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as listed in project README.- Unfortunately, you could not build from main branch since the GTK4 version is a bit outdated in packages then set in project requirements, but version v.0.9.2 is fine (checkout the relevant tag).- Don't forget to install GNU gettext package which is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 installTo 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.
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