Help fix AUR packages

[xiota]

The AUR packages aur/gdevelop and aur/gdevelop-git are in unusable state.

In early March, @arthuro555 posted messages saying, "I'd like to help maintain & update this package, could I be added as a co-maintainer?" However, after taking ownership of aur/gdevelop-git and being made comaintainer of aur/gdevelop, has not yet contributed updates to either package.

I understand upstream developers are not necessarily interested in helping with downstream packaging, but improved documentation or access to the scripts used to make the release appimage would be helpful.

[arthuro555]

Hey! I've been working on a new pkgbuild but have met an issue, that being that the emscripten build inexplicably fails when configured by emconfigure in the fakeroot environement. I've sought advice of a debian and a fedora packager I knew and they were as clueless as I am. I can use a prebuilt version of the wasm GDevelop library, but it bothers me to include a prebuilt binary instead of building them from source :/

Another issue I've been having is that running GDevelop with the system wide installation of electron causes it to be falsely thinking it is running the dev version of GDevelop, and fail to load as no dev server is running. I still got it to technically work by patching the source files to to replace the check with a hardcoded const isDev = false;, but that is an incredibly ugly hack that could break anytime :/

I was thinking it wasn't worth uploading the new pkgbuild yet, until I figure these out, but even after over 30h of work & testing I couldn't find the source of the emscripten build failure.

[xiota]

This seems like a complicated application to package. Is the script that's used to make the release appimage available for examination? Or is the procedure documented somewhere? If not, would you mind providing an overview of the steps needed to put this package together?

[arthuro555]

Building an app image is, appart from the WASM build part I can't get to work, straightforward:

1. Clone GDevelop and emsdk repositories
2. Run npm install in GDevelop.js
3. Run the script in the emsdk repo to install the version of emsdk documented in the readme of GDevelop.js
4. Enter the emsdk environment
5. Run nom run build in GDevelop.js
6. Go to newIDE/electron-app
7. Run npm run build -- -l AppImage
8. Get the app image at newIDE/electron-app/dist/GDevelop-xxxxxx.appimage

[4ian]

You can also check the CI doing the full build of the app (which is mostly what arthuro555 explained) here:

GDevelop/.circleci/config.yml

Lines 123 to 148 in b7a4bab

	- run:
	name: Install GDevelop.js dependencies and build it
	command: cd GDevelop.js && npm install && cd ..
	# Build GDevelop.js (and run tests to ensure it works)
	- run:
	name: Build GDevelop.js
	# Use "--runInBand" as it's faster and avoid deadlocks on CircleCI Linux machines (probably because limited in processes number).
	command: cd GDevelop.js && source ../emsdk/emsdk_env.sh && npm run build && npm test -- --runInBand && cd ..
	# GDevelop IDE dependencies (after building GDevelop.js to avoid downloading a pre-built version)
	- run:
	name: Install GDevelop IDE dependencies
	command: cd newIDE/app && npm install && cd ../electron-app && npm install
	- save_cache:
	paths:
	- newIDE/electron-app/node_modules
	- newIDE/app/node_modules
	- GDevelop.js/node_modules
	key: gd-linux-nodejs-dependencies-{{ checksum "newIDE/app/package.json" }}-{{ checksum "newIDE/electron-app/package.json" }}-{{ checksum "GDevelop.js/package.json" }}
	# Build GDevelop IDE (seems like we need to allow Node.js to use more space than usual)
	- run:
	name: Build GDevelop IDE
	command: export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=7168" && cd newIDE/electron-app && npm run build -- --linux --publish=never

(+ a bit of setup before to install packages)

[xiota]

That's the build script I was unable to find before. I was looking inside the .github directory.

Where I got stuck is the wrong copy of clang is run. Complains that wasm architecture does not exist.

[arthuro555]

Here's my current PKGBUILD for the gdevelop package:

# Maintainer: Arthur Pacaud <[email protected]>
# Maintainer: Popolon <[email protected]>
# Contributor: Paulequilibrio
# Contributor: JKA Network <[email protected]>
# Contributor: Todor Imreorov for github <[email protected]>

pkgname=gdevelop
pkgver=5.3.195
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A full featured, open source game development software, allowing to create HTML5 and native games without knowing a programming language. All the game logic is made thanks to an intuitive and powerful event based system."
arch=('x86_64')
url=https://gdevelop.io
license=('MIT')
groups=()
provides=("gdevelop=${pkgver}")
conflicts=('gdevelop-bin' 'gdevelop-git')
makedepends=('npm' 'git' 'jq')
depends=('electron')
source=("gdevelop::git+https://github.com/4ian/GDevelop.git#tag=v${pkgver}"
  'emsdk::git+https://github.com/emscripten-core/emsdk.git'
  'gdevelop.desktop'
  'gdevelop.sh')
sha256sums=('SKIP'
  'SKIP'
  '81de9743eb30435302e429263b9bdcf6c3a8b36c52e29b87d9cd2d69be07b9e2'
  '8bcced9dacea29a0db4072365dd0df07f10fd29d2595700557b0a7c73a498645')

prepare() {
  "$srcdir/emsdk/emsdk" install 3.1.21
  "$srcdir/emsdk/emsdk" activate 3.1.21
}

build() {
  source "$srcdir/emsdk/emsdk_env.sh"

