taw/element

Team Workflows Projects in Copr
1

Element is a front-end client implementing the decentralized, secure, messaging and data-transport protocol, Matrix.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/taw/element/
2

What about builds for Fedora 33?

3

Can we please get Fedora 35 builds started?

4

Thanks taw for packaging and maintaining the package.
I’ve two questions, first, about the possibility to move the package to the official Fedora repo? the second one, is there a chance to make it available to aarch64 systems?
Regards,

5

I noticed the element package is no longer available.
Is it because of the PROBLEM: The Element source-code ships with non-free code (really, it is the Electron platform’s fault)?
Do you know of any other fedora compatible element rpm repositories or is there a chance of the element.io actually producing their own rpm packages in the near future?
Thanks.

1 Like
6

Given that the builds for Fedora 34 work perfectly on Fedora 35, would it be possible to install them in some way?
I updated three machines from Fedora 34 to Fedora 35.
On all of them, the Element that was already installed still worked great.
On one machine though I uninstalled Element, I don’t remember why, and now it is not in the repository anymore, nor downloadable from anywhere else as far as I know.

Thank you very much for your work :slight_smile:

7

I was able to install Element on Fedora 35 by copying the directory:
/usr/share/io.element.element/
from a machine that had it installed.

Then I created an icon on the desktop which runs the command:
/usr/share/io.element.element/element-desktop

As I said, it is the version for Fedora 34, but it works perfectly.

I did not copy the script:
/usr/bin/io.element.element.wrapper.sh
because it does not seem to be needed.

8

Is the previous rpm available for download anywhere?

I have been using Nheko as an alternative matrix client for a few weeks and I have had several segfaults. It is bad at handling gifs and mp4, the emoji function is also broken, encryption seems to be buggy as well. The user interface is not finished and several features supported by Element do not work at all.

I also suggest contacting Element over email or their support channel and asking them to help the developer solve the issues or make their own rpm package.

9

I’ve just been using the web interface in Angelfish as a webapp.

10

In case it helps anyone else in the same boat, the flatpak works well until this is resolved - Flathub—An app store and build service for Linux

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11

I have been in direct talks with the Element dev team and this is not a simple issue. It is not going to be resolved soon or at all.

As for finding the RPMs elsewhere … I am working on that. It just requires a day of focus to properly shift people somewhere other than COPR. The COPR team (correctly) takes issue with the non-free multi-media codecs that Element includes (because of an upstream package).

My father passed away recently and I am dealing with all that (it is rather all consuming). My suggestion: for now (or forever) use the Flatpak. Mind you, the Flatpak hosters may eventually take issue with the non-free status of Element as well. We’ll see. Stay tuned for further info on the RPMs.

12

Thanks for the Update Todd,

My condolences about your Father.

I am using the Flatpak as suggested right now and its working fine for me today.

13

Thank you for letting us know.
My condolences about your Father as well.
I managed to find a solution, so take all the time you need.

14

All,

So, I built 1.10.6 just to experiment. (Note, all my build bits are here https://github.com/taw00/element-rpm). And then I stopped. I have updated the text at that repo and the text in the element COPR repo. I am shutting down my RPM builds. The SPEC files are still there. My contribution tar-balls are still there. Someone, feel free to take it all and run with it somewhere else. I am tired of fighting NodeJS’s hellacious design and the non-free nature of the electron platform which ultimately required that I stopped using COPR to build these RPMs. For now, or more permanently, or until someone takes over the RPM builds, the Flatpak builds are an available, working, alternative.

Cheers, folks! It has been an interesting four years of package-building Element.
-todd (also t0dd in a lot of places)

1 Like
15

Sorry to hear about your father, Todd.

I’ll try to pick up the RPM work where you left off. Thanks for all your contributions.

-Brian

16

Thanks for doing this. We relied on it last year for Linux Plumbers Conference. Since we’ll be doing matrix again this year, I got an element-desktop build up and running in the openSUSE Build service (also building Fedora clients)

It’s a bit different from yours because OBS doesn’t have an internet connection so the build has to be broken out to supply all the pieces node/electron/cargo would usually download (which turns out to be quite a big headache).