GNOME Builder + Python: How can I distribute my application without Flatpak?

[qewer3322]

So I created a fairly simple GTK application with Builder and Python using the GNOME Application Template which uses Meson as the build system and I want to distribute it. I know I can use Flatpak build and export my application to a Flatpak bundle but I don’t want to do that since I don’t really like Flatpak (and also my application doesn’t work with Flatpak). What I want to do is distribute my application in other ways such as uploading it to the AUR, creating a .deb package or bundling it into an AppImage. I have searched but even the offical Builder docs don’t tell anything about distributing without using Flatpak (Sharing your Project — Builder 3.39.0 documentation). I figured I would need to use modify the meson.build file of my project to build an executable but Meson docs don’t really say anything on using it with Python. Does anyone have any useful info on this topic?

[vanadiae]

but even the offical Builder docs don’t tell anything about distributing without using Flatpak

Distro packages are pretty much out of its scope so that’s probably why you can’t find anything about it there.

Otherwise I think you’d have more luck asking in the distributions’ forums you’re willing to create packages for (appimage don’t have such distro forum but it isn’t used at all by GNOME apps since Flatpak is used instead).

As for your non working flatpak manifest, you can try opening a new thread here if you’re willing to package it as flatpak and see if some people know how to help you get it working

[alatiera (Jordan Petridis)]

You don’t really need to do anything extra. Run meson dist and build a distro package from that tarball, or straight from the git repo.

[qewer3322]

@vanadiae

As for your non working flatpak manifest, you can try opening a new thread here if you’re willing to package it as flatpak and see if some people know how to help you get it working

Well, I have opened a thread about this (GNOME Builder + Python: How can I import python packages?) but couldn’t really find a solution since it seems like the problem is that one of the python modules I’m using (pynput) doesn’t work with Flatpak (it has some issues finding it while building dependencies).

@vanadiae

Otherwise I think you’d have more luck asking in the distributions’ forums you’re willing to create packages for (appimage don’t have such distro forum but it isn’t used at all by GNOME apps since Flatpak is used instead).

I will look further into this, thanks for the advice!

[qewer3322]

@alatiera

You don’t really need to do anything extra. Run meson dist and build a distro package from that tarball, or straight from the git repo.

Oh well thanks for pointing that out! I’m quite new to Meson (well also the idea of build systems in general) and didn’t see that while I was looking at the docs.
I tried running it but, when I ran it in the main directory of my project, it said
ERROR: Directory '/home/qewer33/Projects/VClicker' does not seem to be a Meson build directory.
so I tried running it in the _build directory but it said this:
Dist currently only works with Git or Mercurial repos
which is quite interesting since the project is a git repo:

Then I realized that all of the files (and subdirectories) in the _build directory was added to .gitignore so that made me think, am I supposed to be running it in another directory?

[jfrancis (Jason Francis)]

Try meson dist -C _build from the project root.

[qewer3322]

Nope, says the same thing.

[qewer3322]

Alright so I solved the issue, it turns out I forgot to add and commit the files of my project so that was why Meson didn’t know it was a git repo. Thanks everyone for the help!