Heya folks! We're here to bring you another installment of Solus news!
Node.js 20 is now in the repository, and thanks to the hard work of @ReillyBrogan and @olmk2, it is co-installable with Node.js 18, the previous version that we had. While we want to have the latest and greatest versions in the repository, it takes software a long time to catch up, especially Electron applications. Having co-installable runtimes means that we can continue to build these applications.
Some applications, however, are still using very old versions of Node.js, and have not been buildable for quite some time. As such, they have to be removed. This list includes:
beekeeper-studiomailspringkitematicmongosh
The emscripten package is also in need of a maintainer, or else it, too, will be removed from the repository. If you are interested, please head on over to this issue, and let us know!
Our linux-firmware is now compressed using zstd. This should save around 400-500MB on end user systems.
pinentry has been updated to 1.3.0. We now build additional frontends for it. A wrapper script will detect at launch if it is running in a GNOME or Plasma session, and will use a GTK4 or Qt6 client if so. Other systems will use the pre-existing GTK2 frontend.
Qt is now at version 6.7.2. This is a minor release, containing over 200 bug fixes, security enhancements, and other improvements. You can read the full release notes here
XWayland 24.1 has landed in the repository, bringing explicit sync for GNOME Wayland users using AMD/Intel hardware. The new release of the stable NVIDIA 555 driver did not make it in this week, so NVIDIA users will have to wait a little longer (unless they're using the beta driver).
The Steam udev rules have been moved into their own subpackage, named steam-udev-rules. People using the Steam flatpak can now install just the udev rules without having to install the entire steam client again, enabling them to use gaming controllers with the flatpak version of Steam.
Several XApps have been added to the repository this week. If you haven't heard of them, XApps are generic applications for traditional GTK desktop environments that don't aim to integrate only in one environment, like GNOME applications. While XFCE develops its own set of applications, Budgie does not; Budgie is intended to be a composable desktop, meaning distributions and users can create their own experience with their application choices.
The following applications have been added:
xed, a text editorxviewer, an image viewer based on Eye of GNOMExviewer-plugins, a collection of plugins for XViewer
- Installing
xviewer-plugins will install all the packaged plugins. Plugins can be installed via individual packages if you don't want all of them.
xreader, a PDF viewerpix, a photo organization application based on gThumb
For future Solus releases, XReader and XViewer will become the default image viewer and PDF reader on Budgie, and XReader will become the default PDF reader on XFCE.
Those aren't the only new packages this week! The repository now also contains these applications:
- ryujinx, a Nintendo Switch emulator
- distrobox
- fooyin, a customizable music player
- lime3ds, a Nintendo 3DS emulator, replacing Citra
- nxsiv, an image viewer, replacing
xsiv
Related to our effort to replace Solus Software Center with GNOME Software and Discover, we formed a taskforce to handle our repository housekeeping tasks. Right now, the taskforce consists of only a handful of people from Solus staff and the community. This taskforce will mostly do mundane, but much needed, chores for our packages repository. This includes, but is not limited to:
Most of these tasks are beginner-friendly, and can be a great way to learn Solus packaging. We invite anyone that has the time and inclination to join us!
How to join:
- Join Solus Packaging Room on Matrix
- Read and practice our packaging documentation
- Submit your first Pull Request. We recommend doing the homepage task
- Follow along the review process until your PR gets merged
- Continue on contributing!
Security updates
General updates
The full list of updated packages can be found here.
That’s all for this week, folks! Check back next week for the next round of news.
