Here in the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. I am thankful to be a part of such an amazing community. I have raised enough to manage another month and I can continue my job search in less dire circumstances. I am truly grateful to each and every one of you. While my focus will remain on my job hunt, I will be back next week at reduced hours to maintain my work. I have to alter my priorities to keep my hours reduced enough to focus on my job search so I will be contributing as follows:
I will ramp up my Debian work to increase my skillset here, as it is an important skill and one that I am seeking employment in. I will be increasing the areas of expertise in packaging different languages, security updates and help the KDE team with the Qt6 transition.
I will continue to help where I can with KDE neon, because well, I love KDE neon and our team. If time allows, I would like to help with moving forward with Harald’s initial work to transition us to use Gitlab infrastructure. It will be a big move from Jenkins.
Snaps: I will only support our Qt5 snaps at this point. That entails possibly one more release and I will maintain / fix bugs on these. Snaps have been a huge chunk of my time ( 191 snaps! plus content packs, extensions, updates, fixes, solving confinement issues ). I simply cannot do it all over again with Qt6. Unless of course someone wants to fund my work. Then I will reconsider.
I am also going to expand my knowledge in the containerized world with Flatpaks and refresher on Appimages to flesh out my resume.
Again, thank you all ever so much for your support. Though, this didn’t end up being my year, I am confident I will find my place in this career path in the near future.
I could still use some funds to make land and car payment or at least partial. We purchased from friends so they won’t take away my wheels or home, I just feel bad I haven’t been able to make payments in awhile. Thanks for your consideration.
A big thank you goes to my parents this week for contributing to my survival fund. With that I was able to make a big push on fixing some outstanding issues on some of our snaps.
Marble! Now shows all maps and finds its plugins properly.
Neochat: A significant fix regarding libsecret in which left users with endless loading screen because it could not authenticate. Bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=473003 This actually affected any app in KDE that uses libsecret… KDE desktops do not ship with gnome-keyring, so this is why sometimes installing it would fix the issue ( if the portals were installed and working correctly AND XDG variables were set correctly). In most cases it works out of the box. In some cases, you must install gnome-keychain via apt and reinstall neochat to setup a new account and it will then prompt to save to keyring. If you are a KDE desktop user and wish to use Kwallet you can sudo snap connect neochat:password-manager-service :password-manager-service , my next order of business is to set up kwallet as a service inside the snaps. Should funding allow.
Another pile of 23.08.2 releases almost at 100% now.
KDE neon:
No major blowups this week. Worked out issues with kmail-account-wizard thanks to David R! This is now in the hands of upstream ( porting not complete )
While Yang our cat tries to lure in unsuspecting birds on the bird feeder, I have been busy working on many things. First things first though, a big thank you to all that donated to my Internet bill. I was able to continue my work without interruption.
KDE neon:
A busy week in KDE neon as https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.27.9/ was released! We have it ready to update in User edition or if you would like to download the new ISO you can find it here: https://neon.kde.org/download I highly advise the User Edition as Unstable is volatile right now with Qt6 transition and ABI breakage. Which leads me to the next busy work for the week. Plasma 6 exploded breaking unstable desktops all over, including mine! A library changed and it was not backward compatible, so we had to rebuild the Qt6 $world to get Plasma and PIM functional again. I am happy to report it is all fixed now, but I cannot stress enough, if you don’t want to chance broken things, please use the User Edition! I also continued the orange -> green build effort in making sure all our runtime dependencies are up to date. This fixes odd UI bugs and developers have all the build dependencies needed to build their applications.
KDE Snaps:
Several more 23.08.2 snaps have arrived in the snap store including the new to snaps Kamoso!
KDE snap Kamoso
I have an auto-connect request to the snap-store policy folks, but until it is approved please snap connect kamoso:camera :camera I have a pile of new MR’s in for non release service applications and some fixes for issues found while testing. While this new workflow does take a bit longer waiting for approvals I like it much better as I am developing closer relationships with the application developers.
I have made significant progress on the Kf6 ( Qt6 based ) content snap. I am about 90% complete. While this doesn’t mean much for users yet, it will when KDE applications release their qt6 ports starting the next major release cycle. I will be ready!
