Why isn't there an "official" .DEB file offered ... ?

[Omnimaxus]

Hi to everyone. Curious - why isn't there an official .DEB file offered for Linux users? I know about stevepusser, but from what I've been able to glean on this forum, he's incommunicado. He was in charge of maintaining the .DEB file of Pale Moon. But he's gone off the radar, apparently. Why doesn't Pale Moon offer an "official" .DEB file for Pale Moon? Vivaldi, Chrome, Microsoft, Opera, etc., all offer .DEB (and .RPM) files for all their browsers. Why not Pale Moon? Am I missing something? I started using Linux Mint 22 recently, and had been on 21.3 for a while before then. I currently use Vivaldi, but am open to using Pale Moon on Linux. Thing is, I'm not sure of how to use a tarball file (both for installation and uninstallation purposes). Still, I'd like to know, please, how come there isn't an "official" .DEB (and for that matter, .RPM) file offered directly by Pale Moon? Thanks.

[Pentium4User]

There needs to be somebody who builds the DEB files and also operate the repository.

Using the tarball is rather easy:
Unpack it, run palemoon/palemoon inside it.

Uninstallation is rather easy: Delete the folder with the unpacked stuff.

[Moonchild]

Each additional distribution would need maintenance/a maintainer. You could ask the same question for .rpm, .pet, .nixpkg, Arch/Slackware's unique versions of .tar archives, etc. etc. -- each of which would likely need an installation of the target O.S. to be able to create said packages (and knowledge of administering it).
We distribute Pale Moon as compressed archives because they are universally usable, irrespective of Linux distribution or package manager in use. It saves us from a ton of overhead for which we simply don't have the time or specific distro expertise in our small team of volunteer core developers.

[Omnimaxus]

Thanks to both for their responses. Just one question, please. How do I keep Pale Moon up-to-date every time there's an update? (Using the tarball, that is.) Thanks again.

[Nuck-TH]

Official archived versions and my avx(2) builds have internal updater enabled, so it can self-update like windows version.

[Pentium4User]

Thanks to both for their responses. Just one question, please. How do I keep Pale Moon up-to-date every time there's an update? (Using the tarball, that is.) Thanks again.

Depends on how you install them. The tarballs can have the internal update enabled, DEB/RPM can't. For that, a repository needs to be set up.

[Omnimaxus]

Official archived versions and my avx(2) builds have internal updater enabled, so it can self-update like windows version.

Gotcha. Thanks!

[Omnimaxus]

Thanks to both for their responses. Just one question, please. How do I keep Pale Moon up-to-date every time there's an update? (Using the tarball, that is.) Thanks again.

Depends on how you install them. The tarballs can have the internal update enabled, DEB/RPM can't. For that, a repository needs to be set up.

Thank you!

[Veit Kannegieser]

I also miss updates from the Steven Pusser/obs archive.
To work around that, i investigated if is possible to convert the "tar balls" to deb.
Tried the official Debian methods, bot got confused. Now i have tried it again by just using basic archiving tools (tar, ar) from a python script.
Resulting deb works for me in a Debian 12 environment.

Would creating a public repository for storing the results be ok?
checking https://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml
1. no issue
2. no issue
3.
corrected file name in run-mozilla.sh
removed updater files not present in Steven Pusser builds
palemoon-bin removed as duplicate
same deb extra files as Steven Pusser builds
a) different archive format, but allowed "deb" and materially no change
b) no change
c) nothing
d) nothing
e) nothing
f) updater files, same as Steven Pusser builds
g) nothing
h) same as Steven Pusser builds, additionally added symbolic link /usr/share/doc/palemoon/license.txt to /usr/lib/palemoon/license.txt
i) nothing
j) nothing
4. no plan for proprietary protocols
5. stand alone
6. no service
7. not applicable
8. using already build executables
9. ?
10. not applicable
11. ok
12. no plan to compile
13. not applicable
14. ok
15. ok

Since the script takes only existing tarballs, this would not help with arm (raspberry pi) or 386 build flavors.

[Veit Kannegieser]

Also, would it be ok to create a download page and put the DEB files for 33.3.0 avx2|sse2 gtk2|gtk3 for evaluation?

[ron_1]

Off-topic:

Hi to everyone. Curious - why isn't there an official .DEB file offered for Linux users?

Not everyone who uses Linux uses Debian or one of its derivatives.

[Moonchild]

Tried the official Debian methods, bot got confused. Now i have tried it again by just using basic archiving tools (tar, ar) from a python script.
Resulting deb works for me in a Debian 12 environment.

Would creating a public repository for storing the results be ok?

Yes that's fine. I don't see any issue with your proposed changes made for packaging and it satisfies §3.a.i-ii as far as I can tell. The exception in §8 applies for re-packaging as-allowed in §3.
(don't worry about §9 unless you're worried about the redist license having legal consequences for your own legal documents)

Also, would it be ok to create a download page and put the DEB files for 33.3.0 avx2|sse2 gtk2|gtk3 for evaluation?

Go for it!

[Veit Kannegieser]

Go for it!

Thank you!
The individual files are here: https://kannegieser.net/palemoon/33.3.0/packages.html
Also created a repository using reprepro, https://kannegieser.net/palemoon