Bringin' Mastodon to FreeBSD desktop.

[talbot@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

Bringin' Mastodon to FreeBSD desktop.

Trying to use Mastodon on #freebsd desktop and found zero GUI clients available in current (2025.Q4) packages.

However, it is always possible to build one thanks to open source software and active community.
After ducking around I have decided to build the #tuba client to work with XFCE desktop, which requires few more packages to be present:
- Meson build system is must-have to compile and install the app.
- Gnome libraries are required as listed in project README.
- Unfortunately, you could not build from main branch since the GTK4 version is a bit outdated in packages then set in project requirements, but version v.0.9.2 is fine (checkout the relevant tag).
- Don't forget to install GNU gettext package which is not listed in dependencies, but is mandatory to build project translations.
- Vala compiler is a must, which is installed with vala package as well.

Installation process is smooth and simple after that:
- Install required packages (probably you might need a bit more, check the project README): pkg install gettext gtk4 meson vala
- Clone the branch with git clone --depth 1 --branch v0.9.2 git@github.com:GeopJr/Tuba.git && cd Tuba
- Setup build system (I'm using target since familiar to Java project structure): meson setup target && cd target
- Build and install application, it will require super-user privileges to install binaries and resources to /usr/local/* directories: meson compile && meson install

To run Tuba you might need to setup Gnome Keyring (see https://github.com/GeopJr/Tuba/wiki/keyring-issues for guidance). But first you might need to install both SeaHorse and Gnome Keyring packages with pkg install seahorse gnome-keyring. After the keyring setup the application is running smoothly on #freebsd15 desktop.

BTW, I see that the net-im/tuba is also available, but I found no package with it.