The last bit for snap work is I have almost completed my akonadi service snap. This will connect to all KDE PIM snaps so they share data. Akonadi is the background database that ties all the PIM applications together.
Debian:
This week I have worked on updates for several golang packages including charmbracelet/lipgloss charmbracelet/bubbles, and muesli-termenv. unfortunately I am stuck golang-github-aymanbagabas-go-osc52. The work is done in salsa but the maintainer has not uploaded. I have shot an email to the maintainer. I have also begun mentoring my first potential future DD! I reviewed his python-scienceplots and python-art which should land in Debian soon.
Thanks for stopping by! As usual, if you can please spare some change, consider a donation. All proceeds go to surviving another day to work on cool things to land on your desktop!
I have completed the the ‘Big move’! There are still a few lingering MR’s, but I am sure they will be approved so I can merge soon. With the move I was also able to release 23.08.2 for most release service applications. Enjoy!
I have been working around the clock and over the weekend trying to get the transition for snapcraft files in their respective repos. What does this mean for users? Faster releases for Snaps and closer collaboration between snapcrafters and application developers so bugs get resolved much quicker.
Unfortunately, I have 2 days to finish before my internet gets cut off. I did not make enough to pay the bill. Seeing as this is the first time in a year, I am absolutely, positively grateful for all of you and your support over the past year. I know my work is appreciated! I will never be homeless or starve due to my wonderful local community, but the Internet bill is not something we can barter or trade labor for.
I have caught up on my Debian obligations ( so no MIA needed! )
KDE neon is in good hands with Jonathan and Carlos.
So for now, farewell ( I assure you I will be back! )
It’s that time of year already! We have hit our first freeze of the year. While the kitties keep warm by the wood burning stove, I have been busy with many updates and fixes in a variety of projects.
KDE neon:
It’s true, Neon unstable has been very unstable. Due to a few factors including a builder being out of space, timed with a new Qt release. There is a cost with living in unstable land with bleeding edge releases. It takes time and finesse to get everything happy, especially with major transitions such as Qt. The drive issue was just bad timing. We worked night and day ( quite literally with people spanning from the US, Europe and Australia ) to get everything happy again. I know it’s frustrating when things are broken, but please keep in mind, most of us are volunteers. I am happy to report, it is once again stable. If you continue to experience issues please report them on https://bugs.kde.org there have been a few cases where there were rogue apt sources lists creating issues. We also have the User edition which is much more stable!
KDE Snaps:
The big move to snapcraft files per repo continues. With that comes a new version 23.08.2. This big win this week was Audiotube! I have finally got this snap working. With a combination of snappy-debug and snap run –gdb audiotube I was able to find all the hidden dependencies such as yt-dlp needed to be built with ffmpeg support and it needed a newer ytmusicapi as the version it called for was broken with gettext translations. I also had to fix the dbus name as it was not the standard org.kde.app. The final fix was it required the alsa plug and layouts adjusted to point to the snap alsa libraries ( which fixed the very important sound feature ). Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Unfortunately, it still requires –devmode to run, as it has one last network issue even with all the network plugs. I have to set it aside for now, as I have many more snaps to migrate. However, if you want to enjoy youtube music with this super awesome app you can, just append –devmode when installing. Enjoy!
The following apps have now migrated to their respective KDE repos and have the snap recipes in launchpad for automated builds:
Blinken
Bovo
Calindori
Dragon
Dolphin ( still needs work )
Digikam ( still needs work )
Elisa ( Working on new qml issue )
Falkon
Filelight
GCompris
Granatier
Ghostwriter
Gwenview ( working on missing dependency )
Haruna ( still needs work )
isoimagewriter ( working on gpg support )
Itinerary
Juk
K3b ( still needs work )
A new content pack with the latest Frameworks 5.110 and Qt 5.15.11 is complete and the neon extension update will follow after the required global autoconnect is approved from the store.
