Beyond Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Version 12.3

Chapter 9. General Libraries

libportal-0.9.1

Introduction to libportal

The libportal package provides a library that contains GIO-style async APIs for most Flatpak portals.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.3 platform.

Package Information

libportal Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.82.5 (with GObject Introspection)

Recommended

GTK-3.24.48 and GTK-4.16.12

Recommended (Runtime)

To make this package really useful, install xdg-desktop-portal-1.20.0, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk-1.15.2, xdg-desktop-portal-gnome-47.3 (if running a GNOME desktop environment), and xdg-desktop-portal-lxqt-1.1.0 (if running a LXQt desktop environment). They are not needed if only using this package to satisfy a build dependency.

Optional

Gi-DocGen-2025.3 (for documentation), dbusmock-0.34.3 and pytest-8.3.4 (for testing), Qt-6.8.2, and Vala-0.56.17

Installation of libportal

[Warning]

Warning

If a previous version of libportal is installed, move the headers out of the way so that later packages do not encounter conflicts (as the root user): 

if [ -e /usr/include/libportal ]; then
    rm -rf /usr/include/libportal.old &&
    mv -vf /usr/include/libportal{,.old}
fi

Install libportal by running the following commands: 

mkdir build &&
cd    build &&

meson setup --prefix=/usr --buildtype=release -D docs=false .. &&
ninja

If you have Gi-DocGen-2025.3 installed and wish to build the API documentation for this package, issue: 

sed -i "/output/s/-1/-0.9.1/" ../doc/meson.build &&
meson configure -D docs=true                     &&
ninja

To test the results, issue: ninja test. Note that additional dbus-daemon processes may need to be killed after the tests are run.

Now, as the root user: 

ninja install

Command Explanations

--buildtype=release: Specify a buildtype suitable for stable releases of the package, as the default may produce unoptimized binaries.

-D docs=false: Allow building this package without Gi-DocGen-2025.3 installed. If you have Gi-DocGen-2025.3 installed and you wish to rebuild and install the API documentation, a meson configure command will reset this option.

Contents

Installed Programs: None
Installed Libraries: libportal.so, libportal-gtk3.so, libportal-gtk4.so, and libportal-qt6.so
Installed Directories: /usr/include/libportal and /usr/share/gtk-doc/html/libportal

Short Descriptions

libportal.so

provides GIO-style async APIs for most Flatpak portals

libportal-gtk3.so

provides GTK+-3 specific functions for interacting with Flatpak portals

libportal-gtk4.so

provides GTK-4 specific functions for interacting with Flatpak portals

libportal-qt6.so

provides Qt6-specific functions for interacting with Flatpak portals