Specify which versions of linux distros are recommended to which packaging options

[AucaCoyan]

I see often that issues like this come up, and I think that if we can specify which version (Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12, etc) are for *.deb packages, or AppImage, or whatever, users will have a better experience.

It is possible that they expect every package solution works everywhere and it's not completely true.

What do you think @smeech ?

[smeech]

As I said in espanso/espanso#2373 (comment), Espanso should be compiled against widely used library versions, but be able to run with more up-to-date ones, so that the .deb packages are as widely compatible as possible.

We already make recommendations in the docs, however, so some more detail could be added if this isn't possible.

[AucaCoyan]

I would love to make a widely compatible release, but sadly we are still far from it 😢. I don't want to sound tough, but I have to pick some platforms first before opening up to the older releases.

You are correct on this:

Espanso should be compiled against widely used library versions, but be able to run with more up-to-date ones

But in the process of updating dependencies that is needed to fix bugs and awful behavior like this one, I need to reduce the surface of testing and possible scenarios that we guarantee to maintain. This is the reason I created the Tiered platforms.
I cannot try every distro, nor I want to stop the development of fixing an issue just because it doesn't work on an older version of a distro.

So, summarizing: yes, I want to broaden the compatiblity, but we can't do that yet. Until we have a good baseline that works really well on every basic system, it's hard to extend the compatibility without breaking something or slow down progress, which is already really slow from my perspective. Hope you understand!

I'm okay in leaving the documentation as is if you prefer it this way. The other way possible is to mention our current compatible state, so Ubuntu 22 users know it before downloading a *.deb package that doesn't work.
This of course doesn't bail me out of fixing bugs in older platforms, so espanso/espanso#2373 is still an issue (possibly a prioritized one)

[smeech]

I admit I have little idea of how complex the problem is!

I'm accustomed to my package manager fetching the appropriate package or library for my system, and I was content that the AppImage works here when the .deb failed because of dependency issues.

If that's not possible, then expanding Choosing the right install method would be a reasonable choice in the meantime, although we'll have to keep it maintained.