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Signal on Linux (lemmy.today)

submitted 3 weeks ago by theorangeninja@lemmy.today to c/foss@beehaw.org

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How is it possible, that Signal still only provides a .deb package and no .rpm, or even better AppImage or Flatpak? There is an unofficial Flatpak but is it secure?

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[–] HoornseBakfiets@feddit.nl 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

As a maintainer of another unofficial flatpak:

You can always check the source code of the flatpak (code that downloads the dev then runs it inside the flatpak sandbox) here: https://github.com/flathub/org.signal.Signal

Any of the current maintainers could add malicious code, but that would ruin their GitHub & by proxy:Twitter,LinkedIn credibility.

Flathub have final say on what is built and hosted on their flatpak repository (Flathub != Flatpak) and are able to remove versions at will.

[–] theorangeninja@lemmy.today 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not a developer so I can't really check myself

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 1 points 3 weeks ago

I just read through the unofficial Flathub Flatpak for Signal and it is very simple. It fetches the .deb from Signal's website, installs it in the sandbox, and uses a launcher script to tell the OS some basic toggles like should it start minimized or should it display a tray icon. In the script it makes use of zypak, which to my understanding is to tell electron (chromium) to allow sandboxing to be handled by Flatpak. Here is the repo and the build instructions is the .yaml file.