forums Iā€™ve got accounts on!

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ā€œUpdate regarding Linux ARM64 support! A bunch of (native) dependencies have been updated now which makes it much easier to build Signal on Linux ARM64. Especially ringrtc and libsignal-client now have official builds provided by the Signal team.ā€

For more details see:

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Sooo is it too much to hope that Signal ā€œdesktopā€ will soon be a first-class client? (That is, no more link to android or iOS required).

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Hello, just a quick request about Signal compatibility status with L5. What are the status about :

  1. Official Purism support via Fund your apps (does the development started ?)
  2. Flatpak @elagost support : is the show/collapse contact view bug fixed, and is there any new feature / bugfixes since your last post ?
  3. @Skalman app status : did you find an easier way to build Signal on L5 ?
  4. What about Axolotl for Mobian : does call / visoconference work well ?

Not easy to follow everything so please feel free to come feedback, a big thanks !!!

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  1. As far as I know there is no work from the Purism side on Signal. I would like to see an update on the Fund your apps campaign, also because I made a non-trivial donation for Signal support. But maybe the Purism team will not work in parallel on the Apps. I think they are focusing on battery live now. And Calendar has quite improved.
  2. I can only manage to show/collapse the contact side pane with a mouse, I leave the side pane always collapsed to be able to use Signal on the Librem 5 with the touch screen. I once created a feature request in the Signal forums to create a button for this.
  3. Regarding building Signal for (not on) the L5, see these repos: https://gitlab.com/undef1/signal-desktop-builder and https://github.com/dennisameling/Signal-Desktop.
  4. I did not dare to try to register with my primary number with Axolotl on the L5, so I have still an Android phone as the primary Signal device.
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I have recent successful experience with @elagostā€™s Flatpak for Signal for the Librem 5 and also with installing Axolotl from a .deb file. It is of note that Signal on the Librem 5 is Signal Desktop, so while it functions surprisingly well, you are dependent on either having the Signal app on an iPhone or Android or Axolotl. I was able to get Axolotl installed and registered with my primary cell number on my L5, although it took some messing around with a keyboard and mouse via my USB-C dock in order to input the texted authorization code for registering my number. Axolotl registered, but I wasnā€™t able to add contacts with names within Axolotl. That said, I was able to do a little dance with opening Signal and Axolotl to get Signal Desktop linked as a device for my account registered with Axolotl. Once you have Signal Desktop linked, you can use it as you would Signal on a computer. I think I did have to use a mouse to collapse the contacts column, but once itā€™s collapsed, it stays collapsed (except for the one update that expanded it once).

Itā€™s a bit if a pain to set up, but once itā€™s set up, I have most of the functionality I want with the Signal Desktop from the Flatpak.

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No further issues or updates to report, other than whatā€™s on the web page and/or gitlab repo.

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@elagost Is there an easy way for this to work on arch/phosh? I thought flatpak was generally cross-distro compatible?

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pacman -Syu flatpak and then follow the instructions here. https://elagost.com/flatpak/

Iā€™m using it on PostmarketOS right now.

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Flatpaks are cross-distro compatible. But you need separate builds for the hardware architectures like aarch64/arm64 or amd64/x86-64. And especially flatpaks of Electron applications (like Signal Desktop) have sometimes issues on Wayland based desktop environments.

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Amazing! I installed it and the messaging/calling seems to work great. Notifications donā€™t seem to appear when messages arrive, but regardless, this is definitely a big step forward for my PinePhone as my primary phone. Thanks for making it happen!

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76

Because it is Signal Desktop, Iā€™ve had to keep Signal always open on my Librem 5 in order for it to notify me when messages come in. When I have Signal open, however, PureOS does show the notification when a message comes in or someone reacts to one of my messages. I donā€™t know how other environments might work, but I would imagine that Mobian would be very similar, if not identical.

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Check the tips section of the site. You can enable notifications.

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For anyone using the Signal flatpak, I just broke the repo. Youā€™ll have to remove and re add it. Itā€™s being signed by a new key and built with gitlab CI now. Should be easier for me to build long term.

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Thanks for the heads up and for your work on keeping it updated! I just successfully deleted the old repo and added the new one/installed Signal again and Signal opened just fine after it finished and it has all of my messages and groups and whatnot.

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Hello, I donā€™t have Android anymore. If I install Signal on the L5, how can I add people to it ? Is it easy ? Thank you.

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Donā€™t you still need a primary Signal device to do this? I also use primarily Signal Desktop (on normal computers and the L5 phone). But all these Signal Desktops are still connected to my Signal Android.