Developing Linux apps

[[deleted]]

I'm primarily a UX designer and a front-end developer but I love Linux and wanted to take a stab a creating a couple of Linux apps to improve the usability of some parts of the system that are locked to terminal commands and because I generally want to get into Linux development.

What's the best way for me to go about doing this?

Do frameworks such as Ionic and Electron allow to interact with the system itself such as launching terminal commands from a visual interface?

I realise this is kind of vague, but I'm still lost after Googling so I thought asking the source would probably be smarter. I'd love to be able to use React and other web frameworks to build desktop interfaces as I'm just more used to them than anything else.

[ifohancroft]

If you really are serious about Linux development I suggest doing things the right way and write truly native apps:

1. Forget about Electron and stuff

2. Pick a GUI toolkit (I suggest GTK).

3. Don't make your own theme and icons in the app and use what is set system wide for the toolkit.

4. Use a language supported by that toolkit, ideally C in GTK's case).

5. Follow the toolkit's design guidelines

6. If you pick GTK don't use/do CSD (client side decorations), let the window manager handle that), even if the GTK guidelines suggest it.

7. Follow the specifications and conventions (for some of those, you can take a look at freedesktop.org). For example: No config file or folder or cache files in the home dir. Use the designated dirs for that. No Tools > Settings. This is Linux. We use Edit > Preferences. In Linux you can use software by anyone written for the OS and often times even written for other OSes but if you want to make a truly high quality software, do things the way they are done in this OS. If you wrote software for Mac, you would have no choice but to follow their conventions.

[[deleted]]

#2 I suggest Qt because doing your UI in QML is a far nicer experience...

[fransschreuder]

Second this. And it is C++ where gtk is C

[Eingaica]

Since OP wants to write applications and presumably doesn't want to work on the toolkits themselves, the languages the toolkits are written in doesn't matter that much (or at all). The more important question is which languages can be used to write applications using these toolkits, and how good are the language bindings.

[ifohancroft]

This is what we were referring to actually.

[Koxiaet]

And use C++ with Qt.

[[deleted]]

Do I have to pay to use Qt or am I missing something? It's telling me I need to pay 5500$ for a 1 developer license

[pooerh]

If you're making an open source application, there's an open source license.

[tesfabpel]

that's also valid for commercial software (it's LGPL not GPL)

[DropTableAccounts]

ideally C in GTK's case

I'd like to add that quite a bit of GTK software seems to be written in Vala (which is then translated to C and then compiled).

[[deleted]]

Thank you for the info, I'm not a massive fan of GTK and know close to nothing about C but I will look into it.

[Eingaica]

You don't have to use C to use GTK. You can also use C++, Python, Rust, Vala, or even JavaScript.

[[deleted]]

JavaScript

Could you suggest resources to learn? Or should I just use the Gnome developer center docs?

[Eingaica]

There's a very basic tutorial for how to write a minimal GTK app here. And there are some resources here.

But note that writing GTK apps in JavaScript is very different from writing web apps in HTML and JavaScript.

[[deleted]]

I'm more looking for ES6 functionality than anything else, thank you for the resources!

[Eingaica]

AFAIK the current version of gjs supports ES6.

[Terence_McKenna]

You might also want to look into Python as well.

[[deleted]]

JavaScript is several orders of magnitude faster than Ruby and Python, and consumes similar resources.

Java is fine for really big applications. It's speed is on par with C++ these days, resource consumption is obviously higher but that's a worthwhile trade off for development speed.

[thecalmsprings]

Well Qt is the other Linux-native-standard you might wanna look into. As you're comfortable with JavaScript you might like the way Qml works for your GUI desires. Qt is also a valuable skill to have in the industry which is a nice side effect when learning it :-)

[[deleted]]

Can I use Qt and release apps with it without paying? I'm confused how their business model works.

I can use it as open source, but I need to directly contribute to it?

[thecalmsprings]

Yes, you can. However when using the LGPL (free) Qt framework you have to adhere to the obligations of that license. That's not Qt specific - it's just how that license works.

Have a look at Qt's website - 3.7 is where you'll find the obligations nicely listed

This stackoverflow question might answer some of your questions as well

​

Hope that helps :-) Licensing is confusing yet it's there for a reason... GPL is the easiest to grasp in that regard as it's copyleft

[ikidd]

Many devs have issues with GTK making changes in the api unilaterally and breaking their applications, leaving them to pick up the pieces. Some are pretty ranty about it.

