Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

mrAlvaretA · 2025-01-14 09:24:54

Hello Arch Linux community!

I saw the release of Deepin v23 and i thought it was cool enough for me to start testing it, however, i do not trust the distro Deepin`s security and not only that, it's got VERY outdated packages, so i wanted to test the DE on Arch.

However, when i installed the DE on my Arch install, i was greeted by a desktop wallpaper with no dock. I can open the terminal and do stuff through there, but it is not the intended experience.

Hours of troubleshooting later, and i find out about the following:

- Deepin packages on the arch repo are outdated, some almost by 2 years.

The Deepin packages used to be maintained by two collaborators (Felix and Antonio) and i haven't found anything on the net that says arch explicitly stopped supporting Deepin.

So i'm like, what gives?

Is there any way i can contribute uploading updated packages to the repos?

Thank you all for your time!

TLDR Deepin packages on Arch repos are outdated and if you try installing it right now it is broken. I want to help.

tdtooke · 2025-01-14 21:31:28

It it's as you say then this will be a major undertaking. Someone else would have to tell you how one goes about getting permission to update things in the regular repository. But basically you'd want to click on 'Source Files' for each package individually and update the PKGBUILD to use whatever is the latest release. Actually now that I'm thinking about it there has to be an easier way or else nothing would get updated. There is no way I'd even attempt to update all those packages the way I just mentioned. Deepin' is interesting, I tried it around 1 or 2 years ago. It's a shame we have such an us vs them thing that permeates everything. I actually know a few Chinese developers. Granted China has definitely done some shady things but so has my country (US).

V1del · 2025-01-14 22:31:52

If I'm looking right most things of actual relevance are up to date. Did you check logs on why the dock isn't loading?

mrAlvaretA · 2025-01-15 01:54:56

tdtooke wrote:

It it's as you say then this will be a major undertaking. Someone else would have to tell you how one goes about getting permission to update things in the regular repository. But basically you'd want to click on 'Source Files' for each package individually and update the PKGBUILD to use whatever is the latest release. Actually now that I'm thinking about it there has to be an easier way or else nothing would get updated. There is no way I'd even attempt to update all those packages the way I just mentioned. Deepin' is interesting, I tried it around 1 or 2 years ago. It's a shame we have such an us vs them thing that permeates everything. I actually know a few Chinese developers. Granted China has definitely done some shady things but so has my country (US).

I will try downloading the pkgbuilds from the gitlab that are updated and try again

V1del wrote:

If I'm looking right most things of actual relevance are up to date. Did you check logs on why the dock isn't loading?

I checked the Xorg log and journalctl but couldnt find anything of relevance, only debug messages.

Lone_Wolf · 2025-01-15 09:04:46

For clarity :

You have looked at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Deepin … nvironment and installed deepin, deepin-kwin and deepin-extra ?

mrAlvaretA · 2025-01-15 18:21:03

Lone_Wolf wrote:

For clarity :
You have looked at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Deepin … nvironment and installed deepin, deepin-kwin and deepin-extra ?

Yes i RTFM, like i said in the first post, if you try installing it right now, its broken.

mrAlvaretA · Yesterday 07:10:48

So update: I did try the PKGBUILDS from the gitlab but no dice. Couldnt find anything on journalctl even with the debug packages installed as well.

seth · Yesterday 09:53:44

What does broken mean and what are you looking for?
Also what's outdated here?
The last deepin-kwin release was 5.14.5.1 on Jul 30, 2019, the repo package perfecly captures that.
Likewise latest deepin-desktop-base is 2024.07.24 released on Aug 19, 2024 and that's also in the repo.

-----
China aside, that thing is one frankensteinian mess of a random collection of forks with sub-par patches.
The CCP is really the least what worries me about it.

mrAlvaretA · Yesterday 13:00:14

seth wrote:

What does broken mean and what are you looking for?
Also what's outdated here?

