Librem 5 Signal app -- newbie

Signal doesn’t load as an app on Librem 5 and Pinephone, as they’re both technically “computers”. Squeezing a desktop version onto those is probably gonna take some work that I don’t know how to do.
If you wait for the SMS verification text to count down, it’ll give you the option of a phone call for phone verification. It’s a work around, but you may have to utilize that. I did.

Signal desktop app is simple to install (as is Axolotl and Flare - none of these have the option to create a user / register device) and option to do the phone verification is good to know (but it hasn’t presented this option thus far). The cli is important here because the problem is that there is no previous device/user/code (that would require an iOS or Android phone). Apparently there may be a way to do something with Waydroid, but that hasn’t been documented either (I couldn’t find it).

I think Axolotl can work on a primary device - it offers a registration option.

It hasn’t worked since last fall, apparently. There is a ticket about it. At some point (may take a loong while) they may re-write the backend with rust, which supposedly will fix the problem - no idea when that will be.

I have been following the developments via Telegram (sic!), and I think they (or more specifically Nanu) are working hard on a new version.

If they’re planning to rewrite in Rust anyway I wonder if it would be more helpful to just contribute to Flare instead since that’s:

  • Native toolkit (GTK4)
  • Using Presage and libsignal-service-rs [based on the official libsignal rust library] which are shared with the Sailfish OS Signal client Whisperfish

Having a shared backend based on the official upsteam library that’s reusable across platforms seems like the most likely way to have OWS eventually support the work - see also this thread for context https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal/issues/152.

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I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Flare does not run on the librem5 and the bug is now closed without result.

Not sure what you mean? Flare runs very well on my Librem5?

Exciting which version do you use? I have already reflashed the entire device and tried a few things. I always get the same error with libsecret. I’ve read about this problem on a few others as well.

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0.8.1 but it’s worked for me for several versions earlier already

From the normal flatpack or the purism flatpack?

Do you have anything special installed in the system?
I have reflashed the phone, set it up, updated it and installed the purism flatpack (I also tested the normal one) and I keep getting the error.

I’m using the Flathub version. Nothing else special installed but I have a default and login keyring setup.

How did you do that with a standard and a login key ring?

https://git.omniteck.com/ A shot in the dark, but it may work.

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Hi @belerry - Would you please edit your post - as the Signal secure communications app is at https://signal.org/ not at the URL you used in your post.

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I had the same problem with Flare (The communication with Libsecret failed).
What I did was:

flatpak run --command=sh de.schmidhuberj.Flare
secret-tool store --label='test' key1 value1

The last command asked a password and failed (user interaction failed).
Running dbus-monitor (in another terminal, outside the flatpak container) revealed that secret-tool tried to use the “login” keyring (Collection login not found).
So, I’ve used seahorse (Password and Keys) to create a new password keyring named login. After that, the secret-tool command (executed inside the flatpak container) and Flare worked without errors.

Now, the annoying thing is that I have to unlock two password keyrings on every boot: default keyring (email, vpn, …) and login (Flare).

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Just wanted to do a sort of PSA for any signal desktop users on L5. There is now a setting to scale the chat down to 75% which makes it fit the form factor a little better.