Cryptic Linux dbus error if notification-daemon (or similar notification service) not installed #1797
Description
On first run of the plover appimage on Linux (Manjaro, in my case) from the command line, the following error message prints:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name is not activatable.
This happened because I did not have notification-daemon (or similar notification service) installed. Some people have more minimal installations of Linux, so they might not want/have notifications on their desktop. If someone without a Linux desktop notification system installed were to try to run the app image, they would encounter the cryptic error above. Additionally, running from dmenu would do nothing. The appimage must be run from the command line the first time.
It turns out that plover/linux/appimage/apprun.sh calls notify-send twice (lines 99 and 101, currently). These commands send text notifications to the desktop, but only if you have the proper notification service installed. Otherwise, the above error prints and the shell script terminates.
Please consider adding the following in the Linux installation notes:
- Run the appimage for the first time from the command line and not dmenu, so you can see the prompts for passwords.
- Install notification-daemon (or similar).
More portably, perhaps do away with the calls to notify-send entirely. If users know from the installation guide to run from the command line the first time, the notify-send commands can be replaced by echo.