How to install on an immutable distro?

[Haraven]

Hello,

First of all, thanks very much for working on this desktop effect. I've been using it on my system for many months now and have been very happy with it.

That being said, I'm considering switching to Ublue Aurora (Fedora Silverblue-based distro), which, being an immutable distro, has read-only access to /usr. From what I've seen, desktop effects, including the Better Blur/Force Blur effect, normally install in a subfolder in that location.

I've tried using distrobox, and that lets me compile the effect, but it installs in the /usr folder of the distrobox image, not the host itself.

Is there an alternative folder or some other way to install the effect so that it correctly installs on an immutable distro?

Thank you!

[Haraven]

Small update: I've found this post which mentions that desktop effects can be installed under ~/.local/share/kwin/effects, but the plugins located there seem to have a different structure (each plugin has a subfolder with metadata.json and a contents folder) compared to ForceBlur (which only has .so files).

Not really sure how to proceed from here.

[taj-ny]

Maybe layered packages would work? There's a package on Fedora Copr.

~/.local/share/kwin/effects is for scripted effects only, compiled effects are loaded from directories specified in the QT_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable.

[Haraven]

I gave it a try, but I ran into issues.

I added the Copr repository for the effect under /etc/yum.repos.d/ but when I try to install the effect I get an error:

> sudo rpm-ostree install kwin-effects-forceblur
Checking out tree 6b6d651... done
Enabled rpm-md repositories: copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:lukenukem:asus-linux updates fedora copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:hikariknight:looking-glass-kvmfr copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur updates-archive
Importing rpm-md... done
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:lukenukem:asus-linux' (cached); generated: 2024-08-31T09:45:14Z solvables: 5
rpm-md repo 'updates' (cached); generated: 2024-09-13T01:44:38Z solvables: 26430
rpm-md repo 'fedora' (cached); generated: 2024-04-14T18:51:11Z solvables: 74881
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:hikariknight:looking-glass-kvmfr' (cached); generated: 2024-08-21T09:46:29Z solvables: 5
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs' (cached); generated: 2024-05-27T08:33:29Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:errornointernet:mergerfs' (cached); generated: 2024-05-27T08:33:29Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur' (cached); generated: 2024-09-02T10:06:16Z solvables: 2
rpm-md repo 'updates-archive' (cached); generated: 2024-09-13T02:31:26Z solvables: 39640
Resolving dependencies... done
error: Could not depsolve transaction; 1 problem detected:
 Problem: package kwin-effects-forceblur-1.3.1-2.fc40.x86_64 from copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:yohane-shiro:kwin-effects-forceblur requires kf6-kio, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.5.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.5.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.0.0-5.fc40.x86_64 from fedora requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.0.0-5.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.1.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.1.0-2.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.2.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.2.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.3.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.3.0-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package kf6-kio-6.4.1-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive requires kf6-kio-core(x86-64) = 6.4.1-1.fc40, but none of the providers can be installed
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.0.0-5.fc40.x86_64 from fedora and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.1.0-2.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.2.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.3.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.4.1-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - cannot install both kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-1.fc40.x86_64 from updates-archive and kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64 from @System
  - conflicting requests

It looks like Ublue Aurora comes with a version of kf6-kio that's different from the one the forceblur package expects. Here is the version that seems to be installed on the system:

> rpm -qa | grep kf6-kio-core
kf6-kio-core-libs-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64
kf6-kio-core-6.5.0-3.fc40.switcheroo.0.0.git.145.d627dff1.x86_64