This month in Fedora (September 2019)
So, September was a pretty busy month, with lots of activity in all the areas where I'm working on packages. There were a handful of new releases of elementary projects, new Ruby packages and finally landing Jekyll 4 in fedora, some Golang package updates, and some work on python packages, as well.
Additionally, as part of the "Python 2 cleanup" process, I took over three neglected packages my other packages depend on to fix them and prepare them for the deprecation of Python 2 in fedora 32.
fedora updates
elementary packages
To start things off, I reverted a recent change in the cerbere session watchdog which caused crashes with newer versions of systemd on fedora.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| cerbere | 2.5.0 | 3.fc32, 3.fc31, 2.fc30, 2.fc29 | revert crashing changes |
Then, I updated the Granite toolkit extensions to their latest version, which brings a number of small improvements and bug fixes.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| granite | 5.2.5 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 5.2.4 → 5.2.5 |
I also prepared an update for my Pantheon session settings fork for fedora to prepare for the fedora 31 beta. However, due to breaking changes with GNOME 3.34, the Pantheon session doesn't actually work on fedora 31+ right now. I'm working on fixing this soon (if it's even possible for me without help from GNOME ...).
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| pantheon-session-settings | 30.92 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31 | 30.1 → 30.92 |
Next, I updated the elementary LightDM Greeter to the latest, major new version - which brings a complete visual overwhaul, and fixes a lot of issues with the old greeter.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| elementary-greeter | 5.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31 | 3.3.1 → 5.0 |
The latest version of the Application Menu for Wingpanel (previously called Slingshot) is also already available for fedora users. It contains a few fixes for performance and behaviour issues.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| wingpanel-applications-menu | 2.4.4 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 2.4.3 → 2.4.4 |
I've been finally able to update the elementary Calendar on fedora 31+ by using pending patches on top of a development snapshot of the next version, which finally brings support for the version of evolution-data-server and libical-glib that will ship with fedora 31.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| elementary-calendar | 5.0 | 3.20190913.git26275ba.fc32, 3.20190913.git26275ba.fc31 | include patches for libecal-2.0 support |
I also pushed updates for both elementary Files and the Camera to bring their latest releases to fedora. The Files application now contains initial support for integration of "cloud providers", like Dropbox.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| elementary-files | 4.2.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 4.1.9 → 4.2.0 |
| elementary-camera | 1.0.5 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 1.0.4 → 1.0.5 |
The latest versions of the About and Display plugs for Switchboard are also already available for fedora. Both contain minor improvements over the previous versions.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| switchboard-plug-about | 2.6.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 2.5.2 → 2.6.0 |
| switchboard-plug-display | 2.1.9 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 2.1.8 → 2.1.9 |
I also updated the elementary Wallpapers packages in fedora to the latest release - it contains some nice new desktop backgrounds.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| elementary-wallpapers | 5.4 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 5.3 → 5.4 |
ruby packages
The development of the rouge syntax highlighting library for Ruby has been accelerating recently, and I'm trying to keep the fedora package up to speed with the latest releases as well, since they contain a lot of improvements and small bug fixes, but also bring support for syntax highlighting new languages.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| rubygem-rouge | 3.10.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 3.8.0 → 3.10.0 |
| rubygem-rouge | 3.11.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 3.10.0 → 3.11.0 |
To prepare for the update to Jekyll 4, I needed to first update some dependencies in fedora as well - one of them was the kramdown Markdown parser. The new major release split off some optional components into separate gems, so I needed to package at least the "GitHub-flavored Mardown" parser and the coderay syntax highlighting library support packaged before I could work on Jekyll.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| rubygem-kramdown-parser-gfm | 1.1.0 | 1.fc32 | Initial packaging |
| rubygem-kramdown-syntax-coderay | 1.0.1 | 1.fc32 | Initial packaging |
Finally, I was able to push all the necessary updates for Jekyll 4 to fedora 32 / rawhide. This includes the minima default theme, jekyll itself, and the SASS converter and AsciiDoc plugins.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| rubygem-minima | 2.5.1 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 2.5.0 → 2.5.1 |
| rubygem-jekyll | 4.0.0 | 1.fc32 | 3.8.6 → 4.0.0 |
| rubygem-jekyll-sass-converter | 2.0.0 | 1.fc32 | 1.5.2 → 2.0.0 |
| rubygem-jekyll-sass-converter | 2.0.1 | 1.fc32 | 2.0.0 → 2.0.1 |
| rubygem-jekyll-asciidoc | 3.0.0 | 1.fc32 | 2.1.1 → 3.0.0 |
golang packages
Then, there were also some Golang related updates ready in September. First, I pushed updates for the latest stable version of Syncthing to all fedora releases.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| syncthing | 1.2.2 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 1.2.1 → 1.2.2 |
Next, the MaxMindDB library that's used by Syncthing had two new releases in September, and the new versions are already available from rawhide now. I didn't push this to older fedora releases, since Syncthing currently builds using its bundled versions of dependencies, but I might be able to "de-bundle" everything again sometime in the future.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| golang-github-oschwald-maxminddb | 1.4.0 | 1.fc32 | 1.3.1 → 1.4.0 |
| golang-github-oschwald-maxminddb | 1.5.0 | 1.fc32 | 1.4.0 → 1.5.0 |
"made for elementary" packages
The Sequeler SQL client also got a nice new release, which brings some improvements around query handling and output rendering. It's available for all stable fedora releases now.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| sequeler | 0.7.3 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 0.7.2 → 0.7.3 |
GNOME / ubuntu packages
I took over the libdbusmenu package that's in use by some Pantheon session components and elementary applications when it was orphaned as part of the "Python 2 cleanup" process in rawhide. I've fixed the broken builds on fedora 31+ by dropping an overzealous build flag, and then dropped the dependency on Python 2 by removing an unused benchmarking tool from the package.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| libdbusmenu | 16.04.0 | 13.fc32 | drop -Werror flag, fixes build on fedora 31+ |
| libdbusmenu | 16.04.0 | 14.fc32, 14.fc31 | remove benchmarking tool, drop python2 dependency |
The same thing happened to zeitgeist - it was orphaned when nobody fixed it to no longer require Python 2. I took the package over and ripped out everything that requires Python 2 from the package, and updated it to the latest version in the process.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| zeitgeist | 1.0.2 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31 | 1.0.1 → 1.0.2, dropped python module |
python packages
Last, I did some work related to Python packages ... I updated the txtorcon package to the latest version that was released by upstream in September.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| python-txtorcon | 19.1.0 | 1.fc32, 1.fc31, 1.fc30, 1.fc29 | 19.0.0 → 19.1.0 |
Last, I took over the broken pkginfo python package, updated it to the latest version, fixed its builds, and dropped the Python 2 version of the package.
| package | version | release | changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| python-pkginfo | 1.5.0.1 | 1.fc32 | 1.4.2 → 1.5.0.1 |