Linux needs a native client for Deezer!

I’m running Deezer on linux. 

https://github.com/Billcountry/deezer

Is the Linux version of Deezer working well for you? What would you say is an advantage of using it over the web app?

I’d be in favor of a Linux app, but here’s the thing.  The developers aren’t wrong to shrug at such a suggestion.

Okay, an official Linux release.  But let’s consider the details:

• Which Packaging method? Flatpak and Snap are two competing methods, but have upsides and downsides.  (Flatpak has to be installed on Ubuntu, Snap isn’t really adopted past Ubuntu.)  I love the pros of Appimage but have yet to see it work successfully on first run on any app. 
• Or do they go directly to the distros?  DEB, RPM, YUM, or do they do a custom script to automate building it on a client system?  And if Deezer doesn’t pick YOUR distro, what’s different then that isn’t different now?
• What libraries are needed to run it?  For the supported distribution, are they available?  Every Distro is its own Parliament, accepting and dismissing packages to their whims and standards, so there is no guarantee libraries present in one distro are in another. (Clapping between words, “It’s an Electron App” isn’t enough.  Even Electron apps can have dependencies.)
• Then consider safety patching for Zero Day issues (even Electron has issues with updates downstream) necessitating quick patching of the Linux client to mitigate a vulnerability.  This isn’t easy work for any app to pull off.  It takes a few folks with a full-time job to oversee and carry these patches out.

So let’s figure they make the sensible choice and support the widest used distros (let’s say Ubuntu and Arch Linux for sake of argument) and tell other distros “unofficial clients are likely abound, go use those.”  When Ubuntu changes their environment to remove packages Deezer needs to run, do they abandon the users for another distro that’s more “Goldilocks”?  Or what if they do the reverse like Spotify did and side with Ubuntu?  How will that fare with you?

Here’s two more reads for armchair developers:
Direct from Linus himself.  Yes, it’s a speech from 2014, but it’s still true today.  Portable App Packaging didn’t solve much.

And XKCD putting not too fine of a point on it:
https://xkcd.com/927/

Also: Spotify NEVER had an official Linux app.  Even their unofficial one isn’t supported anymore. From their own site: “Spotify for Linux is a labor of love from our engineers that wanted to listen to Spotify on their Linux development machines. They work on it in their spare time and it is currently not a platform that we actively support.”

Hopefully I’m saying what the developers can’t: If you’re passionate about Deezer and made an unofficial client, keep on going.  It doesn’t have to be for every single distro people ask you to cover… let other fans bootstrap their own client for their favorite version of Linux and possibly collaborate on changes and OS based mitigations needed.
 

TL;DR: A Linux app is hard to make because there’s 100’s of active distributions of Linux, each with their own rules, and each distribution may break the app from working on future releases based on “not end-user problems” that will be seen to be Deezer’s fault regardless. 

So why waste time and possible table-flipping user exoduses to make an official one?

I partially agree. Let's not forget that the unofficial Linux app is simply a development based on Chromium, a browser widely used by all distributions.

I personally, as I mentioned, am very happy using the web player with Firefox.

Something they could add to the unofficial Linux app is adding folders. The downside is that it could only be used with this app and nothing else, because it would be an add-on to the app, not to our Deezer accounts. I'd also been told that this doesn't seem necessary, given the rumors that they're about to implement this feature on Deezer.

That’s so true ! we need it

The lack of spotifyd/librespot equivalent software is the only thing keeping me from switching to Deezer. I want my player integrated into my OS, not a web player or, equally bad, an electron app.

I see that Deezer Connect was killed recently.

I guess we’ll see what happens in the coming years.

Amen to that! I want MPRIS support!

The Electron app on Flatpak is nice, and I give my props to the person maintaining it, but Deezer really needs its own native app.  If Deezer can’t make it, they should make it more possible for us to make our own like SONE for Tidal.  Or at least let us have easy to use support in players like Strawberry.

There’s a platform that’s a bit out of the conversation here that deserves mention: it also means official Steam Deck support.

It is rather amazing these days that Deezer does not have it’s own native linux client.
Have Deezer not noticed the recent changes? Especially in Europe is Linux being pushed forward by users both in the private and in the public spaces.

Please also consider that AI tooling like Mistral and Claude helps enormously in a porting and maintenance process like this.