Debian package should depend on libasound2 / libasound2t64

[wiehe]

Operating system

Linux

Joplin version

3.4.12

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.4.12 (prod, linux)

Device: linux, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor
Client ID: 07b551586ee245b9a70077c2f730c69c
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 48
Keychain Supported: No
Alternative instance ID: -

Revision: e9a9f68

Backup: 1.4.3
Freehand Drawing: 3.1.0

Current behaviour

The Joplin binary from the Debian package is linked to libasound.so.2. Without it Joplin doesn't start:

joplin: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

apt install ./Joplin-3.4.12.deb seems to install all necessary libraries except this one.
After manual installation of either package libasound2 or libasound2t64 (depending on the OS version) Joplin does start.

Note: Typical desktop systems will probably have the library pre-installed and should not be affected.

Expected behaviour

The Debian package should declare a dependency on libasound2 (for Debian Bookworm) and libasound2t64 (for Debian Trixie, Forky, Sid, Ubuntu Noble Numbat, Plucky Puffing), then apt will install the necessary library automatically.

--- debian/control.orig	2025-09-15
+++ debian/control	2025-09-15
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 Architecture: amd64
 Maintainer: Joplin Team <no-reply@joplinapp.org>
 Installed-Size: 399344
-Depends: libgtk-3-0, libnotify4, libnss3, libxss1, libxtst6, xdg-utils, libatspi2.0-0, libuuid1, libsecret-1-0
+Depends: libgtk-3-0, libnotify4, libnss3, libxss1, libxtst6, xdg-utils, libatspi2.0-0, libuuid1, libsecret-1-0, libasound2t64 | libasound2
 Recommends: libappindicator3-1
 Section: default
 Priority: optional

Logs

No response

[JGCarroll]

I'm tempted to say if there were to be a package included for audio (which there likely should be tbf), it'd be libpulse and not ALSA itself, to provide Pulseaudio and Pipewire support. Direct ALSA usage isn't generally preferred because it can depend on hardware as to whether the sound card can mix channels & etc, in some setups, you can outright lock the audio output on the machine by just playing an audio file. I'd assume Electron doesn't have PipeWire support directly yet, but if it does, similarly you'd prefer Pulse + PipeWire over ALSA directly.

There's more complication in that, ALSA userspace often has a plugin to convert ALSA userspace into PulseAudio (and hence PipeWire) anyway, libasound2-plugins, which is why direct ALSA access doesn't have this problem in most desktops these days, by avoiding it entirely.

[github-actions]

Hey there, it looks like there has been no activity on this issue recently. Has the issue been fixed, or does it still require the community's attention? If you require support or are requesting an enhancement or feature then please create a topic on the Joplin forum. This issue may be closed if no further activity occurs. You may comment on the issue and I will leave it open. Thank you for your contributions.

[github-actions]

Closing this issue after a prolonged period of inactivity. If this issue is still present in the latest release, feel free to create a new issue with up-to-date information.