Platform versions

the latest versions of the the various platforms should be posted.

I am using Jami on Debian Testing.
Given Jami background in respecting user privacy, I trust it reasonable that Jami respects distros that are independent from millionaire investors (all things Ubuntu, among others). Within them few I chose Debian because to my knowledge they are the only one using a Condorcet voting system, which places them dozen years ahead of any country government.

Alas for me, the Jami package within the Debian Testing distro just cannot install because it expects dependencies that are not (yet?) available.

Because of that I’m using a Flatpak thing that (1) is compiled by someone unknown, (2) requires installing extra Gb just for Gnome support (I am on Xfce) and (3) is the version from last May, without all the cool things you just announced…

This is just to say, here on Debian it’s hard to love Jami… :wink:

What does that have to do with posting the latest versions?

Well, this latest version just is not available on Debian testing… so no latest for me…

I have been working with the current maintainer of the Jami package in the official Debian repositories to update it to a newer version. So far, we successfully bumped the Jami package in sid (unstable) from 20190215.1.f152c98 to an intermediary newer version 20191214.1.07edb5e, and are currently working on resolving a few issues blocking the migration of the newer version from unstable to testing. Once things are in good shape with the intermediary version, we will bump it up to the latest release and try to keep it regularly updated, at least in unstable and testing. Given that Ubuntu I believe cuts their releases from Debian unstable, this should also help bring new Jami versions to official Ubuntu repositories.

I will share more updates in this thread and/or elsewhere in the forum as we continue making progress.

In the meantime, you can download and install the latest release of Jami for a variety of GNU/Linux distributions from https://jami.net/download-jami-linux/, by manually downloading and installing the package or by adding/configuring the Jami repository for your distribution by following the directions on the above page.

We are also exploring other packaging systems such as snaps and flatpaks. In fact we have an up-to-date snap package for Jami at https://snapcraft.io/jami along with instructions for installing it through snap on a number of GNU/Linux distributions.

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Hello Bandali and thank you for this detailed answer!
My concern is that I am on Debian Bullseye/sid (xfce) and my repositories seems not to contain all the dependencies required by Jami.
More precisely three of them are apparently ‘uninstallable’, libqrencode3 (>= 3.2.0), libva-drm1 (>= 1.1.0) and libva1 (>= 1.7.3)
Until now I was working on this machine with a Flatpak which origin is unclear, but this imposed a lot of flatpak packages (Gnome etc.) just for Jami and I went on to remove the ~1/2Gb this reprensented on my boot volume.
I am quite reluctant on snaps since I read Ubuntu intends to silently replace the classical apt packages with it, this resulting in Ubuntu, not users, deciding which software is installable (= entitled to enter their catalog)…
I agree my attitude may sound overreacting but to some extend this relates to my decision to go Debian rather than Ubuntu…
I’ll carefully track the announces here, believe me!

Hi @Herve5,

Cheers.

Can you please tell me exactly which Jami package you’re using, and where you are seeing those packages mentioned? I’m looking at the latest Debian control file at https://salsa.debian.org/pkg-voip-team/ring/-/blob/master/debian/control for the Jami package in Debian sid, and I’m not seeing e.g. libqrencode3 mentioned at all. The sid package for Jami depends on libqrencode-dev, which itself currently depends on libqrencode4, available in buster, bullseye, and sid.

I empathize with your frustration with packaging systems like flatpak and snap while dealing with outdated Jami packages in official distro repos, but they might provide at least a temporary option for installing recent versions of Jami. Perhaps a better interim solution would be the Jami package in GNU Guix.

Thank you bandali!
Here is what I do:

  • get the jami package from (apparently) my Debian testing repo, the version announced is 20201118.2.280f813~dfsg1-1
  • command in terminal : ~$ apt-get install -s jami
    result (in French, but I think it is understandable :wink: :
    Les paquets suivants contiennent des dépendances non satisfaites :
    jami-daemon : Dépend: libhogweed4 (>= 3.4.1~rc1~) mais il n’est pas installable
    Dépend: libnettle6 (>= 3.4~) mais il n’est pas installable
    E: Impossible de corriger les problèmes, des paquets défectueux sont en mode « garder en l’état ».

    Do I have a wrong package here?

Thanks.

So, that is a very recent version of Jami you are trying to install, and it definitely cannot be from Debian’s official repos, since they are currently very much lagging behind Jami releases (I’ve been working on fixing that). If you see https://packages.debian.org/unstable/jami, you see the latest version in the Debian sid repo is the old 20191214.1.07edb5e~ds1-1, with no version for Debian testing, and an even older 20190215.1.f152c98~ds1-1 version in Debian buster (current stable).

Can you have a look at your /etc/apt/sources.list file, or the files in your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory? Are you trying to install one of the versions from dl.jami.net? If so, I’m afraid we currently don’t provide a package for Debian testing or unstable, but only for Debian 10 (buster, current stable) and Debian 9 (jessie, current oldstable).

