Arch Linux User Repository

Anyone interested in co-maintaining the package, please kindly send me an email (shown in the PKGBUILD). Thanks a lot!

@MaximGun Beautiful! Thank you so much for the contribution and have a lovely weekend!

It worked! Thanks so much!

For anyone else who wants to avoid the torture of building Signal on a puny Chromebook and is comfortable that there's a small chance you're getting spied on, here's what I did.

Note that you will need to check https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Builder/tree/master/builds/release for the latest binary release version and update pkgver in PKGBUILD accordingly.

1) git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/signal-desktop-beta-bin.git && cd signal-desktop-beta-bin

2) Modify PKGBUILD to the following

pkgname=signal-desktop-arm-bin
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Private messaging from your desktop, arm binary"
arch=('aarch64')
url="https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Builder"
license=('AGPL3' 'GPL')
depends=('libnotify' 'libxtst' 'nss' 'xdg-utils' 'libxss')
options=('!strip' '!emptydirs')
install=${pkgname}.install
provides=('signal-desktop')
conflicts=('signal-desktop-arm')
pkgver=6.18.0
source=("https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Mobian/raw/master/builds/release/signal-desktop_${pkgver}_arm64.deb")
sha256sums=('1b9cc243ccaec02a7a74c9adf9c46a3b23edd1d1fc5f7f10de82abb4a7d0f962')

package(){
    # Extract package data
    tar xf data.tar.xz -C "${pkgdir}"
}

3) mv signal-desktop-beta-bin.install signal-desktop-arm-bin.install

4) Modify signal-desktop-arm-bin.install to the following

post_install() {
        gtk-update-icon-cache -q -t -f usr/share/icons/hicolor

        # Link to the binary
        ln -sf '/opt/Signal/signal-desktop' '/usr/bin/signal-desktop'
        update-desktop-database -q
}

post_upgrade() {
        post_install
}

post_remove() {
        gtk-update-icon-cache -q -t -f usr/share/icons/hicolor

        # Delete the link to the binary
        rm -f '/usr/bin/signal-desktop'
        update-desktop-database -q
}

5) updpkgsums PKGBUILD

6) makepkg -siC

@MaximGun

It is a legitimate concern to compile on weak machines, but the binary you linked isn't from the official Signal repo, so considering Signal's emphasis on security, and in some oppressing regimes people rely on Signal to protect themselves from surveillance, I'm a bit reluctant to use an unofficial source.

Having said that, if one is not from a dictatorship regime (where people go to prison/die when speaking freely), I'm guessing it's not too risky or too much work to borrow the PKGBUILD from signal-desktop-beta-bin.

You can download the snapshot from signal-desktop-beta-bin: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/signal-desktop-beta-bin.tar.gz

And revise the PKGBUILD file to something like this:

# Maintainer: Nemo <archlinux at captnemo dot in>
pkgname=signal-desktop-arm-bin
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Private messaging from your desktop, arm binary"
arch=('aarch64')
url="https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Builder"
license=('AGPL3' 'GPL')
depends=('libnotify' 'libxtst' 'nss' 'xdg-utils' 'libxss')
options=('!strip' '!emptydirs')
install=${pkgname}.install
provides=('signal-desktop')
conflicts=('signal-desktop-arm')
pkgver=6.18.0
source=("https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Mobian/blob/master/builds/release/signal-desktop_$pkgver_arm64.deb")
sha256sums=('856113548383efaaca1531a2e8fcec8ced91f0c2be875c42bc6be78c71f7565c')

package(){
    # Extract package data
    tar xf data.tar.xz -C "${pkgdir}"
}

I haven't checked the dependency, so please make corrections if needed.

And for the signal-desktop-beta-bin.install file, you may update some directory paths to match this arm binary.

In your terminal, browse to the same directory as your PKGBUILD, and run updpkgsums PKGBUILD (maybe then namcap PKGBUILD), then makepkg -siC

Check whatever error that comes up, usually it's just paths you borrowed from other PKGBUILD/*.install files or URL that needs to be corrected (to match this arm bin version).

I note that signal-desktop_6.14.0_arm64.deb is created as an intermediate step during the compilation. Might a signal-desktop-arm-bin be possible by using these builds? Electron apps are brutal to compile on weak hardware. https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Builder/tree/master/builds/release

Anyone interested in co-maintaining the package, please kindly send me an email (shown in the PKGBUILD). Thanks a lot!

@m8D2 Thanks!

@mkurz, thanks for the fix, i've applied it and tested with yay, it seemed to be wroking now.

Also bumped to 6.3.0 (6.4.0 has an upstream appLocale issue to render the built unusable, so let's wait for it to be fixed first.)

Thanks again!

@m8D2 This package is out of date, Signal 6.3.0 is already release. Also please can you apply my fix from my last comment? Thanks!

Like commented by others here already, this package is broken when using yay, paru or when using makepkg -o followed by makepkg -e.

To fix your package you need to move the export NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider from the prepare() to the build() function.

The signal-desktop-beta AUR package had the same problem and fixed that. See the explanation in its comments starting with that one: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/signal-desktop-beta#comment-898651 (and the next two comments above).

Here is the fix they applied, you need to do the same: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/commit/PKGBUILD?h=signal-desktop-beta&id=85dc0329a04315cbd00b67b3d1feea88af1bdb74

Would be nice if you could fix that, thanks!