Users of the Evolution Flathub build are being asked to consider switching to beta builds to help ramp up testing of future releases.

Developer Jiri Eischmann lays out the case in a blog post, and asks advanced users of the famous FOSS e-mail app to think about switching to the beta channel.

The Evolution Flatpak (in the stable channel) is a proven hit with Linux users, having clocked up more than 130,000 installs to date — all despite the fact there are, Eischmann notes, “some use cases that don’t fully work in a flatpak”.

Admittedly beta testing software isn’t something anyone should do idly. Beta isn’t stable for a reason. Still, it sounds like the Evolution Flatpak beta builds are relatively robust and reliable, albeit a little rougher around the edges.

The main need for beta testing is to widen the chance of encountering those rare bugs or UX quirks that only happen during “real world” usage.

“So the beta channel always provides the latest and greatest. Be it the latest development version, or freshly released stable version, depending on the phase of the development cycle. It really helps us find problems before they hit average users,” Eischmann notes.

Hence raising awareness of the beta channel with Evolution.

Want to opt-in to try it out?

Run the following command in a new terminal window:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

And then install the Evolution from its beta channel:

flatpak install flathub-beta org.gnome.Evolution

Once done, just launch the app, set it up with your accounts, and start using it. Don’t feel obligated to try options or enabled features you wouldn’t normally. Real world testing requires just that, so do what you do usually.

Eischmann doesn’t mention what users who encounter issues/bugs with beta builds should do but logic tells me you should probably file issues on the Evolution Gitlab issue tracker, just be sure to mention you’re using the Evolution Flatpak beta.