Linux packaging

Distribution-agnostic assets live in linux/; per-distribution recipes get their own directory (arch/ for now).

Install layout

Everything the app ships goes into a single directory:

/usr/lib/littlebigmouse/
    LittleBigMouse.Ui.Avalonia      app host (framework-dependent, net10.0)
    lbm-hook                        routing daemon (Rust)
    lbm-pattern                     native-Wayland test pattern viewer
    *.dll, libSkiaSharp.so, ...
/usr/bin/littlebigmouse -> ../lib/littlebigmouse/LittleBigMouse.Ui.Avalonia

This is not cosmetic: LittleBigMouseClientService.FindHookPath looks for lbm-hook next to AppContext.BaseDirectory, and WaylandPattern.FindHelper does the same for lbm-pattern. Neither has a system-path fallback nor an environment override, so the three binaries must stay siblings.

The /usr/bin entry is a symlink rather than a wrapper script on purpose. The .NET app host resolves its own location through /proc/self/exe, which follows symlinks, so AppContext.BaseDirectory is still /usr/lib/littlebigmouse/. The daemon's "was I launched by the UI?" test (parent_process_path() in src/platform/linux/process.rs, which reads the already-resolved /proc/<ppid>/exe and looks for LittleBigMouse in it) also keeps working — otherwise the daemon would start in standalone auto-run mode.

Per-user state stays where LbmPaths puts it: ~/.config/LittleBigMouse/ and ~/.local/share/LittleBigMouse/.

Arch Linux / AUR

arch/ holds the exact content of the littlebigmouse AUR repository (PKGBUILD, .SRCINFO, littlebigmouse.install).

pkgver must always name a tag that already contains this packaging/ directory: package() installs the .desktop entry and the udev rule from the checkout, not from the AUR repository.

First publication

git clone ssh://[email protected]/littlebigmouse.git aur-littlebigmouse
cp packaging/arch/{PKGBUILD,.SRCINFO,littlebigmouse.install} aur-littlebigmouse/
cd aur-littlebigmouse && git add -A && git commit -m 'Initial import: littlebigmouse 5.5.2' && git push

The AUR account needs an SSH key registered at https://aur.archlinux.org/account/; the repository is created by the first push.

Every release

cd packaging/arch
# 1. bump pkgver to the new tag (and reset pkgrel to 1)
# 2. regenerate the metadata
makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO
# 3. build it once from scratch, ideally in a clean chroot
makepkg -f            # or: extra-x86_64-build
# 4. copy the three files to the AUR clone, commit, push

Notes:

• The GitHub release tarball is not usable as a source: it does not carry the HLab.Core / HLab.Avalonia submodules. The PKGBUILD clones the tag plus both submodule repositories and wires them together in prepare().
• The package is framework-dependent (depends=dotnet-runtime), so .NET security updates do not require a rebuild.
• Nothing had ever run dotnet publish on this solution: the Layout and Vcp plugins each copied an identical, unused Assets/Icon/colors.xml to the output, which dotnet publish rejects with NETSDK1152 (dotnet build, which the Windows CI uses, tolerates it). The <Content> items are gone from both csproj files; -p:ErrorOnDuplicatePublishOutputFiles=false stays in the PKGBUILD as a guard.
• The in-app updater downloads the Windows installer from the GitHub releases and executes it, so it is disabled off Windows (IApplicationUpdater.IsSupported) — a packaged application must not update itself behind the package manager's back.

Input permissions

The default Linux backend grabs the physical mice (EVIOCGRAB on /dev/input/event*) and re-injects a corrected stream through a uinput virtual pointer. That needs read access to /dev/input/event* (membership of the input group) and write access to /dev/uinput (the shipped udev rule). Without both, the daemon falls back to the XDG InputCapture portal or X11, which cannot intercept crossings between adjacent outputs on KWin.

Adding a user to a group cannot be done from a package, so the Arch package prints the gpasswd -a "$USER" input instruction on install.