Please support Debian GNU/Linux

[MagicFab]

I previously requested support for Debian Jessie installation (see #3 ).

I'd like to reiterate my request this time to cover Debian and following its releases. Supporting Debian would mean support for all its derivatives would be available, including Devuan, Trisquel and Ubuntu just to name a few.

Ubuntu's default desktop environment in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be GNOME again, the same as Debian's (now released, since 2018-04), so this would be a good time to target that. It means desktop support and documentation will be easier to implement and maintain as they should be very close going forward.

Special attention has to be paid to the browser choice (see #14), but Debian and other distributions should carry Firefox ESR for some more time (at least June 2018 or by next ESR release). The official release date for ESR-59 should be in march 2018, meaning it would be available from official packages in Debian around June 2018, typically earlier in Ubuntu. Manual installation is possible and rather easy, it's possible to keep an existing Firefox version with a more recent manually-installed one.

Since Firefox 57 came out (2017-11) many extensions stopped working as XUL is not supported anymore for their development. I believe this also means Open-EID stopped working for anyone that upgraded (see #14 (comment) ), I am not certain. This means Firefox 57 and up should be targeted for proper support.

The Debian Backports repository for the current Debian stable version (Debian 9) could be an option to check which packages more recent version can be used to remain as close as possible to a supported Debian install by using package repositories instead of manual installation or compilation which can break Debian.

[metsma]

Firefox 57 does not provide alternative to load PKCS11 modules with WebExtensions
It will come with FF 58 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1357391
and is implemented here open-eid/firefox-pkcs11-loader#6.
Signing is not affected by this change.

[explit28]

I have Debian 10 (Sid atm.) It would be very good, if it could be supported

[MagicFab]

Firefox is now at version 59, but is only available when installed manually in Debian.

@explit7 Debian 10 is the current "testing" release, it will include Firefox 59 but not before ~May 2019. It could be a good plan to target that for proper support of Open-EID installation, maunal installation of FF59 in Debian 9 could be an alternative.

[MagicFab]

The last release as of last month has been reported broken (see #36) with several important bugs, it targets Ubuntu 16.04 (LTS), 18.04 (LTS) (64bit), 18.10, Chrome or Firefox (no mention of versions)

ID-software version: 18.12, DigiDoc4 client version: 4.2.0.43, released 03.12.2018

Debian Stable now has support for Firefox-ESR (60.4 as of today), no need for backports or external sources.

According to information at https://www.ria.ee/en/state-information-system/eid/digidoc-software.html :

Installation of DigiDoc software

The following will be installed into your computer during the installation of the DigiDoc software:

ID-card application DigiDoc4 Client, timestamping application TeRa.

In 2018, DigiDoc4, the new ID-card software that combines the former three applications in one utility, was taken into use. This means that only one application will be installed into your computer during the installation of the software. As of June 2018, DigiDoc3 will automatically update into DigiDoc4.

[zsoltsandor]

I revisit this issue, because I am considering joining the e-Estonians.
I am using Kali, which is obviously not the most common Debian derivative, but supporting Testing, or at least Sid would also mean support for Parrot OS and PureOS Byzantium.
Using the candidate/sid repo for the Belgian eID provides the same version as what is currently available for Ubuntu 20.04, and installs without an issue: deb https://files.eid.belgium.be/debian/ candidate/sid main
Estonian eID repos for Ubuntu versions don't seem to work properly. The middleware package gets broken, and open-eid metapackage breaks too.

[kali-gandaki]

Hi, I came up this issue as repo for ubuntu hirsute/focal won't install in debian 11. So I spent this morning packaging for my own use. I hosted it in OBS. If you need it add the following location in sources.list.
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/my_obs.gpg] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/sapanaryal:/openeid/Debian_11/ ./
Don't forget to download release.key file from above mentioned link, convert it to gpg file and add it in /usr/share/keyrings.

Install it by apt-get update && apt-get install open-eid

[maltfield]

+1 Please add Debian 11 support.

If you support Debian, then you'll not only support Ubuntu (a downstream derivitative of Debian), but you'll also support countless other downstream derivatives of Debian.

Why not implement it at the source to support more people with the same effort? Please support Debian 11.

[teadur]

+1 for Debian 11 support

[lynxfelinae]

Debian 11 bullseye ships with libxalan-c112, but focal open-eid install wants libxalan-c111 (focal is closest to bullseye).
Fix is to download libxalan-c111 from buster (Debian 10) repo (https://packages.debian.org/buster/amd64/libxalan-c111/download) and install it manually using sudo dpkg -i <package name>

Then edit install-open-eid.sh
after buster section add:

        bullseye)
          add_repository focal
          ;;

After that install-open-eid.sh installs everything needed without a problem. ... and the most important, both Digidoc4 Client and authentication in web using the ID-card works.

[teadur]

Debian 11 bullseye ships with libxalan-c112, but focal open-eid install wants libxalan-c111 (focal is closest to bullseye). Fix is to download libxalan-c111 from buster (Debian 10) repo (https://packages.debian.org/buster/amd64/libxalan-c111/download) and install it manually using sudo dpkg -i <package name>

Then edit install-open-eid.sh after buster section add:

        bullseye)
          add_repository focal
          ;;

After that install-open-eid.sh installs everything needed without a problem. ... and the most important, both Digidoc4 Client and authentication in web using the ID-card works.

@metsma would pull request doing that be accepted to installer ?

[AlexDaniel]

@teadur Ubuntu packages can no longer be installed in debian because debian's dpkg does not support zstd. See https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=892664.

[maltfield]

Actually, I think we should update this request from "Support Debian" to "Change support from Ubuntu to Debian". Support for open-eid in Ubuntu is already broken. Supporting Debian would require less work and provide support for more users. See also:

• Extension not installed after installing linux packages (firefox) web-eid/web-eid-webextension#41

Quoting from above ticket

Ubuntu 22.04 is moving away deb packaged Firefox (to snap) and this has other set problems (Sandbox does not allow to communicate with native messaging host and there is currently no workaround, except to install official Firefox/Chrome binary)

Oh man, you're right. When I saw that firefox switched from deb to snap I decided to stop recommending Ubuntu and recommend Mint instead.

snap is a cancer closed-wall garden created by Canonical, and a lot of people are leaving Ubuntu because of this. I highly, highly recommend supporting Debian instead of Ubuntu; you'll support more users, especially as everyone leaves Ubuntu for more libre distros.

Is "supporting Ubuntu only" RIK's requirement? Can it be changed through an enumeration of:

1. technical documentation of all of the issues with Ubuntu and snaps (Mint has some strong opinions about snaps)
2. documentation of the market share of Ubuntu declining vs Debian and Debian-derived systems (including Mint) surpassing it
3. enumeration of all the issues and development hours required to support Ubuntu vs Debian (eg this ticket, your concerns with "native messaging host" support breaking, and others like it)
4. etc?

I think a very strong argument can be made that switching support of open-eid from Ubuntu to Debian would

1. Support more users and
2. Decrease time/costs of supporting those users