Debian:
I have caught up on my dashboard with new releases, fixed test failures, and FTBFS on the more obscure arches. The following debian packages have been uploaded to unstable:
If you have made it this far, thank you! As you can see I am quite busy and there is still much to do. If you can possibly spare a donation so I can continue my efforts in KDE neon / KDE Snaps / and Debian, it would be so appreciated. I enjoy doing this work and I hope it benefits someone out there. Have a lovely day and thanks for stopping by.
KDE neon is extremely important to the KDE snaps eco-system as I briefly mentioned in my last post.
Why? KDE neon is based on Jammy LTS which is the same as Core 22 base for snaps. Neon has a very useful continuous integration system in place that tests all the things, including dependencies, qml, cmake errors, debian packaging lintian tool and the list go on. This is very important to get packages out that don’t break things on user desktops. Once the packages are a lovely shade of green on the neon CI ( or at least all the important issues are resolved ) it is in good shape for snapping. I have scripts that pull the build and runtime dependency information for our application package to use in the snapcraft.yaml. We know this list is complete, because it passed the tests!
As applications gain features, they requires newer dependencies than what is provided in the ubuntu jammy repositories. Neon builds those newer dependencies and provides them to our users in the neon aptly repositories. It is much easier and more reliable than tracking down PPAs and hoping they stay maintained. We use the neon user edition repository in our snapcraft file to ensure we are up to date on KDE applications dependency needs.
This week my work in Neon included turning jobs green and fixing kio-gdrive which is still qt5, but it’s dependency libkgapi is qt6! We have to provide both versions in cases like this which entails tracking both master and the qt5 release branch.
Snaps:
This week begun the big transition from single repository remote-builds to per repository snapcraft and using snap recipes on launchpad. This is an important move for a couple of reasons. We were having major issues with build failures as I pointed out in this bug report on launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/2031307 . This was due to the way remote-build works. It creates temporary snap recipes that builds once and sends back the snap or failure status. This made it very difficult to debug build failures as once the failure status was sent the job disappeared off of launchpad, taking all build logs with it.
Now with the per repository snapcraft files, I have set up proper snap recipes on launchpad and the builds are automated by polling the github mirror for changes and it publishes the shiny new snap to candidate for testing or sends me the failure log that I can view at my convenience.
This of course is a work in progress as we have 186 snaps currently and there are a few steps to get each one done. But once it is done, it will reduce my workload immensely and make debugging build issues faster.
While making the move, I am also updating the snapcraft files for changes within snapcraft, adding cleanup to decrease bloat and fixing bugs!
Snap move complete:
KMymoney 5.1: Fixed issue where hitting calculator button did nothing. It now launches a kcalc snap.
I also made a new content pack with KDE frameworks 5.110, but a new Qt 5.15.11 was just released so I will be making a new one tomorrow.
The kf6 content snap has come to a halt as the qt6 content snap has stalled. I asked to be given access to the snapcraft file so that I may collaborate, but have not heard back.
My mysterious project has reached its end for me. I might get a part time gig doing snaps out of it, but I do not meet the requirements to do any of the engineering of it. It is what it is. Thank you to all who vouched for me, alas it wasn’t meant to be.
If you can spare some change, I would appreciate it, especially to pay my phone/Internet bill so I can do more Neon and snaps 🙂 Thank you for stopping by.
With user edition out the door last week, this week was spent stabilizing unstable!
Spent some time sorting out our Calamares installer being quite grumpy which is now fixed by reverting an upstream change. Unstable and developer ISO rebuilt and installable. Spent some time sorting out some issues with using an unreleased appstream ( thanks ximion for help with packagekit! ) KDE applications are starting to switch to Qt6 in master this week, the big one being KDE PIM! This entails an enormous amount of work re-packaging. I have made a dent, sorta. To be continued next week. I fixed our signond / kaccounts line for qt6 which entailed some work on upstream code that uses QStringList.toSet which was removed in Qt6! Always learning new things!
I have spent some time working on the KF6 content snap, working with Jarred to make sure his qt6 content snap will work for us. Unfortunately, I do not have much time for this as I must make money to survive, donations help free up time for this 🙂 Our new proposal with Kevin’s super awesome management company has been submitted and we will hopefully hear back next week.
