Muon and QApt 1.0.1

After a somewhat difficult day release-wise, I am relieved to announce the release of Muon 1.0.1 as well as QApt 1.0.1, the package management library that Muon uses. For those of you unaware, Muon is a powerful Debian-based package manager with a sane GUI for KDE. A full rundown of its main features can be found here. Packages are available in Maverick proper as well as in my PPA for Lucid. Source tarballs can be found here and here.

Here’s a list of what’s changed since 1.0.

QApt 1.0.1

• Fixed what is hopefully the last of “libapt-pkg gives LibQApt null const char pointers if for some reason libapt-pkg can’t get the string we want” crashes. (Bug 247439)
• Fixed a typo in the API documentation
• Slightly optimized the QApt::Package::isSupported() function by using better logic to reduce the amount of queries we make about package info.
• A few coding style fixes
• Fixed a bug where the worker would never send a “finished” signal if a download ended in error. (Bug 247534)
• Report errors that occur while APT is initializing the package system. (This was an oversight… the error type was there, but was never used…) This prevents crashes on startup when errors like invalid lines in the package sources list being malformed and such. (Bug 247533)
• A small memory leak was fixed by mlaurent. Thanks! This leak should not have had an impact on virtually any application using LibQApt that I know of, since the Backend class that had this leak on deconstruction does not get constructed/deconstructed a lot in practice.
• Quieted some console debug messages.
• Enhance QApt Batch’s handling of InitErrors to show the newly-available details about these errors, and quit after the user has been presented with the error and has closed the error message box.
• In step with the Aptdaemon project, allow unprivileged users to check for updates by default. This can still be configured in the PolicyKit settings for those who wish to lock it down more, but really it shouldn’t be a security risk.

Muon 1.0.1

• Show the newly-available details about InitErrors from QApt, and quit after the user has been presented with the error and has closed the error message box to prevent Muon from being a useless shell.
• Add a throbber next to the “Get Screenshot” button while fetching the screenshot to enhance usability via feedback.
• Fix a bug that crept in where unmarking a dependency of a package would not unmark the dependent package itself. (Bug 248376)
• Disable the screenshot directly after the user clicks the button so that the user can’t go into a crack-induced trance, and click the screenshot button multiple times and create a ton of windows. Muon; saving KDE users from crack since 2010. 😛 (Bug 248382)
• Allow purging residual system configuration files of uninstalled packages. Previously you could only purge these files if the package was installed. In 1.1 I plan to add a filter for uninstalled packages that still have residual system configuration files.

This release was a bit tough. It turns out that the CamelCase-style header for KPixmapSequenceWidget, the widget I am using for the busy throbber, was missing in KDE 4.4. This meant that Muon failed to compile in Lucid, which is where most of the users of this software probably are right now. 😦 This was after I spun the initial tarballs. New tarballs with the fix for KDE 4.4 are up as of now.

Similarly, (In that I discovered this after making the tarball) the libapt-pkg headers in Lucid are a bit different than they are now in Maverick, and the new error handling bits for APT initialization were missing an include that needed explicit inclusion in lucid.

But, they’re both out now, with a nice batch of fixes to make things more solid. Both QApt and Muon have moved to extragear, and once I figure out how (or who to speak with) to get an application branched in svn I plan to reopen trunk for new features and string changes. If crashers are found with 1.0.1 I will do a 1.0.x releases to remedy them, but for the next 6 months I plan on adding some new features to Muon, creating a more update-based GUI, as well as an application-based manager similar to Software Center.

Oh, and for Kubuntu users of Muon, in 10.10 the Debconf GUI has as of today received Kubuntu branding thanks to Dantti’s nifty branding feature:

Plasma theme is Kaleban, for those who are interested

I think it’ll even use the Ubuntu logo if you don’t have kubuntu-default-settings installed. (E.g. in GNOME) And of course it’ll still be the Debian logo in Debian. Dantti’s done some neat work on this front, and you should check out this blog to see how KPackageKit is using libdebconf-kde. I think it’s neat that we can share this component. 🙂

Anyways, expect to hear a bit less from me in the coming few weeks. School is starting up next week, so that’ll be a big time sync. I’ll still be around, though, just not as much.