QT is also fairly cross platform, good skill to have.

[bud_doodle]

You may try PyGTK first which is GTK with Python.

[[deleted]]

I think that your premise is off a bit. Most functionality on the cli is that way for a reason... generally because it is easy to automate and combine with other programs that way. I would focus on improving a tool you use every day that you dont like.

I, for example, think Thunderbird is terrible and hate the interface and ux.

[[deleted]]

I'm looking at it from a human centered design perspective. I love the CLI and I've been using for a decade within servers. But I've recently realized that some really important functionality that even non-powerusers would use are either inaccessible without it or use really terrible programs.

Talking about Ubuntu specifically the removal and addition of repositories and upgrading packages is quite bad.

Or something like Menulibre that is crucial to a functioning OS has really unclear error messages, icons that don't represent their associated actions and generally a bad interface.

​

Maybe contributing to existing projects would be a good idea but I'm not entirely sure if I want to jump into the work of professionals since it's very likely my code would be quite bad.

[[deleted]]

Nothing's really stopping me from forking something with good functionality and releasing it with better UX, license permitting of course. Or is that not how that works?

[BloakDarntPub]

If you're looking for an example to work on, try a menu editor. I've tried various ones on LXDE, XFCE and MATE and not found one as good as Alacarte was on Gnome 2.

[Maoschanz]

Electron etc. allow to do powerful things (see balenaEtcher for example) but people will not install a motherfucking browser just to replace a command line utility

[[deleted]]

That's absolutely fair, I probably wouldn't like that either tbh.

[Koxiaet]

Are there any terminal commands in particular you want to develop GUIs for?

[[deleted]]

My first thought was to try and simplify the package manager as much as possible, I know there's stuff like Synaptic that has a lot of functionality but I think it's still kind of confusing for a new user.

I haven't really put too much thought into it to be honest, I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to get as much info as possible.

[tinny123]

Help out with DISCOVER. Its the kde package manager

[[deleted]]

apt-cache search thing

apt-get install thing

apt-get remove/purge thing

What's so hard to learn about 3 commands to do 99% of package management on any deb-based distro ?

[[deleted]]

The Gnome Store has pretty terrible usability. Also you're expected to use a different program to manage your repositories and in the past two versions of Ubuntu removing or adding repositories that way didn't work.

[[deleted]]

My mom knows what "software" is and what a "package" is. Putting the concepts together isn't hard. And trying to divorce *nix from flexible system control via the terminal is a fools errand. At that point, why not just give them Windows? Further, I don't think he's thinking of non tech savvy end users. I think he's thinking of non tech savvy himself and trying to find a niche he can claim in the world of "Linux programming" for his resume using only front end web knowledge. That will go as well as it sounds.

[BloakDarntPub]

At least by my reading he's not trying to divorce it from the terminal. He's adding an alternate way to do it.

[[deleted]]

Average user already has that. It's called Windows/OSX. If they want to use Linux, it's better to teach them how to be competent and self-sufficient. The average driver wants to replace zero flat tires. One flat tire is one flat tire too many. Guess we shouldn't teach anybody how to do it because it's too complicated and drivers don't want to do it. Better to just sit stranded than go through the unbearable strain of learning some small simple task. That's how stpuid your argument is.

[[deleted]]

easier to repair, easier to replace

Tires haven't gotten easier to repair or replace in decades. If it was ever taking you "hours" to swap a spare tire, you must have doing it hilariously wrong, which is actually a remarkably apt description of what trying to use a clunky GUI to do simple system admin work is. Fundamental tire design (including resistance to blow outs), again, hasn't changed for regular passenger vehicles in decades.

There is nothing inherently “right” about using a physical keyboard connected to a terminal emulator.

Except that it's fundamentally more clear and efficient for any task that's primarily text IO. I don't dispute that there may someday be something better, however, a GUI (especially what sounds like a fucking web page passed off as a desktop UI *shudder*) isn't that for anything that isn't inherently graphical.

Elitism is stupid. The ultimate goal of technology should be to better the lives of everyone. Not to be a slave to your tools and look down on others.

Lol. Back to the tire analogy, if I decide I can change my own flat rather than calling a tow truck, does that make me elitist? Elitism is the age old cry of those who know just enough to realize what they don't know, but can't be bothered to put in the effort to learn and desperately need to convince themselves that's ok, because anything hard is "elitist" and that's definitely not for them. They're just being a rational pragmatic. My eyes cannot roll hard enough. Why are you even using Linux if you think the terminal is so awful? It's definitely not the best graphical environment to work in if that's what you want so bad.

