KDE Discover vs YaST

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 1:54pm

I kinda liked the KDE Discover when I wanted to search for and “discover” games.
Using YaST to search was not a good way to find games to install, as all it gives me is the name and description.

A name and description is not always good enough. I learned that when I wanted to install a tetris game among maybe 10 different tetris games. I uninstalled all because I did not like it. I could have saved the trouble if I could see pictures of the game as I can in KDE Discover.

I have mostly used zypper CLI when installing and searching for packages, and sometimes YaST for searching and listing packages.

KDE Discover is a much nicer interface, and also shows more information along with pictures of the game. This makes it much easier to find new games to install.
I reminds me a bit of Windows Store.

However I did find a problem with KDE Discover. After I installed some games from the OpenSUSE Games repository: ioquake3, vkquake and vkquake2.
KDE Discover only finds vkquake. Not sure why it cannot find the other packages.

I did not check every game in the OpenSUSE Games repository, but I checked some, and many of those I checked was not found by KDE Discover.
Why cannot it find all the packages?

malcolmlewis · December 5, 2025, 1:58pm

@DJViking packaging requires some meta/app data files to populate these software applications, likely don’t provide…

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 2:01pm

That makes sense.
I tried checking the files of both vkquake and vkquake2, and I then discovered this file from vkquake
/usr/share/appdata/vkquake.appdata.xml

I also checked the other files under this directory, and found the games that KDE Discover could “discover”.

malcolmlewis · December 5, 2025, 2:02pm

@DJViking
Provides appdata https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/games/vkquake
No appdata in package https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/games/ioquake3

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 2:08pm

So it is up to each “maintainer” of the package in OBS to provide this file. Either they don’t botter, or they are unaware of this kind of file.

malcolmlewis · December 5, 2025, 2:26pm

@DJViking it should be done by upstream, or if the Package Maintainer creates, push it upstream…

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 4:26pm

I was thinking perhaps to contribute on some of these packages the missing appdata file. I have worked with OBS a little for a few years ago with creating my own packages, but not tried contributing to existing packages.

hui · December 5, 2025, 4:33pm

The packaging policy explains, that the appdata.xml should come from upstream. If upstream does not provide such a file, the downstream maintainer might create such a file and try to convince upstream to incorporate it into the package…(don’t know for sure if this policy is still up to date).

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:AppStore
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_Patches_guidelines

YaST Software or Myrlyn don’t read this file as they are classical, technical oriented distribution app “stores”. The fancy appstores from Plasma or Gnome do read these files.

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 4:55pm

When you say Upstram, you mean the source? Like the vkquake2-1.5.9.tar.gz?
The vkquake package does not have the appdata within the archive, but in the OBS project.

It could also be much easier to add the appdata file within the OBS project, than to get an upstream project to add it.

DJViking · December 5, 2025, 5:06pm

I tried to see if there was any derived packages that contained the appdata file for vkquake2, but it wasnt any.