Hello everyone! it is double digits now. Lets talk about what our contributors has been doing this past months and more. Also the "The Year so Far" section at the end.
Welcome to the tenth edition of Contributor Roundup!
In Case You Missed ...
What people has been doing
A few notable updates happened this month. @Harvey updated KDE Plasma to 6.4.4 and Qt6 to 6.9.2. @alfisya updated Gnome to 48.4. @EbonJaeger updated Flameshot 13.0.1 (now at 13.1.0), its first release in 3 years and a port to Qt Framework. @TraceyC updated Syncthing to 2.0.3 .
@sheepman4267 released eopkg 4.3.0 (now at 4.3.3). @joebonrichie deployed Solus MATE Transition Tool (SMTT) this month, remaining Solus MATE users will receive a pop-up notification, urging them to switch to a supported desktop environment. @EbonJaeger added the ability to login into Budgie Screensaver using a fingerprint.
@Harvey created fonts-installer, a Qt6 GUI tool to download and install Microsoft Core Fonts on Linux. This will help people still needing Microsoft fonts when Third-Party repo goes away.
@alfisya created Salam, a simple welcome app for Solus. It is written in Rust and Slint. It is still in early development and not yet available in the repository.
@EbonJaeger and @sheepman4267 released the website rewrite code, you can see it here . @EbonJaeger and @alfisya released a new guideline for Solus artwork, as we plan to open submission for new background artwork to the community soon. @Original-Syn created a Solus package search website. We are also (officially) saying goodbye to brisk-menu and os-installer as both repositories have been archived.
A little bit of AerynOS updates. @joebonrichie is working on Packagekit and Appstream integration for AerynOS. Separately he is also working on going immutable by getting our stateless atomic /usr made as a read only erofs image. All early work. @ReillyBrogan has got Plasma to the point it's in the installer. They are still deciding whether or not to include Sway in the ISO. Cosmic DE should see a massive update too. They also just released a new blogpost which you can read here.
What packages were recently added
Pacakging process changes
There is no change to the packaging workflow in August. All previous changes are kept on "Packaging Changes" page in the Help Center.
Around the Repositories
Here are a few statistics around our public repositories on Github, compiled by yours truly for your enjoyment. (Repositories with no activity in the month will not be included)
Solus Cleanup Crew
We need more help to complete the Cleanup Crew tasks, as it has been a few months with little progress. Here are the tasks that still need to be done and their progress:
Contribute?
We need help updating localization for eopkg. If you see that your native language is not translated, head over to Transifex and help us do it. We are also looking for help with web development, especially someone with Hugo experience.
Here are a few open issues that are good for either newcomers or experienced:
Try one of these issues, you would surprised how easy it is! Or not, but you already tried and that counts a lot! If you do want to try, these are the basic steps to contribute to Solus:
- Join the Solus Packaging Room and Development Room on Matrix
- Read our documentation
- Submit your first Pull Request. We recommend doing any of the issues labeled as "Good first issue" in the respective repository.
- Follow the review process until your PR gets merged.
- Don't hesitate to ask any questions in our Matrix rooms.
- Congratulations on your first contribution!
- Keep on contributing.
Funding
Your financial contributions make all of this possible. If you have the spare funds, we offer perks on our Open Collective page. Here are the number of people that support us regularly (at the time of writing):
- 6 people in Crew tier, -1
- 37 people in Release Testers tier, +0
- 12 people in Beta Testers tier, -1
- 28 people in Backers tier, +1
- 14 non-tiered donations, -2
Become a backer with just $1 USD!
The Year So Far
First off, the Cleanup Crew tasks progress chart:
The trend chart is still going down which is good, but there is a stagnation in the last three months. We are hoping to get more new contributors in the coming months. Next is the repository overview chart:
This chart covers commits to all active public repositories in the Solus organization. We have a pretty steady stream of commits each month with a big spike in June. There is also spike on "Current Open Issues" in June because since then we have included more repositories in the count. Lastly, we have a chart for the donations on Open Collective:
We have a steady stream of donations so far, long may it continue. The donations cover all of our infrastructure expenses and give a bit of compensation for contributor's time. We are grateful for all the support the community has given us. Thank you!
That is all from us in this edition of Contributor Roundup. Until next time, cheers!