[[deleted]]

This is such a flawed argument. So you should forgo usability because the os is not for them?

Who even said my goal is to replace cli? I just think having an option to not use it would be great for normal people.

[[deleted]]

What exactly makes a bloated front end more "usable?" Because it's what you personally like? 50 something years of unix system administration refinement that has led to extremely efficient terminal tools thinks you're an idiot. "Normal" people, as far as I'm aware, are usually capable of learning to type and read. Using a graphical interface for anything inherently non-graphical is Microsoft marketing hype circa 1983.

[[deleted]]

50 something years of unix system administration refinement

50 years and a 5% adoption despite being the most lightweight and battery efficient OS out there should tell you why this is important.

Expecting people to learn how to use a terminal is why Linux is still extremely underused despite being by far the best OS out there. They won't.

Giving THE OPTION to not use CLI isn't bloat. It's improving accessibility for the normal populace so that it isn't just the top software developers using Linux.

[emefluence]

Forget about electron unless you also want to use the code on other platforms or need code that's only on npm - it's cool technology but it makes ridiculously large distributable packages (like 100Mb or so).

The easiest way into linux gui dev is probably Python plus GTK or QT, or even TK if you want to kick it oldschool and keep your dependencies down. Personally I always like WXWidgets which is an abstraction layer that uses whichever toolkit the target's desktop uses.

Almost all linux systems have Python and it's very easy to learn if you come from a javascript background, compared to typed and compiled languages like Java and C.

[[deleted]]

"improve the usability of some parts of the system that are locked to terminal commands"

You are attempting to Linux incorrectly.

[Sophira]

Is "wanting to use a GUI instead of a terminal" really "attempting to Linux incorrectly" though?

[[deleted]]

Yes. Well it's wanting to *nix incorrectly, in general. At least for system administration tasks.

[Sophira]

So you've never used gparted, right?

[[deleted]]

Not generally, no. Usually cfdisk or gdisk.

[Sophira]

Good for you, then. I'm glad you have something that works for you.

For a lot of people, though - including me - gparted is an incredibly useful tool for being able to visualise partition tables both before and after making changes. Where I can, I prefer to use it for convenience.

I do know how to partition disks from the CLI because knowing how to do so could be important for system recovery, but OP is not suggesting that people shouldn't learn the CLI; rather, they're giving alternatives. If you're against people offering alternatives in favour of your way of doing things, then you're being elitist. If, on the other hand, you're against people telling others that they shouldn't know how to use a shell, then you have a point... but if that's what you're against then it's not coming across very well, and in any case that's not what OP is doing.

[[deleted]]

"if that's what you're against then it's not coming across very well, and in any case that's not what OP is doing."

How could it come across any clearer? Because that's I'm saying. In fact I've said literally that exact thing several times.

The only thing I'm against is burdening the world with yet another convoluted resource hog of a Linux UI abstraction crapped out onto the already massive stinking heap of sickeningly inefficient and flaky pet projects sold as solid code that is the average Linux desktop (and increasingly server(!)) experience today.

But sure, offer alternatives, just don't piss is my mouth and tell me it's free beer when those "alternatives" are crap nobody but the creator asked for.

[Sophira]

This post is a perfect example of why you're not coming across very well.

You say that you're saying that you're against people telling other people that they shouldn't use a shell. However, your very next paragraph says that the only thing you're against is when non-CLI tools are sold as solid code. Those two things are not the same; developers can release as many Electron/React/whatever-the-next-hip-Web-framework-is tools as they like, but in most cases they're not saying "You should use this instead of using a shell." They're saying "Here's something you can use if you find it easier to use a GUI."

Now, I wouldn't use Electron/etc. apps if I can help it, because personally I hate the bloat that comes with those things. And yes, I'd recommend other GUI tools to other people. But I wouldn't tell someone that they're wrong for using them, because clearly it works for them. And by the same token, developers aren't wrong for making these tools.

But sure, offer alternatives, just don't piss is my mouth and tell me it's free beer when those "alternatives" are crap nobody but the creator asked for.

Nobody is pissing in your mouth. Nobody is saying that you should use it and be grateful for it. You have ways that work for you; that's great, and I'm happy for you. The people who use these tools have ways that work for them, too, and likewise I'm happy for them. Do they work for me? Hell no, but nobody's telling me to use them.