Thank you for this fast check!
Most probably I tried to install from dl.jami.net, following the recent announcement on the blog.
In my sources.list I have nothing special, but within the source.list.d I do have a ‘jami.lst’ that reads the following:

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jami-archive-keyring.gpg] Index of /nightly/debian_10 ring main

What should I replace it with? If I suppress it, will I be returned to the normal Debian testing version?
Thank you again !
H.

Right. So it seems to me that you are indeed trying to install Jami from dl.jami.net. At least as of now, we unfortunately don’t publish builds for Debian testing or unstable. So, installing from dl.jami.net will not work if you’re not on Debian stable or oldstable.

There is currently no Jami package in Debian testing, and the version in unstable is old (from last year), but it is very much being worked on, and I hope to have it updated and enter testing in the not-so-distant future. In the meantime, for alternative installation options on Debian testing or unstable, you could try installing the snap package for Jami (see https://snapcraft.io/jami), which I try to keep up-to-date with latest nightly releases (manually, for the time being).

Hope this helps.

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Thank you bandali!
I really don’t like snaps since I learned how ubuntu intends to use them (replacing the standard apt package that gets silently deleted, leading straight to a walled garden à la Google/Apple). I understand this costs you a lot of work anyhow, and that with this you touch a lot of people in Ubuntu!
I think I’ll try to get the Debian/stable version, or else I’ll wait unstable enters testing :smiley:
Thank you again for both your work and your reactivity here!
Hervé

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I just come back to this unsolved discussion : I see that on my debian-testing I just cannot use the .debs associated to stable versions (or at least, the ones given on the download page for Debian… So it’s not just a matter of trying too recent…
[edit] BUT! @bandali : I see that if on my Deian testing I download the Ubuntu .deb (not the Debian one), playing the following simulation with apt-get install -s seems to announce it is going to run fine (in French on my system):

Les paquets supplémentaires suivants seront installés :
libnatpmp1 libyaml-cpp0.6
Paquets suggérés :
minissdpd natpmpc
Les NOUVEAUX paquets suivants seront installés :
jami-all libnatpmp1 libyaml-cpp0.6
0 mis à jour, 3 nouvellement installés, 0 à enlever et 0 non mis à jour.
Inst libnatpmp1 (20150609-7+b2 Debian:testing [amd64])
Inst libyaml-cpp0.6 (0.6.3-9 Debian:testing [amd64])
Inst jami-all (20201127.1.409973e~dfsg1-0 local-deb [amd64])
Conf libnatpmp1 (20150609-7+b2 Debian:testing [amd64])
Conf libyaml-cpp0.6 (0.6.3-9 Debian:testing [amd64])
Conf jami-all (20201127.1.409973e~dfsg1-0 local-deb [amd64])

I didn’t dare to actually try but do you think this would solve my problem and allow me to run the (Ubuntu) latest version on Debian testing?

TIA!
Hervé

replying to myself : doing the above works, but it created lots of conflicts afterwards with the ordinary updates in Testing, so… I had to remove it…

[edit] @bandali I add this AFTER you answered me below, because sillily being a new user here I’m prevented to post a fourth time in the same conversation (!)
But this actualy is a reply, to thank you -I’ll track you carefully from now on!
I’ll have a look at Guix too, that I heard many positive things about, but I don’t master for now.
Thanks again!

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Indeed, I would discourage using deb packages meant for one distro and/or version on another distro and/or version. Even if all the dependencies line up by sheer luck, it is bound to break when either of the distros move on to differing package versions, and/or result in conflicts like the one you experienced.

The current situation with Debian testing is indeed unfortunate, since Jami is neither in Debian’s official testing repos nor do we provide a version for Debian testing on dl.jami.net. That said, as I mentioned before, I have been working for several weeks/months on alleviating this situation and getting Jami updated in Debian unstable and then Debian testing. Some great progress has been made, and I’ll hopefully be able to share more updates about it in the near future.

In the meantime, if you prefer to not use the Snap package of Jami, another option would be to try installing Guix on your Debian testing and install Jami using Guix’s package manager.

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For this to be considered a security communications package all operating systems that jami run on should have the O.S. and current version number posted

Hello Bandali,
This is just to say I continue tracking the Debian testing version, to be first in line in case anything happens :wink:
Also, I sincerely wish you the best of end-of year holiday break if any, and some rest in the environment you prefer. You deserve it, would it be just because you work for such an indispensable device as Jami!

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Thanks for the feedback. I will ask the team to look into setting up such a page on jami.net.

Hello @Herve5,

Many thanks for the kind words, and I wish you the same. :slight_smile:

To share some good news: after a very long time, the jami package in Debian unstable (https://packages.debian.org/unstable/jami) is now on the latest release of Jami as of last night! The migration of this version from unstable to testing is currently blocked due to a regression in the gnutls28 package (a transient dependency of jami), but will hopefully happen once that is taken care of by the gnutls28 package maintainers.

I’m hoping to continue sharing good news about this as things unfold.

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And now, the latest release of Jami is also available on Debian Testing https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/jami.
Very good job.

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