Electron apps on Ubuntu Touch

db579

Is there any way currently to install electron apps that run on desktop Ubuntu on Ubuntu Touch (on a pinephone specifically).

Appreciate the performance would likely be very poor with the low ram and non-touch optimized interface but are there any technical blockers to doing it?

AppLee

@db579
Hi the way to achieve your goal is by utilizing Libertine.
Not sure it will work nicely but Libertine is made so we can run desktop apps with UT.

Valenoern

Libertine on pinephone was returning errors trying to create even an example container the last time I tried to use it

https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/pinephone/-/issues/133
(gitlab isn't working enough to find the main issue but that's one)

pparent

Is there any chance we will be able to compile/run electron apps natively in Ubuntu Touch, with Mir2.0 through Wayland?

ikoz

@pparent VSCodium has been working since 16.04. I think it's in the store.

pparent

@ikoz said in Electron apps on Ubuntu Touch:

VSCodium

But how does it work? Does it uses Xmir? It requires to be unconfined, I see.

Currently I cannot compile and run natively any electron app, as an UT app that runs seamlessly right? In particular I cannot run natively Signal-Desktop, which would be a quite important addition to Ubuntu Touch.

ikoz

@pparent It's open source: https://github.com/fredldotme/vscodium-click-packaging.
From quick look it bundles all the needed libraries in the click and is unconfined, so not ideal,

arubislander

@ikoz I don't think the VSCode click is unconfined because it is an electron app. I think it is unconfined because it is a code editor which needs to be able to access different parts of the filesystem to be useful.

ikoz

@arubislander IIRC, all desktop apps based on a framework other than Qt are currently uconfined, but Mir 2 should fix that (see the discussion around the problem for uWolf).
If it were unconfined just to access the filesystem directly (without content hub), it would use the separate read/write access policy.

arubislander

@ikoz said in Electron apps on Ubuntu Touch:

IIRC, all desktop apps based on a framework other than Qt are currently uconfined, but Mir 2 should fix that (see the discussion around the problem for uWolf).

This is not the case. uFirefox on Noble, for instance, is strictly confined.

naz.R

@db579 yes, I am experimenting with one now. It's absolutely possible.
You can bundle it for arm64 and wrap into .click with clicable. Then install with OpenStore.

pparent

Just a quick question: anyone knows if there is a particular difficulty to build Signal-desktop (Electron app) as a .click package? Because this would be a major addition to Ubuntu Touch. Knowing that Mobian have binaries and build scripts for ARM ( https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Mobian )

(And after we could certainly tweak the interface to make it responsive, like it is done on whatsapp web which is a very similar interface.)