Added AUR PKGBUILD for rowboat-bin (Arch Linux support)

[Shivoo29]

This PR adds Arch Linux AUR packaging support for Rowboat via a rowboat-bin
PKGBUILD. This allows Arch/Manjaro users to install Rowboat using yay or paru.

What's included

• PKGBUILD — repackages upstream .deb binary for Arch
• rowboat.install — post-install hook for icon cache refresh
• Documentation of two icon fix approaches (both tested)

Testing

• Built and installed on Arch Linux VM via makepkg -si
• Launcher appears correctly in GNOME and verified with namcap
• Tested icon resolution with both Option A and Option B approaches

Open Decision Required

The team needs to decide on AUR repo structure:

1. Keep PKGBUILD inside this repo under packaging/aur/
2. Create a separate dedicated AUR repository (e.g., rowboat-aur)

Both approaches are documented in the PR. Option 2 is recommended for
long-term maintainability and follows standard AUR community practice.

References

• AUR packaging guidelines: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines
• .desktop XDG spec: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/

[vercel]

@Shivoo29 is attempting to deploy a commit to the RowBoat Labs Team on Vercel.

A member of the Team first needs to authorize it.

[ramnique]

From a maintainability perspective, it might make more sense to offer Flatpak and Snapcraft builds as these are officially supported by Electron-forge. Not sure if it makes sense to add all of this boilerplate to support a marginal use-case.

Having said that, I'm happy to open an issue (feature-request) in favor of an AUR package in order to get a sense of demand.

WDYT @Shivoo29?

[Shivoo29]

Sorry for the delayed reply, @ramnique — I was in my village for a few days and wasn’t able to check GitHub or respond to the message on my PR.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! These are completely valid points and I appreciate you taking the time to review this carefully.

You're right that Flatpak and Snapcraft have official Electron Forge support, which makes them a natural fit for this project. I'd actually love to see those added too — they'd cover a much broader audience (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.). However, I believe AUR still serves a distinct and meaningful purpose here:

Why AUR specifically?

• Arch Linux and its derivatives (Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda) have a large and growing developer community — exactly the kind of power users who would benefit from a tool like Rowboat
• AUR is not just a package manager — it's the standard way Arch users discover and install software. If Rowboat isn't on AUR, many of these users simply won't find it
• Unlike Flatpak/Snap, AUR packages integrate natively with the system without sandboxing constraints, which matters for an Electron app that interacts with local files and processes

On the maintenance concern:

• The aur/ folder lives completely outside the core build pipeline — it won't interfere with existing CI/CD or workflows
• PKGBUILD only needs to be updated when the version or source URL changes, which can be automated or done by community contributors
• Many large open-source projects (VS Code, Obsidian, etc.) maintain AUR packages alongside Flatpak/Snap without issues

Happy to compromise:

If the team is hesitant, I'm open to keeping this as a community-maintained package under a separate repo (e.g., rowboat-aur) and just linking it in the README — zero burden on core maintainers.

Or, as you suggested, opening a feature-request issue first to validate demand before merging — I think the response would be strong from the Arch community.

Let me know what direction feels right — I'm flexible and just want to make Rowboat accessible to as many developers as possible!