Provide Ubuntu stable package at updates.signal.org

[gene1wood]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

---

Bug description

Currently there are no signal-desktop packages for the current Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) releases of Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic or Ubuntu 20.04 Focal. The only published release is for Ubuntu 16.04 which is past end of life as of April 2021.

When enabling the updates.signal.org apt repository on a Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic or Ubuntu 20.04 system, apt gives the error

E: The repository 'https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt bionic Release' does not have a Release file.

or

E: The repository 'https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt focal Release' does not have a Release file.

Steps to reproduce

1. On a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 system or Ubuntu 20.04 system, install the apt key

   wget --quiet --output-document - https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | sudo apt-key add -
   

2. Install the apt source

   echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt bionic main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal.list
   

3. Run apt update

   apt update
   

Actual result for 18.04:

...
Err:13 https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt bionic Release                                                                                                            
  404  Not Found [IP: 2600:9000:202d:e600:16:675e:2280:93a1 443]
...
E: The repository 'https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt bionic Release' does not have a Release file.
...

Expected result:

If there were a release for Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04, apt update would report no errors

Platform info

Operating System:

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic or Ubuntu 20.04 Focal

Workaround

This page which was removed from Signal's website, says to hard code the release to xenial (Ubuntu 16.04 which is past end of life) which appears to work for me as a workaround.

At the very least, this workaround should be republished on Signal's website as currently, there's nothing indicating what to do.

[tribut]

The distribution name should probably just be changed to something generic, such as stable to prevent confusion.

[aunwin]

Had the same problem and on investigation of
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list I found that is was commented out with the note
# disabled on upgrade to bionic.

However I than tried to update it via the GUI Ubuntu Software Center and was surprised to find that the Software Center offered me to 'install' Signal. I did so and ended up with two Clients (v1.15.3 and v1.11.0) now running in parallel on my Ubuntu 18.04.1.

I wish I would have received a warning that my signal client is no longer auto updating with system updates.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@aunwin Can you tell me more about that v1.11.0 package you installed? What kind of package was that? snap?

[tribut]

@aunwin Note that the package stopping auto-updates after a dist-upgrade is a duplicate of #1730.
@scottnonnenberg-signal The currently available snap available in Ubuntu Software is v1.15.3. The v1.11.0 was probably the apt version which stopped updating due to #1730.

[aunwin]

I used to have a lower Ubuntu version and installed the Signal client back then via apt. It stopped updating after the dist-upgrade mentioned in #1730 as @tribut described correctly.

[scroom]

Same problem after upgrade to 18.10

[anoxi]

Still using the "xenial" Release Workaround in Ubuntu 19.10.

[icolwell]

Just installed xenial release on bionic, works fine but I agree with @tribut that it should just be stable or something like everything else.

[3ter]

Just installed xenial release on bionic, works fine but I agree with @tribut that it should just be stable or something like everything else.

Pleeease rename it. It makes people like me wary of using the official repo and fall back to canonical's snap repo (which probably isn't that bad... but still, you promote a different installation method).

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[ckujau]

Can someone rename the title of the bug report to "Provide Ubuntu stable package at updates.signal.org" or something like that? The next LTS release is just around the corner ;-)

[gene1wood]

@josh-signal I'm not sure this is a feature request. The problem I'm trying to report in this issue is that the way the debian release is labeled is confusing.

@tribut captures it in his comment above that the Signal distribution should be changed from xenial to something like stable in that the distribution isn't for xenial it's for all debian based OS versions.

It seems like a bug to me to distribute the signal package for an OS like Ubuntu 20.04 focal via an apt distro name of xenial.

Anyhow, if you don't think this is a problem, that's fine, I'd say close issue as wontfix, but I don't think this issue is a feature request.

[josh-signal]

Sorry about that, we'll put this on our radar. Thanks for flagging!

[gene1wood]

@josh-signal Sorry to bother, I just wanted to make sure you'd meant to leave this GitHub issue closed and when you said you'd put it on your radar, that meant you'd add it to some other tracking system Signal uses to fix this issue? Or should this GitHub issue be re-opened?

[MaxPeal]

@josh-signal any news about this?

[ckujau]

Is there more to it than just sed 's/xenial/stable/g' -i aptly.sh, does Aptly need some kind of configuration tweak here?

[socketbox]

I don't understand how this misnomer, for lack of a better term, still exists four years later. Is there anything that the community can do to help?

If there are reasons (brittle operations logic, for eg) that keep this hard-coded to xenial, then why is it so hard to add language/docs that explain why users on, say, focal should still use an apt source that points to xenial?

[erebion]

The distribution name should probably just be changed to something generic, such as stable to prevent confusion.

Ultimately the package should just land in Debian as that will avoid other issues with incompatibilites.

This would also make it directly available in distributions building on top of Debian, such as Ubuntu and Mint. And that without requiring users to configure third-party repositories.

Debian even recommends to not use third-party repositories: https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

"Don't Break Debian"

Some third-party repositories might appear safe to use as they contain only packages that have no equivalent in Debian. However, there are no guarantees that any repository will not add more packages in future, leading to breakage.

Finally, packages in official Debian releases have gone through extensive testing, often for months, and only fit packages are allowed in a release. On the other hand, packages from external sources might alter files belonging to other packages, configure the system in unexpected ways, introduce vulnerabilities, cause licensing issues.

Once packages from unofficial sources are introduced in a system it can become difficult to pinpoint the cause of breakage especially if it happens after months.

Please consider uploading to the Debian project.

It even makes installing the client much easier for users as they can just open the software center, type in "Signal" and click the install button.