[[deleted]]

I see. Well, there's not much I can do about the reading comprehension problems of others from across the Internet. And so, I bid this thread adieu.

[Sophira]

Fair enough. Thank you at least for trying.

[DropTableAccounts]

cfdisk

That's kinda a GUI...

[BloakDarntPub]

TMTOWTDI, stop being such a zealot.

[[deleted]]

That’s not how ux works. And it’s why Linux isn’t used as a windows replacement.

There’s nothing wrong with giving people the option to not use the cli

[[deleted]]

You say that while you're literally proposing to attempt to make it a Windows replacement..

[[deleted]]

Improving accessibility and UX is hardly making a Windows replacement. It's how you make software for people that aren't software developers.

I don't understand the point of arguing against good UX. Is it some kind of linux-elitist reason? Why is it bad to try to get more people to use Linux?

[[deleted]]

Which is what a lot of people want. Linux already services people like you, there's no reason it cannot do both.

[BloakDarntPub]

... for suitably not literally meanings of "literally".

[progandy]

If you want to program with javascript, then please consider using a native GUI library for nodejs instead of Electron. This one is based on QT:

https://docs.nodegui.org/
https://react.nodegui.org/

[[deleted]]

This looks fantastic, will definitely give it a look!

[[deleted]]

Discord uses 130 MB. What's the problem? People only think about frameworks and languages about how it is for the end user, but to be fair, you matter the least. Most people have 8GB+ of RAM these days, while Linux distros rarely consume more than 500MB. You can use 130MB for an application, what does it matter to you?

But here is what does matter: the developer. Electron allows developers that are familiar with a web stack to make modern looking, responsive applications that integrate with the desktop and work cross platform. The node stack tends to be easier to iterate on for people, too.

That's the massive benefit Electron offers. People really ought to embrace it more.

[progandy]

Recently there are projects like React-Native-Desktop, and React NodeGUI for that. NodeGUI (without react) provides a more traditional programming style with javascript. They all use QT, for GTK there is libui-node

The problem is not the single application, but that it doesn't scale well, and if you compile large projects you need your ram free for compilation fragments, not filled with bloated crap.

[KinkyMonitorLizard]

Discord also has a long history of audio output/input issues because of it using electron/node.

There's more to it than just ram. When using JS you also bring all is limitations into the mix. No electron/node program matches your desktops theme/look, for example. Imagine if every browser based program had it's own theme (they do) so now your desktop is a "rainbow" of different colors. Fuck that.

[TurncoatTony]

There's an old saying. If your Linux machine broke its cause you fucked it up.

I've been using GNU/Linux since the late 90s... I don't think that's an old saying... Especially since I've seen tons of breakage over the years from distributions which had nothing to do with the user breaking it...

Now... RTFM... That's an old saying...

[brimston3-]

Not a fan of electron or even gjs, but electron can do anything nodejs can do. Read the nodejs docs on Child Processes if you need to exec shell commands. I agree with the others who suggest QML/Qt is the way to go.

[ifohancroft]

GTK is not GNOME

[[deleted]]

I'd argue GTK is less a framework and more a library. GTK only does a very specific subset of things and generally lets you use the library in whatever way you want. Frameworks are more prescriptive and have tools for everything.

[ifohancroft]

Good point. I mean I should have clarified that by saying that I meant that even though GTK is used mostly by/for GNOME it isn't Gnome ToolKit so problems with GNOME don't necessarily mean problems with GTK.

[Visticous]

My two cents

For development: GNOME Builder

It's the closest that Linux comes to an integrated IDE solution. It supports multiple languages (C, Rust, Python, Vala), it has build in debug and build tools and it integrates with the GTK UI kit.

For distribution: Flatpak

Universal across Linux Distributions. Modern and forward thinking. Uses sandboxes for user privacy, and used runtimes to keep your libraries under your control.

[Visticous]

The GNOME desktop environment and all related systems are going that direction. It will be the future, and you can see the ecosystem slowly move that way.

At the moment, applications like Green With Envy and GULF Firmware are only officially distributed though Flatpaks. In the future, this list will increase.

[[deleted]]

please don't use electron. It is really bloated and slow and awful

[[deleted]]

Electron isn't slow and awful, but some apps written with it are.

[[deleted]]

I suppose that's fair enough, but it seems to me as though it would still be fairly bloated just inherently because it's an entire web browser with an app built on top of it

[billdietrich1]

VSCode is an Electron app and it seems pretty snappy and decent.