Release more package formats for Mozilla VPN on Linux

[LatinCanuck]

I personally feel that Mozilla treats Linux users as 2nd class citizens. When in reality, Linux users have been loyal to Mozilla, and we also understand the importance of Open Source and the Open Web.

Problem: At this point, if you attempt to download the Mozilla VPN for Linux, your only option is Ubuntu, and it has to be downloaded through a PPA repo that installs a .deb package. This is very unfair because Ubuntu is no longer the most popular Linux-based operating system. Fedora and Arch Linux are attracting new users.

Solution: When it comes to Fedora, the .rpm packages already exist on your Github repo.
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/mozilla-vpn-client/runs/4253033458
All you have to do is to make them available on your website. Or publish the Copr repo created by @dannycolin. It works just like a PPA repo but for Fedora.
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/dannycolin/mozillavpn
In fact, I installed the VPN client through his repo and it works just fine on Fedora 35.

Even Better Solution: release this VPN client as a Flatpak. Flatpak is the defacto universal package format for Linux, so it would benefit the entire community.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[dannycolin]

All you have to do is to make them available on your website.

There's more than that. Developers have to maintain it (manual and automate tests, debugging, etc). It's time consuming and depending on the team size, they may not have the resources.

Or publish the Copr repo created by @dannycolin. It works just like a PPA repo but for Fedora.
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/dannycolin/mozillavpn
In fact, I installed the VPN client through his repo and it works just fine on Fedora 35.

And this repository is a "use at your own risk".

Even Better Solution: release this VPN client as a Flatpak. Flatpak is the defacto universal package format for Linux, so it would benefit the entire community.

This would be even harder to achieve then distributing a .rpm or .deb especially for a VPN application because Flatpak has a lot of technical limitations related to permissions.

It still is a good idea and I've upvoted it but I think this is the kind of work the community is able to do and should be more involved. In the Linux community, it's the norm that applications are packaged for a specific distro by someone that isn't a developer of the application. So, I'd invite you to also get in touch with the package maintainers of your distro to ask they make Mozilla VPN available on their platform. Most of them have a way to propose new packages.

[fasttrains45]

Full agree. I actually bought the vpn package but had to do a refund because it doesn't support rpm (and I had no idea there was a copr for it.)

Would love to support Mozilla and use it but need it supported first.

[dannycolin]

@fasttrains45Now, you know about the COPR :). I'll do my best to keep it up-to-date so if you decide to resume your subscription you'll have it as an option.

[dvejmz]

I purchased a Mozilla VPN subscription a few months ago and I really like the product. I picked Mozilla VPN specifically over Mullvad because I want to support the Mozilla organisation. It is a shame I cannot readily use the Mozilla VPN on my Fedora desktop devices because of this limitation and would love to see a maintained RPM package from Mozilla in the future.

[Clarissa1986]

I recently migrated completely to Manjaro Linux. Which is based on Archlinux, but more stable (tested), by holding packages back for a certain timeframe. To prevent running into bugs. Because this way, bugs occurring in Archlinux software can be found and fixed, before a package moves through into Manjaro. Atleast that's how I've read it. Besides this, a much more important factor for me, Manjaro has a nice graphical installer and this way it's not so hard to setup. Since Archlinux is more in the direction of Gentoo in this regard. Not very enduser friendly. But Manjaro is. I use it as daily driver and it even supported my very new RX7800XT out of the box. While other distros did not (got tearing and visual glitches on other distros) 🙂 Based on them running on older kernels and mesa packages etc. Which renders them incompatible for my card. This is the very reason why I found out about Manjaro, as a nice enduser friendly Archlinux distro, after some research, gave it a try and was amazed about how well everything runs. I didn't face a single bug or issue so far. But I had faced many over the years, with multiple different other distros. Especially since I use rather new hardware. But now comes the problem. I want to have Mozilla VPN. But there is no Manjaro (Archlinux) package. But Archlinux (Manjaro too) is a very big deal. Even Valve uses Archlinux for their steamdeck. They picked this distro over all the other ones available on the market. And since testing Manjaro myself now, I absolutely know why. It's a rolling release, without freezed, outdated packages. It ever has modern (the new) kernels and packages. Mozilla Firefox initially grew out of Linux. It's widespread integrated in simply all distros I know. And I know a lot of them, after so many years. And unlike Windows users, where Mozilla Firefox crashed down and was nearly completely replaced with Google Chrome on most devices, which is visible on official browser statistics, on Linux the community stood with Firefox. Which is why it truly baffles me, how Mozilla seems to ignore Linux so much. While being at home in the Linux community... Especially after Valve's huge success with their Steamdeck, this should have been a clear sign to join in and offer Mozilla VPN on Archlinux (+Manjaro). So that it becomes available on Steamdeck and ofcourse on Arch/Manjaro Desktop Linux 🙂 I want to use Mozilla VPN. But I will not use Ubuntu with its outdated/old packages and incompatibility to my new AMD GPU. I've got visual tearing and 3D games didn't even start. Because Ubuntu doesn't support my RX7800XT GPU (uses older packages)...

[akostadinov]

I'm very frustrated. I just bought an year subscription because I expected Mozilla to make technical details easily available and linux well covered.

To my surprise I see that only Ubuntu is supported and there is no technical information how to configure plain wireguard instead of installing a standalone app.

I understand that stanadalone app has some advantages that are otherwise hard to achieve. But what if I don't care about them and instead care about not having to install and maintain and external software package (or even worse - compile from source)?

Can you please stop mimicking stupid VPN providers where an external app is mandatory?

I think I will do a refund if I have to install external software.

[DenalB]

> Or publish the Copr repo created by @dannycolin. It works just like a PPA repo but for Fedora.

Looks like this repo isn't maintained anymore. And it looks like there isn't any other repo that is up-to-date. It would be more than great to get an official RPM build.

[suzi]

Please Read Custom Boxes Peak

[wdc2]

Unfortunately, the github link you mentioned no longer exists, and the copr repo hasn't updated in 18 months and the build from then failed. I really need this to work on Fedora.

I tried compiling, but the instructions are incomplete and I CANNOT find half of the prerequisites.

The best solution I've come up with so far is installing the deb in an ubuntu container and then adding rich rules to my firewall to proxy through that container. This is not a tenable solution!

[kxra]

Upstream bug report:

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/mozilla-vpn-client/issues/450

Not sure why there's not even an official repo