Dear fellow ELAN users,
ELAN for Linux is provided as a self-contained distribution bundled with Java, and it works well in many use cases. However, it is still dependent on some external libraries. On most distros, it is not a problem to install the required packages, but this is an issue on immutable distributions such as Fedora Silverblue (and other “Atomic Desktops”). For example, recent versions of Fedora do not provide the X11 libraries. And the preferred way to install VLC in such distros is as a Flatpak; therefore, the native libraries are not available to other programs such as ELAN.
It is possible to “layer” the required packages via rpm-ostree, or to use a toolbox/distrobox container, but these solutions can be cumbersome and have their own drawbacks. Therefore, I wanted to have a solution for me to be able to use ELAN in an immutable system with as little hassle as possible.
One of the modern ways to distribute self-contained package bundles is to use Flatpak, which is now available on all major Linux distributions. It turned out to be quite easy to come up with a basic ELAN package, which I have shared in my personal code repository here. It just builds the latest VLC version and the compatible ffmpeg, and then downloads the prebuilt ELAN from the MPI website.
I also provide a prebuilt package for the latest version, and I plan to provide new ones for each release, since I use ELAN almost daily in my work.
It is also possible to provide ELAN as an official package on Flathub, the centralized Flatpak repository, if the ELAN team is willing to make this method of distribution official. I may add that another advantage of using a Flatpak is that one can ensure that only specific versions of dependencies are used, which can greatly improve portability.
For now, I’m sharing this with you in the hope that it will be useful to other people using Linux. I am looking forward to any feedback, comments and suggestions you may have.
Best,
Oleg