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Experimental "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI
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A user has been interested in possibly distributing JMRI as a 鈥淔latPak鈥� for Linux. I don鈥檛 know much about that method, but apparently the distribution file also includes the JRE, so it鈥檚 (at least in theory) easier to install.
As an experiment, you can find a 5.10 distribution in this form at For more on this, see JMRI/JMRI Issue 11658: Is anybody familiar enough with this distribution method to be able to try it? Is this something that we should do on an ongoing basis? Bob 鈥� Bob Jacobsen rgj1927@... |
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Bob:
Just happen to be sitting in the lab and saw the email... Using Linux Mint 22.0 which uses flatpak for installs during updates so it's right there to try. Yes... Your URL downloaded and doing a flatpak install was good, just supplying password and Y when needed. There was a 5.8 on that machine and it seems to have been found when the 5.10 installed brought prefs forward. I didn't check logs to see if the JDK was changed, quick check is version 21.0.6. Obviously need to run more checks... this is a test machine and not in production... Jim Albanowski |
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As long as it is an additional option for Linux users.聽 I run RPi and it is super easy right now to rename the existing JMRI folder and extract the replacement.聽 Yes, I do have to handle Java separately, but then how often is the Java requirements changed.聽 I would hate to see the existing process changed and/or complicated by something called Flatpak.
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-splasher in somd -NCE PowerCab with Raspberry Pi 3b+ and JMRI -DCC-EX with Arduino Mega聽w/motor shield, Raspberry Pi 3b+ and JMRI -Using聽聽Engine Driver with both -Generally running the latest dev version of JMRI & Engine Driver |
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This seems like a "solution looking for a problem", at least for *Linux*.
Since JMRI is in JAVA and requires nothing outside of JAVA's JRE and installing a suitable JRE under Linux is "trivial" (compared to MS-Windows or MacOS), I am not sure how truely useful or needful this is. I can see a flatpak (or similar) for MS-Windows or MacOS, since it appears that those two O/S's have the greatest problems with installing JMRI, mostly caused by confusion about installing the proper version of a JRE. *I* would find a Linux "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI to be far more hassle to deal with than the current Linux distribution methodolgy of JMRI. Actually, I expect that the current Experimental "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI won't work on my machine(s) anyway -- I expect it is a x86_64 Flatpak and all of my machines use ARM processors. And this brings up a *new* issue that will complicate things: there would need to be *four* Linux flatpaks: ix86, x86_64, armv7l, and aarch64. My only thought about "improvements" in the Linux distribution of JMRI would be the creation of .deb and .rpm distrubutions of JMRI. I realize that JMRI will never be in any Linux distro repo and I understand why that is, but a self-made .deb and .rpm with a proper openjdk-XX-jre depenency could be helpful. *I* could probably help with creating the necessary control files to help with this, if anyone is interested. At Fri, 4 Apr 2025 08:19:38 -0400 "Bob Jacobsen via groups.io" <rgj1927@...> wrote: -- Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364 Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services -- Linux Administration Services heller@... -- Webhosting Services |
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Bob and everyone,
I have no strong feelings about adding a flatpak (and my Linux distribution does not have great support for it, so I won't test - plus I prefer spending my development time on other parts of JMRI which I've been neglecting far too long already). I'm just slightly wary of either dropping behind java releases or adding more flatpak releases to the JMRI schedule (i.e. 5.10-java17.0.13 on 5.10 release in Dec 2024, 5.10-java17.0.14 on Jan 21, 2025, 5.10-java17.0.15 on Apr 15, 2025 if things go as planned at Oracle). OTOH, I don't know if this is of any real concern, considering we are already shipping dozens (?) of libraries which also may go out of date in between production releases, and it's not system java but JMRI java :) Heiko -- eMails verschl眉sseln mit PGP - privacy is your right! Mein PGP-Key zur Verifizierung: |
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Robert,
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The macOS install is essentially the same as the Linux install. Download a DMG, open it and drag "JMRI" to "Applications". Dave Sand ----- Original message -----
From: "Robert Heller via groups.io" <heller@...> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [jmriusers] Experimental "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI Date: Friday, April 04, 2025 8:34 AM This seems like a "solution looking for a problem", at least for *Linux*. Since JMRI is in JAVA and requires nothing outside of JAVA's JRE and installing a suitable JRE under Linux is "trivial" (compared to MS-Windows or MacOS), I am not sure how truely useful or needful this is. I can see a flatpak (or similar) for MS-Windows or MacOS, since it appears that those two O/S's have the greatest problems with installing JMRI, mostly caused by confusion about installing the proper version of a JRE. *I* would find a Linux "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI to be far more hassle to deal with than the current Linux distribution methodolgy of JMRI. Actually, I expect that the current Experimental "Flatpak" distribution of JMRI won't work on my machine(s) anyway -- I expect it is a x86_64 Flatpak and all of my machines use ARM processors. And this brings up a *new* issue that will complicate things: there would need to be *four* Linux flatpaks: ix86, x86_64, armv7l, and aarch64. My only thought about "improvements" in the Linux distribution of JMRI would be the creation of .deb and .rpm distrubutions of JMRI. I realize that JMRI will never be in any Linux distro repo and I understand why that is, but a self-made .deb and .rpm with a proper openjdk-XX-jre depenency could be helpful. *I* could probably help with creating the necessary control files to help with this, if anyone is interested. At Fri, 4 Apr 2025 08:19:38 -0400 "Bob Jacobsen via groups.io" <rgj1927@...> wrote: -- Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364 Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services -- Linux Administration Services heller@... -- Webhosting Services |
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I understand that. The "tricky bit" for both MS-Windows and MacOS installs is
getting and installing the "proper" JAVA JRE, not actually installing JMRI itself. That seems to be what non-techies seem to have the most trouble with. And probably the most confusing thing is that the version of Java at java.org -- Oracle's JAVA -- is the wrong one. This is where something like a "Flatpak" type of install might be helpful. Getting the correct version of JAVA for *Linux* is pretty trivial, by comparison, since almost all Linux distros have OpenJDK in their repo. Here having a RPM or DEB package with a proper depenency for OpenJDK could be helpful, eg: sudo apt install ./jmri-5.12.deb would then go after openjdk-17-jre (and openjdk-17-jre-headless) automagically. At Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:29:53 -0500 "Dave Sand" <ds@...> wrote: -- Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364 Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services -- Linux Administration Services heller@... -- Webhosting Services |
Bob Jacobsen
splasher
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