Broken as in, if you follow the wiki, it will not work as intended (with no troubleshooting steps available for the problem at hand) I have installed the two groups and deepin-kwin but there is a dock that is missing and no useful logs (i could be wrong here)

The package repo has some packages from the deepin group flagged as outdated, but i guess i should have double checked because apparently they've been updated in 2024. Guess someone forgot to take the flags off?

I know deepin is a glorious mess, but i find it extravagant and wanted to try. Im aware about the whole china thing, but still, it looks cool (Im brazilian btw)

seth · Yesterday 14:36:23

Did you check the running processes and for https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Core_d … _core_dump ?

felixonmars · Yesterday 14:36:53

Deepin maintainer here. I understand the frustration about Deepin packages for the past two years. Many things happened in the mean time, from my lack of time to the company's short of hands.

Most of DDE, the desktop environment's packages were already updated to their recommended versions, but there are two major issues remaining:

- deepin-kwin is generally lack of maintenance and still depends on legacy plasma 5.x packages. I have been using some *creative* ways to keep it building but the runtime behavior could go wrong. I believe the current brokenness is still largely because of it.
- Their preferred alternative, Treeland, is still not updated to the *real* versions (their development versions are still kept close-sourced for some reason). I have been waiting for this since a year ago, and still keep asking the same questions at least every week.

- The rewrite version of deepin/dde-dock, namely deepin/dde-shell, involves deprecated DDE v20 APIs once again in its new versions. There is still no progress upstream to fix this and involving deepin/dde-api-proxy would unfortunately bring more breakage than needed, if I understand it correctly.

And... as of the other Deepin applications, while some of them are quite outdated, I would still expect to fix the DDE packages first and deal with them later. Since v20 these deepin packages struggle to work properly on other desktop environments so I believe they are less important at the moment.

Hopefully I'll be able to package the new Treeland and solve the first issue before Chinese new year (end of Jan).

Last edited by felixonmars (Yesterday 14:42:48)

felixonmars · Yesterday 18:47:36

Update:

I have located the issue behind dde-shell not showing up: dde-session 1.2.14 introduced a surprising change about dde-shell which requires dde-shell >= 1.99.3, which indicates a preview version and we shouldn't package. I have reverted the relevant part as a workaround and will wait for an upstream fix.

In the meantime, deepin-session 1.2.14-2 should make the shell to show again.

Last edited by felixonmars (Yesterday 21:40:20)

mrAlvaretA · Today 02:06:03

seth wrote:

Did you check the running processes and for https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Core_d … _core_dump ?

Did it as soon as i saw the post, however it gives me "No coredumps found"

felixonmars wrote:

Update:
I have located the issue behind dde-shell not showing up: dde-session 1.2.14 introduced a surprising change about dde-shell which requires dde-shell >= 1.99.3, which indicates a preview version and we shouldn't package. I have reverted the relevant part as a workaround and will wait for an upstream fix.
In the meantime, deepin-session 1.2.14-2 should make the shell to show again.

Hey Felix!

Thank you so much for your time and effort! The shell is showing again, but the launchpad isnt working now, but the other apps do work flawlessly.

Once again, thank you all very much for the support!

mrAlvaretA · Today 02:23:04

Update: It got a bit worse.

So the shell and the other apps show up, but not only launchpad is not working, when i use multitasking view, it crashes the whole DE and saves a Coredump.

Where do i upload it?

seth · Today 09:53:59

You can post the backtrace here in [code][/code] tags ideally using https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Debuginfod - the coredump itself is useless for anybody w/o the relevant binaries.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-01-14 09:24:54

Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#2 2025-01-14 21:31:28

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#3 2025-01-14 22:31:52

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#4 2025-01-15 01:54:56

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#5 2025-01-15 09:04:46

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#6 2025-01-15 18:21:03

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#7 Yesterday 07:10:48

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#8 Yesterday 09:53:44

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#9 Yesterday 13:00:14

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#10 Yesterday 14:36:23

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#11 Yesterday 14:36:53

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#12 Yesterday 18:47:36

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#13 Today 02:06:03

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#14 Today 02:23:04

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

#15 Today 09:53:59

Re: Deepin Desktop Environment - Outdated packages and broken desktop

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