FieldWorks 9.0 is available on Ubuntu 22.04 as a Flatpak package

[Mark S]

Hello,

Summary: FieldWorks 9.0 is available on Ubuntu 22.04 as a flatpak package only.

FieldWorks has been distributed from https://packages.sil.org/ as a .deb package for Linux for a number of years. This has served us through many Ubuntu and Wasta releases.

Work has been done to repackage FieldWorks using Flatpak packaging. This is attended by both advantages and disadvantages. The change to use Flatpak packaging was done primarily to ease the maintenance required.

Users of FieldWorks 9.0.17 on Ubuntu and Wasta 18.04 and 20.04 can continue using FieldWorks 9.0.17 as installed from .deb packages from packages.sil.org at this time.

However, FieldWorks 9.0 is not available as a .deb package for Ubuntu 22.04 (or for a future Wasta 22.04). FieldWorks 9.0.17 is available for Ubuntu 22.04 as a Flatpak package. FieldWorks 9.1 is not available via Flatpak at this time.

FieldWorks 9.0 is available from the Flathub Flatpak repository and can be installed via Flatpak on Ubuntu or Wasta 20.04 and 22.04.

Please note that some features of FieldWorks 9.0 are not available at this time in the Flatpak FieldWorks package. These features include:

- Integration with Paratext 9.0.

- Use of some (all?) Encoding Converters.

- Automatic keyboard switching is not enabled yet in Ubuntu 22.04.

Furthermore, moving from .deb to Flatpak FieldWorks 9.0 is a one-way transition. There is no support for moving back to FieldWorks 9.0 as installed from .deb packages.

If the impact of the above is too significant for your situation, you can continue using FieldWorks 9.0.17 from .deb packages in Ubuntu/Wasta <= 20.04.

Instructions follow, but are also available with screenshots at https://packages.sil.org/fieldworks.html , where there are also instructions for installing in Wasta via the Software Manager GUI.

To set up Flatpak in Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04, do the following. (But do not do this on Wasta, which already has this)

- Install Flatpak by running the following in Terminal: sudo apt update && sudo apt install flatpak

- Enable access to the Flathub repository, by running the following, which may ask for your sudo password: flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

- Log out, or reboot, to help your system see and use Flatpak (such as in your programs list).

To uninstall FieldWorks 9.0 from apt/deb in Wasta or Ubuntu, do the following.

- Uninstall FieldWorks 9.0, if installed from packages.sil.org as a .deb package by running the following in Terminal: sudo apt remove fieldworks-enc-converters

To install FieldWorks 9.0 from Flatpak in Wasta or Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04, do the following.

- Run the following in Terminal: flatpak install flathub org.sil.FieldWorks

You can then use the programs list to locate and launch FieldWorks.

FieldWorks 9.1 Beta has been available for a while as .deb packages from the Beta (aka experimental) section of packages.sil.org. If you are using FieldWorks 9.1 Beta on Ubuntu or Wasta 18.04 or 20.04, you can await further announcements. Please note that I haven't done any testing to see what would happen if you try to move from FieldWorks 9.1 to a Flatpak FieldWorks 9.0 package. So I don't recommend installing Flatpak FieldWorks 9.0 if you have FieldWorks 9.1 installed, at this time.

[tdavli...@gmail.com]

Hello all!

I'm a little late to the party, so I apologize for that. Does this mean that eventually all future releases of Fieldworks on Linux will only be available in Flatpak packages and is this just for streamlining compatibility and installation?

Thank you,

Tyler

[Mark S]

Hello Tyler,

Any releases in the near future of FieldWorks on Linux should be expected as Flatpak packages, and not as apt/deb packages. This transition was done to reduce the maintenance required from the development team.

Independent from transitioning the packaging to Flatpak, the FieldWorks team also needed to work through how to allocate their very limited personnel and continue to move FieldWorks forward. An outcome of this was that FieldWorks 9.1+ would only be released on Windows. FieldWorks 9.0 continues to be usable on Linux via the Flatpak package.

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[Tyler Davis]

Thanks Mark.

How much longer then can I expect v9.0 to be maintained by support? As far as I can tell, I'm still the only active FLEx Linux user and I don't plan on switching to Windows anytime soon. (Or ever.)

Tyler

Tyler Davis
https://tylerdavis.xyz/

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[Kim Blewett (gmail)]

You are definitely not the only active FLEx Linux user, Tyler! I'm not sure how many there are, but we have two in our household. We are still using Wasta/Ubuntu 20.04, partly/mostly because we don't want to give up FLEx 9.1, the last apt/deb version.

Any other FLEx-Linux users want to chime in here?

Kim

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[Tyler Davis]

Kim,

I stand corrected and I'm glad to hear I'm not alone!

Tyler

[Mark S]

Hello Tyler,

I recently did some work to fix keyboarding for Ubuntu 22.04. That hasn't been released yet. But when that is released, Flatpak FieldWorks 9.0 should run on Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Wasta 22.04, and Wasta 20.04.

Bugs in FieldWorks 9.0 are unlikely to be fixed without sufficient gravity. It will be good to remember that the development team is small, and there is much more to do than people to do it.

Because FieldWorks 9.0 is packaged as a Flatpak package, it has a likelihood of continuing to work in future versions of Ubuntu and Wasta without further adjustment by developers. Keyboarding seems to be a bit more fragile, and may need attention in newer OS releases.

> We are still using Wasta/Ubuntu 20.04, partly/mostly because we don't want to give up FLEx 9.1, the last apt/deb version.

I'm sorry, Kim :). I hope you can continue to find solutions.

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[Tyler Davis]

Thanks for all your work, Mark.

I suppose I complicate matters a bit because I'm funny about containers and use Linux Mint. So I've always had to use workarounds to get FLEx working, anyway. 😅

Nonetheless, I'm glad there will be some level of support for the time being.

Regards,

Tyler

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[Mark S]

Tyler, you may find that because of its bundled dependencies and more OS isolation, the flatpak package is easier to get working in a given environment, even outside of Ubuntu and Wasta.

If by containers, you are interested in isolating your computer from an application, there are some per-application permissions in flatpak that you can experiment with.

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[pcun...@gmail.com]

I'm also using FLEx (9.0.17) on Linux (Wasta 20.04). I missed the fact that 9.1 is available. If you, Kim, are finding it stable I figure that's as good an endorsement as any to upgrade! ;-)

Paul

[Mark S]

FieldWorks 9.1 Beta is available for Linux as an apt/deb package in the Beta/experimental section of PSO. It is not the final FieldWorks 9.1, which was not released for Linux.

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