Recommended way to install openboard on debian 13 wayland

[ChrisDeSimplon]

I want to use openboard on debian 13 which uses wayland. So my question is: what is the best way to install openboard to avoid bugs related to wayland support? Shall i build from source? Do you recomend a particular branch ? Thanks for your work, openboard is a very nice application !!!

[letsfindaway]

Wayland is not well supported with the current release 1.7.7. It will however be much better with the next version 1.8.0 currently under development. This version is expected to be released this autumn.

Until then you could build the current dev branch by yourself. For instructions I recommend reading https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard/wiki/CMake-Build-System-for-Linux. See also https://github.com/letsfindaway/OpenBoard/wiki/Package-dependencies#ubuntu-debian for the required dependencies.

With cmake you could even build a package as described on the first wiki page. However I think there are currently some directives missing in the the cmake file, so you would have to figure this out by yourself.

If you are using GNOME, then this is ok. For KDE Plasma, please apply the patch from PR #1413 before building.

You might also want to patch the version.txt file before building. On dev, this file specifies a 1.7.4 version, as it is still not updated. I would recommend to set the version to 1.8.0 and the VERSION_TYPE to a = alpha.

Please be aware that 1.8.0 includes quite some changes. The most important is a change in the document format. You can still open all former documents using 1.8.0. But a document edited with 1.8.0 will probably not correctly open in 1.7.6 and below. The latest release 1.7.7 includes a document version converter, which can convert 1.8.0 documents back to the previous format.

You might want to read https://github.com/letsfindaway/OpenBoard/wiki/Introducing-an-updated-document-format if you want to understand some background.

Be also aware that this version is still under development. You a re very welcome as a tester. So please report any problems you find while using this OpenBoard version!

Note: Starting next Thursday I will be on vacation for two weeks and cannot respond to questions during this time.

[letsfindaway]

I just updated my experimental builds to provide packages for 1.8.0. Please see letsfindaway#242 for details. Here you can download a ready built package for Debian 13.

Have fun!