Ryan Hughes
906b981d21
Ship Slack's own x86_64 build unchanged so Omarchy controls the package on both architectures instead of relying on the AUR recipe for x86_64. The Electron swap and native module replacements stay AArch64-only.
23 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
23 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
# Slack Desktop
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Slack publishes Linux builds for x86_64 only. On x86_64 this package installs that `.deb` unchanged, replacing the AUR `slack-desktop` recipe with one Omarchy controls. On AArch64 it runs the same application code on the AArch64 build of the Electron release Slack ships with, so `slack-desktop` resolves to a working package on ARM Omarchy installs too. Everything below applies to the AArch64 build only.
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## Electron version
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`_electronver` must equal the Electron version inside Slack's `.deb` (`usr/lib/slack/version`). `prepare()` refuses to build when they differ and prints the version to set. A Slack release that moves to a new Electron therefore fails its sync PR build until `_electronver` and the Electron checksum are updated; the upstream watch only tracks Slack's version.
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## Native modules
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Slack's app carries eight x86_64 Node addons. None can load on AArch64, so they are removed, and the build fails on any other foreign binary so a new native module is reviewed before it ships.
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Three are required while Slack boots on Linux and are replaced by JavaScript:
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- `file-handler-info` and `electron-native-auth` are MIT-licensed and their Linux builds compile no-op implementations (`impl_none.cc`, `addon_none.cc`). The replacements return the same results.
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- `@tinyspeck/slack-desktop-utils` is closed source. Its replacement throws `Method not implemented` from every native call, which is the error Slack's own wrapper uses for methods a platform lacks. Slack catches it, so these Linux features are unavailable: double-press and combo global shortcuts, the huddle screen-share border overlay, audio device detail lookups, clipboard set-and-paste, and haptics.
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`@tinyspeck/native-keymap` already catches a missing addon and returns defaults, so keyboard layout detection reports `unknown`. The other four addons are Windows/macOS helpers that Slack does not use on Linux.
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## Validation
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Installed and used on an aarch64 Omarchy machine (N1x). Features listed above as unavailable were not expected to work and were not checked.
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