Another busy week in the KDE snap world. Most of the release-service apps are in –candidate channel waiting to be tested. Testing is the bottle neck in the process, so I am trying something new and calling for help! Please test your favorite apps and report on https://discuss.kde.org/t/all-things-snaps-questions-concerns-praise/ any issues and which apps tested. Thanks!
There are some very big fixes in this release:
Desktop file defined so xdg-desktop-portals will now work.
Print support in many apps where it made sense. Please let me know if I missed one.
The KF6 content pack is coming along nicely using qt-framework-sdk snap!
Qt5 content snap using KDE patch set is nearly complete!
I believe I have a solution for our PIM applications by creating an Akondai dbus provider snap and setting all the PIM applications as consumers. I am waiting for manual review to pass.
I have a pile of new applications waiting for reserved name approvals. Igor has pinged the relevant people to speed this normally quick process up.
The pushback on per repository snapcraft files has stopped, so I have begun the process, which will take some time. This is a huge step in automating snap builds and cutting down my manual work so I can do more exciting things like plasma snaps!
Some big news on my project, a big thank you goes out to Kevin Ottens for reaching out, his company does exactly what I need to move it forward. I will update as we hash out the details, but it looks like my project isn’t dead after all!
I know many have asked “Why haven’t you given up already??” The answer in short, I am stubborn. I refuse to give up on anything until I am given a good reason to. When I started my path in computers oh so many years ago, you would be surprised how many people told me to give it up, you’ll never make it as a woman. Challenge accepted. Here I am, still going strong. When I want something, I go get it, no matter what it takes!
I still need to have a ( somewhat desperate ) call for donations. This will hopefully end soon, but for now, please consider donating to my September survival fund! Please share with anyone you that may find my work useful in any way. Thanks for your consideration 🙂
PS: Debian uploads for bubble-gum are moving along. Please if you have any packaging you need done in Debian proper, let me know and I will get on it, time allowing of course.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: I am still looking for a super awesome team lead for a super amazing project involving KDE and Snaps. Time is running out and well the KDE world will be a better a better place if this project goes through! I would like to clarify, this is a paid position! A current KDE developer would be ideal as it is a small team so your time will be split managing and coding alike. If you or anyone you know might be interested please contact me ASAP!
Lots of news on the snap front 23.04.3 is now complete with new snaps! I know, just in time for 23.08.0. I have fixed some major issues in this release, 23.08 should go much quicker. Even quicker if my per repo snapcraft files gets approved!
kirigami-gallery
Itinerary
We have more PIM snaps, however I am waiting for reserved name approvals from the snap store.
I was approached to decouple qt and frameworks sdk snaps and I have agreed for the fact that security updates are near impossible when new versions are released. Conversation here:
And some exciting news – I have started the KF6 content pack! I am doing like above and I am using the qt6 content pack Jarred Wilson has made. This is a requirement to start the plasma snap. Progress can be tracked here: https://github.com/ScarlettGatelyMoore/kf6-snap
I am still have on on going request for snapcraft files in their respective repositories. While defending my request I have tested some options. Snapcraft files in the repository does allow for proper snap recipes in launchpad by mirroring the repo in launchpad -> create snap recipe. I created a recipe based on stable branch and it created and published the snap as expected.
After being pointed to the flatpak workflow I discovered snaps has a similiar store feature with github, however I will need to create a github repo for each snap, which is tempting. I want to avoid duplication of snapcraft files, but I guess this is what they do for flatpak? I never received an answer.
Snapcraft: Some more tidying of the qmake plugin and resolved some review conversations.
Debian!
I am back to getting things in Debian proper, starting with the golang packages I was working on for bubble-gum a cool console beautification application. As each one passes through NEW I will keep uploading. I will be checking in with the qt-kde team to see what needs doing. I am looking into seeing if openvoices is still a viable replacement for mycroft, hopefully all that work isn’t wasted time.
And finally, I do hate having to ask, but as we quickly approach September, I have not come close to enough to pay my pesky bills, required to have a place to live and eat! I am seeking employment as a backup if my amazing project falls through. I tried to enable ads, but that broke my planet feeds, I can’t have that! So without further ado… Anything helps! Also please share! Thanks for your consideration.
