Slack desktop app, libXScrnSaver missing

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1

No, I don’t want to discuss Slackware :slight_smile:

I wonder if anyone is running Slack Linux desktop app on openSUSE? Folks at $WORK are proposing to use it as a replacement for Skype group chats, so I’m trying it on openSUSE 13.1 x86_64.

Slack officially supports only Ubuntu and Fedora, and even that ‘official’ support is at beta level. I downloaded the Fedora rpm and installed it with ‘zypper in’. Zypper gave an error message that ‘nothing provides libXScrnSaver’. That in itself is interesting - this link leads me to believe that libXScrnSaver should be available from OSS repo, but it is not there. Should libXScrnSaver be officially available in openSUSE or must I go hunting for it in the underworld?

I allowed zypper to proceed with installation, and the result “sort of” works, in a really annoying way. Every minute or so, the application window reloads with a splash screen, making the app unusable for 2-3 seconds. At the same time, these messages appear in console:


[slack-application.js] - Reloading window with ID: undefined
[tray-handler.js] - Setting tooltip to No unread messages
[slack-application.js] - invokedOnStartup: false, runFromTray.isEnabled: true

If anyone has had a better experience with Slack on openSUSE, I’m all ears :slight_smile:

2

On Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:36:06 +0000, vatson wrote:

> I wonder if anyone is running ‘Slack’ (http://slack.com) Linux desktop
> app on openSUSE? Folks at $WORK are proposing to use it as a replacement
> for Skype group chats, so I’m trying it on openSUSE 13.1 x86_64.

I don’t have 13.1 here, but I gave it a shot on 13.2 - same result. We
actually use it at $work here as well.

One nice thing about Slack, though, is that the desktop app is basically
a wrapper for a javascript app - so it’ll run through any browser.

I’ve got it running on chrome right now, and that seems stable.

Just visit https://<teamname>.slack.com and you can sign into your team.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

3

Zypper gave an error message that ‘nothing provides libXScrnSaver’. That in itself is interesting - this link leads me to believe that libXScrnSaver should be available from OSS repo, but it is not there. Should libXScrnSaver be officially available in openSUSE or must I go hunting for it in the underworld?

strangely enough that library
https://software.opensuse.org/package/libXScrnSaver
has been disabled across all openSUSE releases
https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?project=openSUSE%3A13.1&package=libXScrnSaver
maybe you can try and build it yourself
or better yet email the maintainer

4

Turns out there is even a third party desktop app that works much better than the official one:

5

On Fri, 06 Nov 2015 16:16:02 +0000, vatson wrote:

> hendersj;2735442 Wrote:
>>
>> One nice thing about Slack, though, is that the desktop app is
>> basically a wrapper for a javascript app - so it’ll run through any
>> browser.
>>
>>
> Turns out there is even a third party desktop app that works much better
> than the official one:
> https://github.com/plaidchat/plaidchat

Cool, that’s interesting to know - thanks!

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

6

I know this is an old thread, but I followed the instructions from this blog post and got the slack app working on my 42.1 install.

I had also tried the plaidchat app but it seemed to throw a bunch of errors. Since the native app was working I didn’t bother investigating further.