# CMake has a wrong output when running in fakeroot for some reason,
# so using prebuilt WASM instead of rebuilding it ourselves for now.
<<emsdk_build
  cd "$srcdir/gdevelop/GDevelop.js"
  npm install
  npm run build
emsdk_build

  cd "$srcdir/gdevelop/newIDE/app"
  npm install
  npx -y update-browserslist-db@latest

  cd "$srcdir/gdevelop/newIDE/electron-app"

  local electronVer="$(</usr/lib/electron/version)"
  local package="$(jq ".devDependencies.electron = \"$electronVer\"" package.json)"
  echo -E "${package}" > package.json

  npm install
  npm run build -- --linux --x64 --dir -c.electronDist="/usr/lib/electron" -c.electronVersion="$electronVer"
}

package() {
  mkdir -p "${pkgdir}/usr/share/gdevelop/"
  cp -dpr --no-preserve=ownership "$srcdir/gdevelop/newIDE/electron-app/dist/linux-unpacked/resources/" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/gdevelop/"
  chmod -R 755 "${pkgdir}/usr/share/gdevelop/"
  install -D -m 755 "$srcdir/gdevelop.sh" "${pkgdir}/usr/bin/gdevelop"
  install -D -m 644 "$srcdir/gdevelop.desktop" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/gdevelop.desktop"
}

gdevelop.sh:

#!/bin/bash
exec "electron" "/usr/share/gdevelop/resources/app.asar" "$@"

[arthuro555]

Notes:

• The part that builds GDevelop.js is commented out which causes downloading a prebuilt binary from the CI
• While it asks for the electron package, it won't actually run on the latest electron version. I believe the last working version was electron 27? Didn't update the pkgbuild yet, not sure if this isnt something we should address with a PR here
• I did the patching of isDev manually by modifying the asar file, not included in the pkgbuild and ideally should be addressed with a PR here or a change in the way the app is ran

[xiota]

@arthuro555 I haven't tried your PKGBUILD. I've been trying to use extra/emscripten (3.1.55). My last attempt failed after the following:

  cd "$srcdir/$_pkgsrc/GDevelop.js"
  npm install --no-audit --no-fund --prefer-offline
  npm run build

With the error:

[ 96%] Linking CXX executable libGD.js
.../GDevelop-5.3.201/Binaries/Output/Release_Emscripten/libGDCore.bc:1:2: error: expected integer
    1 | !<arch>
      |  ^
1 error generated.

[arthuro555]

I haven't tried your PKGBUILD. I've been trying to use extra/emscripten (3.1.55). My last attempt failed after the following:

Sorry for the late answer. I've been avoiding using this package for two reasons:

• As far as I can remember, it pollutes the environment by overshadowing the installed versions of node, java, and other emscripten dependencies with the ones it likes? This is the normal behavior of entering the emscripten environment, but the emscripten package by default made the emscripten environement loaded at logon. I do not want this package on my machine, even if just for building the package.
• GDevelop requires a specific version of emsdk (3.1.21), using the latest version will just break the package, and if not now, then later since there are no backwards compatibility guarantees. Using this pinned source version is the recommended way to build GDevelop.

I think I tried using the package too at some point just in case, but it did not help with the build problems I was facing here.

[xiota]

Trying to build 5.4.208. Getting following error:

In file included from /home/main-builder/pkgwork/src/GDevelop-5.4.208/Core/GDCore/Serialization/Serializer.cpp:17:
/home/main-builder/pkgwork/src/GDevelop-5.4.208/Core/GDCore/Serialization/rapidjson/document.h:319:82: error: cannot assign to non-static data member 'length' with const-qualified type 'const SizeType' (aka 'const unsigned int')
  319 |     GenericStringRef& operator=(const GenericStringRef& rhs) { s = rhs.s; length = rhs.length; }
      |                                                                           ~~~~~~ ^
/home/main-builder/pkgwork/src/GDevelop-5.4.208/Core/GDCore/Serialization/rapidjson/document.h:325:20: note: non-static data member 'length' declared const here
  325 |     const SizeType length; //!< length of the string (excluding the trailing NULL terminator)
      |     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~

I'll probably disown the package soon. I'm obviously not able to figure out how to build this.

[arthuro555]

I finally found a way to build GDevelop.js that works on my machine, I'll try polishing things up and push the working PKGBUILD to the AUR soon 👍

[tristanbob]

I finally found a way to build GDevelop.js that works on my machine, I'll try polishing things up and push the working PKGBUILD t

Let us know if it's something that will be helpful to others.

[arthuro555]

I've pushed the PKGBUILD 🥳
I am not sure if it is in a working state yet since I've done the last changes over SSH (no screen to launch the application :p), but it can make a valid build without errors at least.
I think #6852 might still be needed for the packaged application to function properly.