[Feature Request] Packaging IBus engines with flatpak

[subins2000]

Linux distribution and version

Linux Mint 19 Tara

Flatpak version

Flatpak 1.0.8

Description of the problem

I'm trying to package this IBus engine. Here's the packaging repo. I gave enough permissions for the engine to connect to parent ibus-daemon but it fails :

GLib-GIO _g_io_module_get_default: Found default implementation local (GLocalVfs) for ?gio-vfs?
IBUS ibus_factory_new: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_CONNECTION (connection)' failed
GLib-GObject g_object_ref_sink: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
IBUS ibus_factory_add_engine: assertion 'IBUS_IS_FACTORY (factory)' failed
IBUS ibus_bus_call_sync: assertion 'ibus_bus_is_connected (bus)' failed

To test if it's a connection problem, I ran the default ibus-tmpl engine, but that also fails establishing a connection :

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 121, in <module>
    main()
  File "main.py", line 118, in main
    launch_engine(exec_by_ibus)
  File "main.py", line 78, in launch_engine
    IMApp(exec_by_ibus).run()
  File "main.py", line 59, in __init__
    self.__factory = IBus.Factory.new(self.__bus.get_connection())
TypeError: Argument 0 does not allow None as a value

So it seems that it is failing in a connection to ibus. I read #675, perhaps flatpak is limiting the access of an engine ?

Does flatpak's implementation of ibus portal supports packaging an engine ?
Or am I doing it wrong ? Here are the permissions :

"finish-args": [
        "--share=ipc",
        "--own-name=org.freedesktop.IBus.EnchantPython",
        "--talk-name=org.freedesktop.DBus",
        "--talk-name=org.freedesktop.IBus",
        "--talk-name=org.freedesktop.portal.IBus",
        "--filesystem=xdg-run/dconf",
        "--filesystem=~/.config/dconf:ro",
        "--talk-name=ca.desrt.dconf",
        "--env=DCONF_USER_CONFIG_DIR=.config/dconf"
],

[AnwarShah]

I have a similar problem, though I haven't started packaging yet

[subins2000]

@AnwarShah what problem do you face ? Is the debug/error message similar to this ?

[AnwarShah]

I haven't gone to packaging. I am assessing whether it is possible to use flatpak for providing ibus engine to be used by system ibus.

[mominul]

I am maintaining an iBus engine, so I am also interested in this issue.

[subins2000]

@mominul Nice to see there's a Bangla ibus engine :)

Can you try packaging yours ? Perhaps another set of eyes will help in making it work. I don't know C much and haven't got into the engine's code. I'm just trying to package it.

[mominul]

@subins2000 Thanks for your appreciation!

But I want to know about is it possible to pack IMEs with Flatpak in the first place as IME(ibus engines) might require special permissions. I don't have enough knowledge of dbus or Flatpak to know if this is possible. It'd be great if a person familiar with Flatpak would help us.

cc @fujiwarat @matthiasclasen

[fujiwarat]

Do you have ibus-portal?
https://github.com/ibus/ibus/tree/master/portal

[subins2000]

@fujiwarat This should included in the flatpak package ?

How do I know if I have it or not ? Is this a host thing or a package thing ?

[fujiwarat]

ibus-portal is running in the host side. and sandbox also should include GTK IM module for IBus.
I mean old IBus version does not implement ibus-portal.

[subins2000]

@fujiwarat I'm using Ubuntu 18.04. Is ibus-portal installed from the default ibus package (ibus amd64 1.5.17-3ubuntu5) in official repos ? How do I know if it's running ?

How do I include GTK IM module in sandbox ? Any examples ?

[mominul]

I think you have to use the latest version https://github.com/ibus/ibus/releases

[fujiwarat]

ibus 1.5.17 has ibus-portal. You can check it's running with ps command.
You can find im-ibus.so with find command in your sandbox. E.g. org.freedesktop.Platform and org.gnome.Platform includes IBus GTK IM module.
If your application uses Atom applications, you need ibus 1.5.20 or later.

[subins2000]

@fujiwarat Just checked, I have 1.5.17, ibus-portal is running and the sandbox has im-ibus.so (org.freedesktop.Platform). But the error still comes. Here's the full output :

sh-4.4$ ./ibus-engine-varnam  --ibus -l ml -n "varnam.ml"
(null) varnamd is not running. Launching a new instance
GLib posix_spawn avoided (automatic reaping requested) (fd close requested) (null) Failed to start varnamd. Failed to execute child process ?varnamd? (No such file or directory)
(null) Failed to start varnamd. Sync will be disabled
GVFS-RemoteVolumeMonitor Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
GVFS cannot open directory /usr/share/gvfs/remote-volume-monitors: Error opening directory ?/usr/share/gvfs/remote-volume-monitors?: No such file or directoryGVFS org.gtk.vfs.MountTracker.listMountableInfo call failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown (g-dbus-error-quark, 2)
GLib-GIO _g_io_module_get_default: Found default implementation local (GLocalVfs) for ?gio-vfs?IBUS ibus_factory_new: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_CONNECTION (connection)' failedGLib-GObject g_object_ref_sink: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failedIBUS ibus_factory_add_engine: assertion 'IBUS_IS_FACTORY (factory)' failedIBUS ibus_bus_call_sync: assertion 'ibus_bus_is_connected (bus)' failed

[fujiwarat]

Sorry, I misread your issue. You tries to package an ibus engine but not application.
IBus assumes to run IBus engines in the host side but not sandbox.
You can run applications in the sandbox.

[subins2000]

@fujiwarat so there's no way to package an IBus engine with flatpak ? Or any workarounds or something ?

[fujiwarat]

There is no way and necessary for ibus engines.

[subins2000]

@fujiwarat It would be useful for packaging and distributing engines across various distros with ease. So I guess this issue would be a feature request for flatpak and IBus.

[fujiwarat]

There is no reason to run ibus-daemon in host and engines in sandbox.

[TingPing]

Flatpak cannot install libs to the host so this isn't even a feature request for Flatpak. It seems this is just how ibus is designed and intended to work.